by Clive Barker
He had been flesh once. Flesh, and bone, and ambition. But that was an age ago, or so it seemed, and the memory of that blessed state was fading fast. Some traces of his former life remained; time and exhaustion couldn't take everything from him. He could picture clearly and painfully the faces of those he'd loved and hated. They stared through at him from the past, clear and luminous. He could still see the sweet, goodnight expressions in his children's eyes. And the same look, less sweet but no less goodnight, in the eyes of the brutes he had murdered.
Some of those memories made him want to cry, except that there were no tears to be wrong out of his starched eyes. Besides, it was far too late for regret. Regret was a luxury reserved for the living, who still had the time, the breath and the energy to act.
He was beyond all that. He, his mother's little Ronnie (oh, if she could see him now), he was almost three weeks dead. Too late for regrets by a long chalk.
He'd done all he could do to correct the errors he'd made. He'd spun out his span to its limits and beyond, stealing himself precious time to sew up the loose ends of his frayed existence. Mother's little Ronnie had always been tidy: a paragon of neatness. That was one of the reasons he'd enjoyed accountancy. The pursuit of a few misplaced pence through hundreds of figures was a game he relished; and how satisfying, at the end of the day, to balance the books. Unfortunately life was not so perfectible, as now, too late in the day, he realized. Still, he'd done his best, and that, as Mother used to say, was all anybody could hope to do. There was nothing left but to confess, and having confessed, go to his Judgement empty-handed and contrite. As he sat, draped over the use-shined seat in the Confessional Box of St Mary Magdalene's, he fretted that the shape of his usurped body would not hold out long enough for him to unburden himself of all the sins that languished in his linen heart. He concentrated, trying to keep body and soul together for these last, vital few minutes. Soon Father Rooney would come. He would sit behind the lattice-divide of the Confessional and offer words of consolation, of understanding, of forgiveness; then, in the remaining minutes of his stolen existence, Ronnie Glass would tell his story.
He would begin by denying that most terrible stain on his character: the accusation of pornographer.
Pornographer.
The thought was absurd. There wasn't a pornographer's bone in his body. Anyone who had known him in his thirty-two years would have testified to that. My Christ, he didn't even like sex very much. That was the irony. Of all the people to be accused of peddling filth, he was about the most unlikely. When it had seemed everyone about him was parading their adulteries like third legs, he had lived a blameless existence. The forbidden life of the body happened, like car accidents, to other people; not to him. Sex was simply a roller-coaster ride that one might indulge in once every year or so. Twice might be tolerable; three times nauseating. Was it any surprise then, that in nine years of marriage to a good Catholic girl this good Catholic boy only fathered two children?
But he'd been a loving man in his lustless way, and his wife Bernadette had shared his indifference to sex, so his unenthusiastic member had never been a bone of contention between them. And the children were a joy. Samantha was already growing into a model of politeness and tidiness, and Imogen (though scarcely two) had her mother's smile.
Life had been fine, all in all. He had almost owned a featureless semi-detached house in the leafier suburbs of South London. He had possessed a small garden, Sunday-tended: a soul the same. It had been, as far as he could judge, a model life, unassuming and din-free.
And it would have remained so, had it not been for that worm of greed in his nature. Greed had undone him, no doubt.
If he hadn't been greedy, he wouldn't have looked twice at the job that Maguire had offered him. He would have trusted his instinct, taken one look around the pokey smoke-filled office above the Hungarian pastry-shop in Soho, and turned tail. But his itch for wealth diverted him from the plain truth – that he was using all his skills as an accountant to give a gloss of credibility to an operation that stank of corruption. He'd known that in his heart, of course. Known that despite Maguire's ceaseless talk of Moral Rearmament, his fondness for his children, his obsession with the gentlemanly art of Bonsai, the man was a louse. The lowest of the low. But he'd successfully shut out that knowledge, and contented himself with the job in hand: balancing the books. Maguire was generous: and that made the blindness easier to induce. He even began to like the man and his associates. He'd got used to seeing the shambling bulk that was Dennis "Dork' Luzzati, a fresh cream pastry perpetually hovering at his fat lips; got used, too, to little three-fingered Henry B. Henry, with his card tricks and his patter, a new routine every day. They weren't the most sophisticated of conversationalists, and they certainly wouldn't have been welcome at the Tennis Club, but they seemed harmless enough.
It was a shock then, a terrible shock, when he eventually drew back the veil and saw Dork, Henry and Maguire for the beasts they really were.
The revelation had occurred by accident.
One night, finishing some tax-work late, Ronnie had caught a cab down to the warehouse, planning to deliver his report to Maguire by hand. He'd never actually visited the warehouse, though he'd heard it mentioned between them often enough. Maguire had been stock-piling his supplies of books there for some months. Mostly cookery books, from Europe, or so Ronnie had been told. That night, that last night of cleanliness, he walked into the truth, in all its full-colour glory.
Maguire was there, in one of the plain-brick rooms, sitting on a chair surrounded by packages and boxes. An unshaded bulb threw a halo on to his thinning scalp; it glistened, pinkly. Dork was there too, engrossed in a cake. Henry B. was playing Patience. Piled high on every side of the trio there were magazines, thousands upon thousands of them, their covers shining, virginal, and somehow fleshy.
Maguire looked up from his calculations.
"Glassy," he said. He always used that nickname.
Ronnie stared into the room, guessing, even from a distance, what these heaped treasures were.
"Come on in," said Henry B. "Good for a game?"
"Don't look so serious," soothed Maguire, “this is just merchandise."
A kind of numb horror drew Ronnie to approach one of the stacks of magazines, and open the top copy. Climax Erotica, the cover read, Full Colour Pornography for the Discriminating Adult. Text in English, German and French. Unable to prevent himself he began to look through the magazine, his face stinging with embarrassment, only half-hearing the barrage of jokes and threats that Maguire was shooting off.
Swarms of obscene images flew out of the pages, horribly abundant. He'd never seen anything like it in his life. Every sexual act possible between consenting adults (and a few only doped acrobats would consent to) were chronicled in glorious detail. The performers of these unspeakable acts smiled, glassy-eyed, at Ronnie as they swarmed up out of a grease of sex, neither shame nor apology on their lust-puffed faces. Every slit, every slot, every pucker and pimple of their bodies was exposed, naked beyond nakedness. The pouting, panting excess of it turned Ronnie's stomach to ash.
He closed the magazine and glanced at another pile beside it. Different faces, same furious coupling. Every depravity was catered for somewhere. The titles alone testified to the delights to be found inside. Bizarre Women in Chains, one read. Enslaved by Rubber, another promised. Labrador Lover, a third portrayed, in perfect focus down to the last wet whisker.
Slowly Michael Maguire's cigarette-worn voice filtered through into Ronnie's reeling brain. It cajoled, or tried to; and worse it mocked him, in its subtle way, for his naivetй.
"You had to find out sooner or later," he said. "I suppose it may as well be sooner, eh? No harm in it. All a bit of fun."
Ronnie shook his head violently, trying to dislodge the images that had taken root behind his eyes. They were multiplying already, invading a territory that had been so innocent of such possibilities. In his imagination, Labradors scampered arou
nd in leather, drinking from the bodies of bound whores. It was frightening the way these pictures flowed out into his eyes, each page a new abomination. He felt he'd choke on them unless he acted.
"Horrible," was all he could say. "Horrible. Horrible. Horrible."
He kicked a pile of Bizarre Women in Chains, and they toppled over, the repeated images of the cover sprawling across the dirty floor.
"Don't do that," said Maguire, very quietly.
"Horrible," said Ronnie. They're all horrible."
"There's a big market for them."'Not me!" he said, as though Maguire was suggesting he had some personal interest in them.
"All right, so you don't like them. He doesn't like them, Dork."
Dork was wiping cream off his short fingers with a dainty handkerchief.
"Why not?"
Too dirty for him."
"Horrible," said Ronnie again.
"Well you're in this up to your neck, my son," said Maguire. His voice was the Devil's voice, wasn't it? Surely the Devil's voice, "You may as well grin and bear it."
Dork guffawed, "Grin and bear it; I like it Mick, I like it."
Ronnie looked up at Maguire. The man was forty-five, maybe fifty; but his face had a fretted, cracked look, old before its years. The charm was gone; it was scarcely human, the face he locked eyes with. Its sweat, its bristles, its puckered mouth made it resemble, in Ronnie's mind, the proffered backside of one of the red-raw sluts in the magazines.
"We're all known villains here," the organ was saying, “and we've got nothing to lose if we're caught again."
"Nothing," said Dork.
"Whereas you, my son, you're a spit-clean professional. Way I see it, if you want to go gabbing about this dirty business, you're going to lose your reputation as a nice, honest accountant. In fact I'd venture to suggest you'll never work again. Do you take my meaning?"
Ronnie wanted to hit Maguire, so he did; hard too. There was a satisfying snap as Maguire's teeth met at speed, and blood came quickly from between his lips. It was the first time Ronnie had fought since his schooldays, and he was slow to avoid the inevitable retaliation. The blow that Maguire returned sent him sprawling, bloodied, amongst the Bizarre Women. Before he could clamber to his feet Dork had slammed his heel into Ronnie's face, grinding the gristle in his nose. While Ronnie bunked back the blood Dork hoisted him to his feet, and held him up as a captive target for Maguire. The ringed hand became a fist, and for the next five minutes Maguire used Ronnie as a punch bag, starting below the belt and working up.
Ronnie found the pain curiously reassuring; it seemed to heal his guilty psyche better than a string of Hail Marys. When the beating was over, and Dork had let him out, defaced, into the dark, there wasn't any anger left in him, only a need to finish the cleansing Maguire had begun.
He went home to Bernadette that night and told her a lie about being mugged in the street. She was so consoling, it made him sick to be deceiving her, but he had no choice. That night, and the night after, were sleepless. He lay in his own bed, just a few feet from that of his trusting spouse, and tried to make sense of his feelings. He knew in his bones the truth would sooner or later become public knowledge. Better surely to go to the police, come clean. But that took courage, and his heart had never felt weaker. So he prevaricated through the Thursday night and the Friday, letting the bruises yellow and the confusion settle.
Then on Sunday, the shit hit the fan.
The lowest of the Sunday filth-sheets had his face on the front cover: complete with the banner headline: The Sex Empire of Ronald Glass'. Inside, were photographs, snatched from innocent circumstance and construed as guilt. Glass appearing to look pursued. Glass appearing to look devious. His natural hirsuteness made him seem ill-shaven; his neat hair-cut suggested the prison aesthetic favoured by some of the criminal fraternity. Being short-sighted he squinted; photographed squinting he looked like a lustful rat.
He stood in the newsagents, staring at his own face, and knew his personal Armageddon was on the horizon. Shaking, he read the terrible lies inside.
Somebody, he never exactly worked out who, had told the whole story. The pornography, the brothels, the sex-shops, the cinemas. The secret world of smut that Maguire had masterminded was here detailed in every sordid particular. Except that Maguire's name did not appear. Neither did Dork's, nor Henry's. It was Glass, Glass all the way: his guilt was transparent. He had been framed, neat as anything. A corrupter of children, the leader called him, Little Boy Blue grown fat and horny.
It was too late to deny anything. By the time he got back to the house Bernadette had gone, with the children in tow. Somebody had got to her with the news, probably salivating down the phone, delighting in the sheer dirt of it.
He stood in the kitchen, where the table was laid for a breakfast the family hadn't yet eaten, and would now never eat, and he cried. Not a great deal: his supply of tears was strictly limited, but enough to feel the duty done. Then, having finished with his gesture of remorse, he sat down, like any decent man who has been deeply wronged, and planned murder.
In many ways getting the gun was more difficult than anything that followed. It required some careful thought, some soft words, and a good deal of hard cash. It took him a day and a half to locate the weapon he wanted, and to learn how to use it.
Then, in his own good time, he went about his business.
Henry B. died first. Ronnie shot him in his own stripped pinewood kitchen in up-and-coming Islington. He had a cup of freshly-brewed coffee in his three-fingered hand and a look of almost pitiable terror on his face. The first shot struck him in the side, denting his shirt, and causing a little blood to come. Far less than Ronnie had been steeling himself for however. More confident, he fired again. The second shot hit his intended in the neck: and that seemed to be the killer. Henry B. pitched forward like a comedian in a silent movie, not relinquishing the coffee cup until the moment before he hit the floor. The cup spun in the mingled dregs of coffee and life, and rattled, at last, to a halt.
Ronnie stepped over to the body and fired a third shot straight through the back of Henry B's neck. This last bullet was almost casual; swift and accurate. Then he escaped easily out of the back gate, almost elated by the ease of the act. He felt as though he'd cornered and killed a rat in his cellar; an unpleasant duty that needed to be done.
The frisson lasted five minutes. Then he was profoundly sick.
Anyway, that was Henry. All out of tricks.
Dork's death was rather more sensational. He ran out of time at the Dog Track; indeed, he was showing Ronnie his winning ticket when he felt the long-bladed knife insinuate itself between his fourth and fifth ribs. He could scarcely believe he was being murdered, the expression on his pastry-fattened face was one of complete amazement. He kept looking from side to side at the punters milling around as though at any moment one of them would point, and laugh, and tell him that this was all a joke, a premature birthday game.
Then Ronnie twisted the blade in the wound (he'd read that this was surely lethal) and Dork realised that, winning ticket or not, this wasn't his lucky day.
His heavy body was carried along in the crush of the crowd for a good ten yards until it became wedged in the teeth of the turnstile. Only then did someone feel the hot gush from Dork, and scream.
By then Ronnie was well away.
Content, feeling cleaner by the hour, he went back to the house. Bernadette had been in, collecting clothes and favourite ornaments. He wanted to say to her: take everything, it means nothing to me, but she'd slipped in and gone again, like a ghost of a housewife. In the kitchen the table was still set for that final Sunday breakfast. There was dust on the cornflakes in the children's bowls; the rancid butter was beginning to grease the air. Ronnie sat through the late afternoon, through the dusk, through until the early hours of the following morning, and tasted his new found power over life and death. Then he went to bed in his clothes, no longer caring to be tidy, and slept the sleep of the almost g
ood.
It wasn't so hard for Maguire to guess who'd wasted Dork and Henry B. Henry, though the idea of that particular worm turning was hard to swallow. Many of the criminal community had known Ronald Glass, had laughed with Maguire over the little deception that was being played upon the innocent. But no-one had believed him capable of such extreme sanctions against his enemies. In some seedier quarters he was now being saluted for his sheer bloody-mindedness; others, Maguire included, felt he had gone too far to be welcomed into the fold like a strayed sheep. The general opinion was that he be dispatched, before he did any more damage to the fragile balance of power.
So Ronnie's days became numbered. They could have been counted on the three fingers of Henry B's hand.
They came for him on the Saturday afternoon and took him quickly, without him having time to wield a weapon in his defence. They escorted him to a Salami and Cooked Meats warehouse, and in the icy white safety of the cold storage room they hung him from a hook and tortured him. Anyone with any claim to Dork's or Henry B's affections was given an opportunity to work out their grief on him. With knives, with hammers, with oxyacetylene torches. They shattered his knees and his elbows. They put out his eardrums, burned the flesh off the soles of his feet.
Finally, about eleven or so, they began to lose interest. The clubs were just getting into their rhythm, the gaming tables were beginning to simmer, it was time to be done with justice and get out on the town.
That was when Micky Maguire arrived, dressed to kill in his best bib and tucker. Ronnie knew he was there somewhere in the haze, but his senses were all but out, and he only half-saw the gun leveled at his head, half felt the noise of the blast bounce around the white-tiled room.
A single bullet, immaculately placed, entered his brain through the middle of his forehead. As neat as even he could have wished, like a third eye.
His body twitched on its hook a moment, and died.
Maguire took his applause like a man, kissed the ladies, thanked his dear friends who had seen this deed done with him, and went to play. The body was dumped in a black plastic bag on the edge of Epping Forest, early on Sunday morning, just as the dawn chorus was tuning up in the ash trees and the sycamores. And that, to all intents and purposes, was the end of that. Except that it was the beginning.