Tomorrow I Will Kill Again
Page 30
Everything from his life before melted away in the heat of the weird red sun.
He was working his way through a patch of black and auburn trees, a variety he was unfamiliar with. It seemed funny to him to imagine himself as the Energizer Bunny, who just kept going and going and looking and looking for the necklace, that precious, perfect Easter egg.
And then he was in a clearing, holding a musket.
Nothing like this had happened to him yet, and it startled him out of his reverie. He’d been nowhere near a clearing. If he remembered correctly, just a moment ago he’d been squeezing between two thick trees. Now the closest tree was at least four yards from him. He felt warmer, too. For the first time since the transformation of the landscape, he felt a bit too warm.
A man in a stiff blue uniform approached him. Gold buttons like perfectly round droplets of water extended below the X of leather covering the man’s heart. His yellow eyes peered out under the short brim of his boxy blue cap. His eyes were instantly familiar to Chase. They were the yellow eyes of Lieutenant Commander Data, from Star Trek. Beyond the eyes he bore no resemblance to the android. He looked young, maybe not even out of his teens. A mass of tightish blonde curls peeked out from under his cap, giving him a pseudo-feminine Shirley Temple look. He said, “What you doing out here, soldier?” He had a weird twang in his voice, not quite Southern, exactly. Chase couldn’t figure out what it was.
And Chase saw that he, himself, was indeed dressed as a soldier. That explained the feeling of being too warm. He even had a cap like the kid in front of him. He took it off, and instantly felt cooler. Where had his nice cotton tunic gone? He said, “I, um…”
“Yeah. Yeah, I know,” the young man said sheepishly with an infectious and genuine grin. “There has been talk in the camp, yes. Men from the sky. A woman, too, if I’m not wrong. A pretty woman.” He whistled impressively and then became more serious. “You’re not one of us, really, are you?”
“Who is us?”
“Gosh, my platoon got separated from the other half of our company. I’m Private Davis and there has been some talk in camp about you, if you’re who I think you are, which you must be.”
“Okay.” Chase struggled to think clearly, and for the first time he had a peak at how muddy his mind had gotten during the act of searching, however long it had been. Meeting this young soldier was like mentally stepping into a cold shower with his clothes on. “Where do you think we are, kid?”
Private Davis responded with no hesitation. He said, “We thought you might not know, that’s what Captain Jeffs said anyway. We’re near Fort Sumter, South Carolina, or as we like to call it, South Cakolaki. We have such fun at camp. It’s better than fighting, anyway. The other fellows are real nice. Nobody fights except Captain Jeffs sometimes when he gets drunk. I never seen him do anything like that before. Fighting, I mean. Drinking, either. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him drink before this! He’s always real fair, but he’s got something stuck in his craw, and well… you know, sometimes when a guy like that’ll get drunk, he’ll—”
“Okay,” Chase said, smiling despite his confusion, “I get it. Everybody’s nice.”
Davis nodded his agreement and kept talking with undue seriousness in his tone. “You should see Scott’s Anaconda. That monster must be twelve feet long. I know everybody gonna just love to see you at camp. You just gotta come back with me.” If Chase had ever met anyone who better embodied the saying ‘bright-eyed and bushy-tailed,’ he couldn’t think of that person now.
Davis whistled again, rather profoundly, and said, “Men from the sky.”
“Actually, I’m a little busy right now, Davis, so I can’t come to your camp. I’m looking for something very important.”
This seemed to shut the chatty young man up in a hurry. Though he was still smiling, it was no longer in earnest. The happy twinkle seemed missing in his manner.
He said, “Oh, yes.” Davis looked into Chase’s eyes, and Chase saw desperation there, a look he’d seen in the eyes of some criminals he’d picked up in the copter. “The thing you need… the necklace.”
“That’s right,” Chase said, instantly excited, but trying not to let it show. “Do you know where it is?”
Now, all cheer had dropped from Davis, including his half-hearted smile. He cast his eyes down, as if examining Chase’s shoes for scuff marks. “Yeah, I guess. If you really think you need it, go get your friends. The other man and the woman. I’ll show you. I mean, I guess it’s not really up to me, but I know Captain Jeffs’ll show you. Isn’t it weird how the word captain seems so different if you’re talking about a ship captain rather than an army captain?”
He seemed to have switched, mid-thought, into rambling. Chase had no idea what that might mean.
Davis said, “I’m a part of the army. I’m almost twenty years old.” He shook his head sadly. “I know Captain Jeffs will show you the necklace because he told all of us that you would want it, and he said he would show you.” Davis had been staring directly into Chase’s eyes as they’d been talking, but now the young man’s yellow gaze fell to a pinecone—a symmetrical, teal pinecone. “I just… I don’t know. I hoped you wouldn’t ask about it because it gives me such a bad feeling. It isn’t a good thing. I don’t think it is. But Jeffs, Captain Jeffs I mean, knew you would ask, and I should’ve trusted him. I just hoped you wouldn’t want it, that you wouldn’t mention it. But he’s pretty much always right. I think he’ll even give it to you if you want.”
Adrenaline was flowing through Chase now; he could taste the metal in his mouth and feel the pleasant speeding of his heart. He was anxious but still trying to hide it from the kid, not knowing what complications might lie ahead. He felt something in his mind opening, responding to news of the necklace the way the nose seems extraordinarily clear after hours of being blocked. He smiled, showing only a fraction of his true excitement, and said, “Okay, Davis. Let’s go back to my camp to get the others.”
Before he had even gotten back to the others, Chase’s clothing had reverted to the comfortable cotton tunic and jeans, for which he was grateful. He didn’t notice it happen; it just was. Neither Clare nor Matthews had experienced a similar outfit transfiguration.
After a few pleasantries, Davis reluctantly led them to his camp. He didn’t seem fazed by the unnatural state of their environment. No one mentioned it.
3
Clare found the Union camp a surprisingly delightful place. She liked Davis, who seemed like an impossible man to her. Although Davis was not happy about the impending necklace exchange, he was visibly pleased to see they liked the camp. He was obviously glad to have been their emissary.
If the beautiful lakeside camp they’d been living in was a paradise of solitude, this place was its social equivalent—nothing like any of the parties Clare had been to in the last few years. The soldiers here were fun and kind-hearted, not battle-hardened from whatever war horrors they had presumably witnessed. Davis introduced as many of them as passed by. Though they were all young men, there was a remarkable diversity of race, size, and apparent upbringing among them. Clare could tell it was not an accurate representation of the Union army. Many of the men wore dullish gray uniforms to match Davis’, but even more had flamboyant versions that a group of soldiers from that period would have been ashamed to even look at. Clare noticed one tough-looking Polynesian man with a cut-off uniform jacket that exposed his midriff. She also noticed that none of the men gawked at her or leered. Everyone treated her like a lady.
The sturdy, large tents that served as the camp’s makeshift buildings—meticulously ornamented with colorful baubles, jewels, and glasswork—looked like they would better belong in a fantastic middle-eastern bazaar than in any Civil War setting. Some of the tents appeared to be made of patchwork quilts, while others resembled Chinese rugs. The forest around this area was even more vibrant and varied than by the lake. It was almost painful for Clare look directly at some of the trees with neon-bright colors.
“Ya’ll can probably figure whose tent this is,” Davis said.
†
Matthews nodded. Jeffs’ role in Manpower, the one book of Kenner’s he’d read, was short but memorable. His understanding was that Captain Jeffs was the central protagonist of at least a couple of Kenner’s other novels, novels he’d intended to one day read. He remembered starkly the passage he had read featuring the Captain. In the passage, Jeffs had, in effect, ordered a group of thirty or so young men to their deaths in order to take a particularly important battle. He had only been in the book for maybe five scenes, but even then Matthews had been struck by the cold reality of the character. Now it seemed he had become tangible, at least in some sense of the word.
Davis stopped about five feet from the flap door and motioned in a way that said, You want him, you talk to him.
Clare said, “You go,” motioning to Matthews. “We’ll wait here with Davis.” At this Davis couldn’t help but smile. Just hearing her say his name seemed to give the young man a thrill. Chase simply nodded, looking pale, as if whatever good this new world had done him was leaking out all at once. Matthews could understand why they didn’t want to go in; there was something wrong about the tent, especially amid the festival of soldiers that was going on outside.
He stepped in at an angle, making room for his broad shoulders. His first impression of the tent once the flap fell closed behind him was of total darkness. He could hear a man breathing but could see nothing. It seemed none of the bright red light of the sun made it inside the fabric walls.
“Hello,” a voice said from the pitch of the room.
4
Some time back, Matthews had finally gotten around to watching The Godfather, years after it was released. He’d read the book, and was unsurprised to find that the film, though a great film in every sense of the word, did not match the power of his own imagination when reading it in one important aspect. Specifically, he’d been disappointed by the voice of Don Corleone, which in the movie came out with somewhat stuffed. The book had described the Godfather’s presence as something primal, visceral even. There was an impassive, calculating quality to the voice Matthews’ mind had supplied that made clear both the Don’s compassion and cruelty, each characteristic compounding rather than compromising the other. In the one word spoken by Captain Jeffs—Hello—Matthews felt that imperturbable power emanating from the speaker. It was everything that had been missing from the film, and he wondered just how different being an army captain was from being a mob boss.
“Hello,” Matthews said back, his own clear voice sounding small in comparison.
Very slowly, Matthews’ eyes adjusted to a tiny scrap of green light glowing somewhere in the tent. He still could not make out the dimensions of the place, but he at least had an idea of where Jeffs was sitting, presumably with the green light source—whatever it was—in hand.
Jeffs said, “Do you know where we are?”
Matthews was reluctant to answer. He was being asked to remember the events leading up to what had brought them here. In order to explain the significance of where they were, Matthews would need to face the duty he still had to perform, and it went far beyond his immediate goal of locating the necklace.
Never a man to shirk a difficult task, Matthews finally said, “We’re near a lake, in a forest, on a mountain.”
“Yes. We are,” Jeffs said, in a reasonable voice. The kind of reasonable voice that spelled doom for the enemies of Don Corleone. Matthews decided to believe he was not this man’s enemy; it was the only way he could keep the fear down. “But my camp was nowhere near a mountain… nothing like this, certainly. And you… you came from the sky, did you not?”
“I came in a machine. And yes, it flew. But I don’t think you were here yet to see it.” Matthews could not think of a good way to respond, and hoped that would do for now.
There was a heavy silence. Matthews could read nothing in the pause, though in his years of police work he always had. He was, however, shocked by how strongly his instincts warned him not to cross this man or anger him in any way. Shocked, both because Matthews was not easily intimidated himself and because in the book he’d read at least, Jeffs was undeniably one of the good guys, ruthless at times, but never without reason, always for the greater good. Always with a reverence for life lost.
The light was either getting brighter or Matthews was just getting used to it. Maybe both. He could see the figure of the man in front of him, sitting in a chair beyond what might have been a low desk or large chest. He noticed for the first time there was another body in the tent as well, covered under a heavy blanket despite the heat. He couldn’t tell if the figure was breathing. The Captain was facing him dead on. From seven feet away his eyes glinted green.
Jeffs said, “If you can clarify this situation at all, I’d be grateful.”
Matthews didn’t hesitate this time. He said, “We’re near the Rockies, in America, a place called Kidney Lake. The year is 2015. It’s actually January out here, even if it doesn’t really look it.” He didn’t know why, but he added, “I’m not actually sure that you and your men exist.”
The Captain visibly stiffened at this news, and Matthews instantly regretted saying it. Jeffs stayed stiff that way for a while, blank and motionless, and then said, “I’d rather you not discuss that particular issue in front of the men. I don’t want to scare them.”
“Understood,” Matthews said. The green light must be getting brighter, for Matthews could now make out Jeffs’ expressions. The stone-faced man sported a mustache, lush but well trimmed. The tent was tidy; there was almost nothing in it. The form Matthews had thought he’d seen, the sleeping or dead person in one corner, was gone. “Do you have doubts about your reality as well?”
The Captain’s face crunched up in a knowing, painful grimace. “Please help me understand where we are.”
“I’m not kidding you. You’re near the Rockies, in America. The year is 2015.”
“You do not understand,” Jeffs said. “I feel responsible for these men, for their families.” And then he added with disdain, “If they have families.”
Matthews sensed the wisdom of abandoning this particular topic of discussion. He said, “We came because we heard you had a necklace.”
The Captain actually brightened a bit at this. He stood, his face underlit by the green light as if he were preparing to tell a campfire ghost story. “Yes, I knew you would want it. I dreamed of you.” Jeffs lifted the green light, and Matthews couldn’t believe he hadn’t noticed before… it was in fact the very necklace he sought. Three diamond-shaped emeralds hung on a long silver chain, and the glow was from the largest gem in the middle. Sharp metal designs, also diamond-shaped, framed each stone. Looking at it, imagining what it would be like to hold it in his own hand, Matthews was overpowered by an intoxicating mix of fear and naughty excitement. He did his best to hide the evidence of this reaction. He should have been able to realize that the feelings were not his own, but perhaps he did not want to—it was too sweet a thing.
Without further showmanship, the Captain held the chain out, and Matthews stepped forward to grab it. Nothing, absolutely nothing that had happened in his experience had prepared Matthews for the warm rush of lust and satisfaction that overtook him as the necklace transferred from Jeffs’ fingers to his own cupped palms. This was it, the object of their happy search, in his own hands. He felt he could now die a peaceful death, totally fulfilled.
But even as he wrapped his head around that thought, the intensity of the sensation began to wane. He was still jubilant, but the super-sharp edge had gone from that joy before he really had a chance to taste it. Had it lasted longer in his mind, he would have eventually felt the presence of the gears Paul wanted to destroy.
“It’s a necklace,” Matthews said simply, his mind, eyes, and sense still riveted on the center gem.
“I can see that. But what does it mean to you? Why do you want it so badly?” He leaned across the desk, and Matthews felt the man had leaned too close, though he had only moved inches and was still three feet away.
Matthews contemplated the question for himself: What did the necklace mean? He had the feeling that this question had, in its own way, facilitated Paul Kenner’s decent into insanity, for it required nothing from the asker beyond the next step. It was not a question troubled by thoughts of the future. It was not a question that spoke to the mind of leading pathways, instead, it was a question of the moment—the now of pleasure. Matthews looked at the Captain and said sincerely, “It is enough to hold it in my hand. For now, that’s all the meaning it has.”
5
Clare heard Matthews ask for a private tent where he and his compatriots could talk when he came back outside. The man within—Captain Jeffs, she supposed—explained that one had already been prepared for that purpose.
Simply from the look on Matthews’ face she could tell that he’d found it, and she felt an adolescent stirring in her loins as her heart rate increased. It was a very real, sweetly mischievous feeling of anticipation, the likes of which she’d believed the junk had destroyed her capacity to feel. On Chase’s face she saw it too, the look of young lust. Perhaps it was just that she’d been thinking of the necklace the moment she looked at him, but she now saw Chase as suddenly beautiful. Her emotions were not under her control, though she’d felt more balanced since the transformation of the world.
Davis showed them to their tent and left them alone. It’s cloth was decorated in a paisley pattern, a look Clare had never appreciated, and was about the size of two phone booths pushed together. Inside, a small electric light dangled from the top, something Clare doubted such tents had been equipped with in the 1860’s.