by Mark Lingane
I turned away from the city and went back in to see how Laura was getting on. She had the wound cleaned and dressed.
"She's been rambling. She said some pretty crazy things. I think she was delirious from the blood loss. Don't worry, she'll pull through."
Mina's face was as pale as a sheet. Laura tried to give her some water, but she was out for the count.
We left her and went out onto the deck. Laura poured herself a drink measured in inches in a glass that could take a standing umbrella, and then did the same for me. We stood for a few moments wrapped in silence. Laura was staring into the middle distance. It would take a better man than me to know what she was thinking.
"You know what I'm thinking?"
"It's all a mystery to me."
"Who's the 'they' she keeps talking about?"
I took a sip from the bucket and leaned forward onto the balustrade. "She says it's the mob."
"Makes sense, they've got people everywhere. Worst place you can be is somewhere where there are records and a phone. But you don't think it's the mob." She glanced at me, placing her hand between us on the balustrade.
I shrugged. I didn't know much anymore, not after the last few strange days. Mina said it was the mob, but the mob didn't wrap itself up in the occult. The words bouncing around my head were death cult, some group of delusional loons with a righteous attitude and an overzealous approach to a disproportionate distribution of essential fluids, mainly blood.
"She was saying that Hugh had some kind of weapon to use against them. Maybe one of those old mechweapons from the war." She glanced at me. I made no response. "She said he'd hidden it. That sounds a bit strange to me."
"We're living in strange days."
"Better than the end of days," she said, and laughed. It wasn't overly funny and she seemed to realize that. "I guess we all have to face our end of days. Mina was lucky. It could've been her turn tonight."
"She's tough."
"Her talk sure is. And she's funny." She had a distant look in her eyes.
I gave her a sideways look.
"Sometimes I wish I could be a bit more like that. Funny girls always get the best guys."
"I wouldn't change anything at all about you."
She gave me a smile and a slight bump, shoulder to shoulder. "It would be funny if she and I ended up friends."
"No, it wouldn't."
"No need to get jealous, lover boy." She knocked back the rest of her drink and went in for a refill. "You want one?"
I declined the offer, still having a gallon left in the glass. To put more in, the glass would need another story.
She turned on the wireless and some old-time jazz filtered out into the night. "We didn't get to dance," she called out. "That was going to be my mission tonight."
The tinkling of glass on glass floated out as the bottleneck bounced off the rim of her bucket, and the quiet of the city rolled up the scarp. She reappeared with her engorged vessel filled to the brim. It looked like she was on a mission.
"Tell me about the Vinyl," I said.
"We don't know much, but it's a violent party house run by the mob. They use it for illegal dealings."
"You can't shut it down?"
"No. Their influence runs too deep in the government and services. It makes IA a joke half the time. Most of the corruption's at the top, and we can't do anything about it."
She had an expression that was half anger and half futile despair. She was being forced into a life of no consequence that would drain the goodness and charity out of anyone. She was also succumbing to the effect of her drinks. She leaned in closer, either for support or in supposition. She ran her hand down my arm, feeling it, the curve of the muscle. She closed her eyes as if remembering a distant memory.
"You're a big guy, but you hide it well." She let out another of those inappropriate laughs that told me exactly what she was thinking.
We needed a diversion. "You heard of a rood?"
"A rude what?"
"Just that. Something called a rood."
"Oh, a rood. Isn't that one of those old words, Latin or something? I'm guessing it means rod or pole." She giggled in a way that was more menacing than innocent. "My classics education was waylaid by my interest in boys, especially when the Greeks started wearing sheets. And when the Greek gods came out, well, I don't recall anything else until my sixteenth birthday. Except flushing a lot when I read the things those old guys used to get up to. Most of it's illegal these days, but I'd still like to try."
Her low chortle was very unladylike. Her mind was dropping below the waistline faster than a knoch free of its lure. Then her head drooped and she collapsed forward, catching herself and theatrically opening her eyes wide. She needed a bed.
"I have to go."
She reached out and placed her hand on my arm. "Oh, don't. Please stay." Her eyes started to close again.
"You'll be asleep in a minute."
"No. No. No. Bed, yes. Sleep, no." She shook her head with passion, but she knew she was on a losing stretch.
I went back inside and headed for the door to let myself out.
"Give me a hug before you leave," she said, following me. "Give me that."
She tottered over, closed her eyes, and purred like a contented kitten. It felt like every inch of her was touching me; she was wrapped around me so tightly she could've kept an Egyptian mummy fresh for centuries. She stepped away, recovering her composure. I opened the door.
"I always keep a key under the pot, the small one," she said, indicating a ceramic pot. "For special friends. If I'm out, just come in. Make yourself at home. But I'd prefer it if you didn't use the key, because if you stayed, well ... it might mean something important to me, and you don't need that."
She leaned forward, her hips swaying gently. In the moonlight there was no denying her angelic beauty, wrapped around a vulnerability that would make weaker men weep. There was no greater vision of perfection on the planet than her. She appeared to float closer, almost reaching out for me, crying for that human touch that we all need, that gets us through the darkest hours of the night.
My father once told me our greatest regrets are for the things we don't do ... just before he threw me out onto the streets.
We stood in the doorway, staring at each other. I looked into her deep green eyes and felt everything slip sideways. The world stopped spinning and we were caught in that blissful moment that every tortured soul quests an eternity for, dreams of, and would ultimately die for.
I turned away and walked out. She deserved better than me.
18
You walk the streets at night, you hear things, you learn things. You listen out for people talking, and sometimes you walk away a little wiser. And a little dirtier. Sometimes, buried among the small talk of client hotspots and new diseases, you get the insane or those so drunk they don't make much sense, and then you don't learn things but at least it's entertaining. Tonight was different. Everyone's mouths were zipped tight. People were scattered in the darkness, with dead eyes and haunted faces, sheltering from the demons that their imaginations made solid.
And always at the edge of my perception was the constant flapping of those damn birds.
The moon, still as large as an incoming baseball, was lobbing its way across the clear, dark night sky. A bat swooped past, its wings outstretched, silhouetted against the glowing orb of the night before it dove away, screeching its traditional mating call. I was drawn back to the words of Angelina: They won't stop until one of you is dead.
I had seen a diaper-dispenser's worth of disposable skinny blond things all come to rest at the foot of the reaper. To this point I'd assumed they were all different ones. How do you kill something that's designed to kill you, and that's unkillable?
I stopped in my tracks. You don't.
It was all a butcher's worth of baloney. I shook my head at the preposterousness of it all. I was getting wound up by some highly strung women, over-caffeinated, over-emotional, and los
t in their lives. They were dragging me down with them and had me looking for a lazy explanation to a bunch of coincidences.
The wind picked up, blowing dust in my face. I held up my hand, shielding my eyes from the dry, blustery wind. A couple of penny-hookers lined the streets, flashing whatever wares they had. More often than not they were peroxide-enhanced surfboards skinned down through whatever addiction kept them there, more examples of lazy solutions to difficult predicaments. Probably the only course of action an addled brain could choose.
At first I didn't take any notice when they turned and stared after me as I wandered by. That was common practice--until they realized you weren't looking for a good time and were blocking their trade. But these skinny blonds stood there draped in oversized leather jackets and durable secrets with their torn fishnets, looking after me with dead, hungry eyes, wanting and craving. They seemed to be hanging in space, almost timeless, waiting, but for what?
I made my way cautiously along the street, trying to keep as far away from the freak show as possible. There was a commotion behind me. I glanced back over my shoulder. Something flashed past me on the opposite side of the street. I spun around, but nothing was there. The hooker directly opposite flashed me a smile devoid of humor. I glanced at the one next to her and was knocked back by a sudden blow to the shoulder. I took a couple of stabilizing steps backward. The first hooker was gone.
There was a powerful blow against my back. I took a step then spun on the spot. There was a flash of white behind me, leaving the scent of cheap perfume and sweat. There was another blow, straight to the back of my head. It drove me to the ground and made my mind spin, like someone had taken to me with a piece of the transcontinental railway track. I shook my head and spat a mouthful of blood onto the blacktop.
There was a sudden intake of air, a gasp of excitement ... of shock ... it was hard to tell which, with my ears clanging from the full volume of the cathedral ringers.
I looked up. The hookers were forming a circle around me. They took a step closer, in unison. Then another. There was a high-pitched squeal at the edge of my hearing. They stopped and, as one, turned and looked back down the street. A distant figure was standing on the corner in the perfect darkness beneath a burned-out streetlight. I squinted toward the corner, but it was too dark to make out the face.
There was movement around me. A couple of eddies blew dust into my face. I blinked a couple of times and looked up. The street was empty. I thought of the sinister figure. It was impossible to be sure, but it sure looked like Phoenix.
I sat back against the brick wall of a liquor store, directly underneath a streetlight, and nursed my head until there was some life back on the streets. I wondered if Phoenix had a twin brother. The records bank wouldn't be open for hours. I'd have to wait to check on his family. I glanced at my watch. The government wouldn't be awake for hours, but nosy neighbors might.
The line of hookers haunted me. A scented-lace network of trouble. Or a nest. The word "nest" triggered a recollection but I couldn't grasp it.
I hitched down to Templeton Drive on the night thirty-five. I was relieved that this one had a guard, a solid fat man with a face full of scars. He said nothing and just stared at me, but his eyes were full of hatred and suspicion. Regardless, his presence gave me a sense of security.
I wandered down Templeton, counting off the numbers as the early-morning sun blinked above the horizon. I felt lonely without jamoke-man, and his magnetic smile and entertaining dialog tagging along. The joe would've been a welcome jumpstart-juice; my eyes were beginning to feel the weight of a painful night and the deprivation of a decent slumber. The sun crested above the Westlands scarp, pouring daylight over the land like molasses in a billion-year-old death match.
The places I passed looked like they were in lockdown. One old building, looking the worse for two hundred years of wear, was set back from the blacktop. The occupant, currently sweeping his mean strip of green and acting as a clothesline, was in a position to leer at and be abusive to the passing trade.
I stopped and lifted my hat to him. He wore nothing but baggy old-timer pants with braces, and a sleeveless undershirt that I guessed did double time as a tablecloth and napkin. Wild gray hair matched his eyes. He chewed his upper lip as I approached.
"You were here before, wasn't you?" he said. "Yesterday. You and that darkie." He leaned on his rake and spat on the ground.
I ignored his slur, putting it down to the influence of a bygone age and an enfeebled mind born of ignorance.
"You know anything about 667?" I nodded toward the pile of rubble.
He gave me a suspicious onceover with a withered eye. He stared at my face. "I ain't seen anyone as beat up as you before. And I seen the match between Jandice and Wellcott when they came through town on the championship circuit, when this place was just a town. There'd never been blood like it before."
"It's been a bad day." I gave him a smile. He did not reciprocate.
"I can see that. I'm guessing the night ain't been your friend neither. Lady trouble?"
"You're an observant man."
"I keep my wits about me when I needs to."
"Tell me about 667."
"They had a whole heap of them hookers."
"You sure they were hookers?"
"They were dressed like 'em. Wandering around in barely more than trashy secrets, with their hair done in that fancy thing they do to make it all white. I didn't have the minding of it, because an old man doesn't get much in the way of silky smooth skin. I ain't got long left on this planet so I get what pleasures I can."
"You take any pictures?"
He let out a low laugh and shook his finger at me. There was a faint glint in his eyes. I figured that meant he had a whole box full of them but was never, ever going to let them out of his grubby little hands.
"What about the explosion?"
"It was a loud bang, rattled the windows, but they was built in a time when things was built instead of prefabricated. Then there was a sucking sound. Then a few moments later the police was all over the place with the sirens, trucks, and them big sniffer dogs."
"Are you sure it was a few moments?"
"Yeah, it was real quick. When I call them they take hours to get here, if they bother to turn up at all."
"What'd they do?"
The old-timer stared at me before unloading a mouthful of phlegm onto his sorry excuse for a yard. "Kicked around the rubble, looking for survivors, finding witnesses. Tried to catch the landlord, him being the only survivor, but he ran away. They'll never catch him. He runs like the wind."
"Who is he?"
"Dunno his name." The old man's eyes flicked around, until he pitched his balls over the fence into Crazy Town. "He was cursed," he rumbled. "Something was up with him, like the devil. I watched him as I grew. Man and boy, I've lived in this house. He was always the landlord of that house. And he never aged a day."
There were plenty of reasons to go back to my office, the foremost being to escape the deranged ramblings of an old man.
19
I cruised past the yellowbox on my way back to the office. I thought of my recent visit from the trashmen and knew they'd be back. It would only be a matter of time before they started to unearth things in their ongoing efforts to redecorate the place in the award-winning style of nouveau vieilleries.
The morning was in, sitting around the day with a sour expression, as I made my way into the building. Generally the place was quiet, except for the few occupations that needed the space and freedom of the early hours to work. I caught the occasional squeak from a beam when the local tax enforcers, finally looking at themselves in the mirror, had seen the truth and decided to do the only civil thing, which involved said sturdy beam and a thick rope.
The man in the lemon squeezer let out a low grumble that I guessed was some kind of salutation, creeping out of the bowels of his throat before rolling over me in a cloud of ingrained nicotine pollution. Spikey the cleaner was vac
uuming the corridor. He didn't look up as I stepped over his thrusting hands and maneuvered around him awkwardly with my cargo.
Inside the office I put the parcel down on the desk and poured myself a shot of stress relief. I opened the window to let in some air, sat down and put my feet up. All was quiet except for the vacuum cleaner.
I unwrapped the parcel and looked at the framed gold record. I was hoping there was a clue in Jorgen's death gaze. I ran my hand over the smooth glass. The prize underneath, so slender and inconsequential, meant so much to so many.
Gold. We were a race of magpies, collecting shiny trinkets when all we needed was food and shelter. I wondered if there was a reason gold was only one letter away from God. Once we got past the superstitions we created to guide us through our desperate fear of the night, huddled there in the back of the cave, we flipped and became crazed hoarders driven by a deep-seated hunger for excess. Maybe we used it as a buffer to stop us falling back into the darkness of those primal fears. The more we had, the more we could lose and still be safe. The mightiest more of all was the lure of gold, and we'd do anything to get it, selling out our most precious ideals for a few flakes.
But what did we really worship? To be nothing less than we were yesterday?
I suddenly realized that the rhythmic phasing of the vacuum cleaner had faded to an unvarying, steady hum. No one was pushing it. I got up and quickly slipped the gold record into my secret hiding place under the floorboards.
I opened the door and looked down the corridor. The vacuum was lying on its side. The cleaner was absent. In his place were two people. When they saw me they walked up to my door. The tall woman was wearing black pants, a set of loafers, and an expression as sour as dough from hell. When life gave her lemons she shoved them in her cheeks.
The even taller, thin man, with a smile as wide as a canyon and small eyes too close together, wore a pinstriped zoot suit that reeked of cheap cigarillo smoke. His head twitched with distracting regularity. An occasional giggle slipped from between his thin lips. He took in air through large nostrils in a hooked nose that could double as a boat anchor.