Ambient (28 page)

"Why?" I asked. "You'd have fed us. Tossed us to the vultures. Without suspicion."

"There wasn't anything else I could do," he said. "And you
were trying to kill me-"

"When you told him we'd done it you didn't think that."

No-„

"Not only told him what we'd done, as per your request," I
said, kneeling down, taking his shoulders as if I might shove
them apart and so break him in two, "but then tried to kill me after you tell me to come up here, before I can even speak-"

"I was afraid, O'Malley," he said, crying. "Afraid of him.
Afraid of you. I didn't know what to do. I didn't-"

Letting go of him, leaving him on the sofa, his good suit scuffed
and wrinkled where I'd knocked him about, I pulled myself over,
close to one of the chairs, resting my back against it, feeling my
spine harden as my movement stilled. The knuckles on my hand
swelled where I'd struck his skull's thick bone.

"It was mow or be mown, OM. You know how it is."

"I know," I sighed.

"You should have contacted them. OM. You could have gotten out."

"But once you spotted the timeset, you would have-"

"Right," he said. "I would have."

"No matter," I said, closing my eyes. "So you don't know
where Avalon is, then?"

"No," he said. "Where was she last?"

"We stayed downtown. She was gone when I woke up. I found
this. "

Pulling the card from my pocket, I handed it over. He looked
at it blankly for several moments. His wall clock chimed as the
hour displayed on the screen. As we rested there in the room, I
began wondering if I had lost her, after all.

"Her writing," he said.

"You're sure?" I'd never seen her handscript; suspected she
could write but had not required evidence.

"AO," he said. "She always prints. Prints like this. She left
this card. Wrote this message. No doubt here."

"Someone must have made her write it."

"Why?" he asked. "To what purpose? If Dad's men caught
you unaware, you'd have both been exxed. You're aware."

"There's more to it than that," I said, thinking. "Something's
off. She wouldn't have run away without saying something.
Something's way off."

"She'll turn up one day, sure," he said. "Riverweighted. Guttered. "

"Don't say that," I said, quietly; he was cowed enough to
become immediately quiet, his eyes closing as if fearful I'd strike
once more. "Whose team was after us?"

"His," said Mister Dryden. "Down from Midtown. You led
them merry, I hear. Triplelive and doublewired. Twenty taken
out, the printout read-"

"Say that they tracked us. I don't know how, but say they did.
Say they caught her, wanted to leave me, but wanted me to read
that message. So they made her write it."

"For what?"

"If he suspects you behind it-"

"I convinced," he said.

"Are you sure?"

He held his knees more tightly, as if by gripping himself close
enough he might fold within himself and disappear. "No. Not
anymore. "

"Then that's what he's done. They knew that when I found
that message I'd contact, just as it said to do. Then they figured
that you'd either have me taken out-"

"As tried--

"Or that I'd come up here and take you out, thinking you'd
taken Avalon."

"And then?"

"And then at leisure," I said, "he'd later fix whichever of us
was still around. Sound like his mindset?"

Mister Dryden nodded. "But here we both are."

"Exactly. "

"What's to be done, though? If such holds, then we're both
still marked."

"Not if we move," I said. "Catch unaware before he catches
us."

Mister Dryden sighed, and shook as if enduring a bout of ma laria; he covered his face with his hands, and held them there. "I
can't," he said. "If he wants me he can have. I'm worn. He's
won. "

"Under the circumstances I've a plan of my own," I said.
"Helping us both. You'll need to go along."

"I can't."

"You'd have me try alone but still won't help now?"

"I'm trying to protect," he said. "I can't, OM. He threatened-"

"Let him threat. There's no way to get into greater trouble
than we're in. Now, let's figure. Would they have taken her to
the estate or to the Tombs."

"To the estate," he said, seeming to glow, now, with reason's
warmth. "He's wanted to reel and rod her since she first signed
on.

From how I interpreted her remarks, and from her familiarity
with the study's layout, I suspected that he had. Neither here nor
there, I thought, and didn't mention my opinion.

"If you call up there," I said, "you'll say that I showed. Say
I was termed. See if she's there. Say you'll be up this evening."

"Even if I went that won't go. What about Jimmy?"

"He'll have to drive us. With this Army gun I can overpower.
Then before we reach the estate I'll seclude myself. Once we
enter-"

"No," he said.

"Why no?"

"Drop it. Let him take his will, OM. I'll suffer my medicine.
We'll get you outcountried to wherever you want to go. You'll
have to stay once there, so choose a welcome spot. He'll never
know-"

"I don't want to leave," I said. "And what about Avalon?"

"What about her?"

"If she's alive still I'm not losing her," I said. "And I'm
finding out, whatever drops. "

"OM. It's her loss. Many await for ones like you."

But none are chosen, for having one such as Avalon, I set firm
that I would again have her for so long as she wished me. I wished
us together, and alive; still by the time I sat in Mister Dryden's
office, working my wiles to convince, I knew that could I be fast
in her arms again only in Godness's great yonder, that that should
be a greater joy-even if unseen, unheard, unfelt-than I would
ever again know while drawing poor breath.

"We can still overcome as you wished," I said, feeling the
need to set on grow great. "Three days you readied. Essential,
you said. You can't give in now."

"I can," he said. "We'll airport you. Land you on distant
shores till-"

"I'm going to the estate," I said, "and so are you. If we go
separately, he'll have us both. Together we make it. They won't
be ready for us both. You see that. I know you do-"

"OM," he said; calm damned the flood but for a moment, and
so the tears again overspilled. "We can't. That's all. Please. Quit
thinking about it. Sometimes things work. Sometimes they don't.
That's all-"

"Why can't we?"

"We can't."

"Why?"

"He meant his threat this time," he said, clasping his head
with both hands. "We can't-"

"Then he'll probably take me soon," I said. "I'll certify it, if
so. I want Avalon back."

"Forget her."

"I won't. I'll go get her. Alone I'll likely be got. Then one
day soon he'll take you too, if what you said holds. He won't
rest till you're-"

"Let him,'' Mister Dryden screamed, asylum loud; rising, he
fell forward onto the floor. Wailing without cease, he began
crawling away, digging his fingers deep into the carpet's heavy nap. "Let him kill me. I don't care anymore. Get it overed. Let
him!"

"I don't want him to kill me-"

"I wish he'd kill me," he sobbed. "I wish, I wish, I wish-"

No matter how poorly the reckers dealt him, no ho how business became, Mister Dryden had never lost so much ground as
this in my presence before. I rolled him onto his back and gently
tapped his face, attempting to seduce him into a more subdued
incoherence. It didn't work.

"What's the matter?" I said. "He's threatened before. You've
said. "

"Threats not so thorough," he cried. "Not like this."

"What's scaring you so?"

"I'm not going up there, OM," he said. He breathed with
effort, as if heavy rocks weighed upon his chest. "I'm not. Not
alone. Not with you."

"What'd he tell you he'd do?"

"Worry not, wond-"

It broke me to do it but I slapped him, hitting his cheek, trying
to create shock rather than pain.

"Avalon might be dead now," I shouted. "Tell me!"

"He said he'd do it," he said; a look settled upon him as if
he'd vizzed all his bone-dry ancestors rise to point fingers his
way-his face rinsed belly-white, his lips drew back in rigor, his
pupils grew as if he'd settled permanently into pitch. "He said if
I tried him again he'd do it. I promised I wouldn't. Throttler.
Me. You. I can't-"

"Do what?" I screamed. "I always hear about what he might
do but I never hear what it's supposed to be. What is it? What?"

"Awful," said Mister Dryden, his voice drifting, as if away
with the tide. "It's awful. He's always been able to do it. That's
why we get along so well. Those who have inkles do as he says
and tell all else to do likewise."

"But what can he do?"

"I can't tell you."

"Why not?" I said, shaking him like a terrier snapping a rat.

"I don't even know for sure," he said. "Fire's smoke. Hurricane's damp. The twister's stillness. That's all I know for sure.
Momma told me some but wouldn't say more. She knew all and
always had. She wanted to tell me. That's why he killed her."

Each blast of recollection, each rending admission, seemed as
he spoke to strip away the long years. The more he told of what
he'd muted so deep, the smaller and younger he seemed to become, as if he'd developed his guise while a boy and simply
perfected it with practice. His eyes dried; his fears peeled away
like wet veneer.

"What'd she tell you?" I asked, lowering my voice as if someone else might give ear.

"Everyone knows a little but each is kept in a different drawer.
The gov knows one thing. The Army, another. You've heard
things, I'm sure. I know a bit. Momma knew all. He knows all."

"What do you know?"

"He took it from the government. They didn't know they had
it. He didn't know he had it till he got it. He told them he had
it."

"That's circletalk-"

"That's what she told me, as she told it. He controls them all
by it. Sets them jumping hoops."

"But how does he do it? What could it possibly be?"

"It's something to do with the Pax," he said, whispering.

"The Pax?"

"The Pax Atomica," he said. "It doesn't work as it should."

The Pax Atomica was called, by those responsible for it, humankind's greatest achievement of the twentieth century, an admittedly slim field. The Pax Atomica was effected during the
Christian period; barely so, for the Christians that mattered at the
time were quite against it. The Pax Atomica decreed and promised that all nuclear weapons of all countries would be disposed of: taken apart and shot into space, and so they were. No matter
how our world might have seemed at times, we always had the
consoling knowledge that at least it would be here to provide a
place in which most might forever suffer.

"What do you mean it doesn't work as it should? How couldn't
it?"

"She wouldn't say. I think-"

"What?"

"I think she meant that some still exist. That he knows where.
That he'd use them-"

When the Pax Atomica effected, I was eleven; recalled only
vague tales of what those bombs, supposedly, could do. It was
another of those things of which no one spoke.

"Maybe he just wants people to think he's got them."

"He must have them. They'd have figured it out if he
didn't-"

"If he got info during the Ebb," I said-it all seemed clear to
me, then-` `which is what I've heard, then nobody around now
in the government or in the Army would know if it was really so
except for him. Don't you see? He could say any and all and
who'd be able to doubt?"

"That can't be the case."

"Because your mother thought otherwise? That's probably what
he wanted her to think. Look-"

"But she knew what it was, too."

"Then why didn't she tell you?"

"He killed her-"

"There must have been another reason. You know why they
never told you more? If everyone knows a lie's a lie, then the lie
doesn't do any good, does it?"

He said nothing; I still think he might have known more than
he ever let on. Matters began to develop a disconcerting feel;
unease settled deeper into my bones. I knew that whether he was
correct or not, there was little that could be done or undone any more. Still, an odd, new feeling developed; it was as if, while
attending Thanksgiving dinner at a distant relative's house, one
went to the kitchen after dessert to drop off the dishes and discovered, tucked beneath a dishcloth, an opened box of burgundyhued poison near the empty can of cranberry sauce. But more
selfish wishes propelled me, then, and my concerns for Avalon
blocked greater qualms than I might ordinarily have let myself
feel. I still thought that whatever the Old Man could do, with this
or any other, could not possibly be so dreadful as Mister Dryden
gave reason to believe.

"Come on," I said, tugging at his jacket's sleeves, "we're
going. Settle it and over it once done. Come on."

"No," he said, "OM, please no-" His grip on the rug
wouldn't loosen.

"There's no other way any more," I said. "You want to lie
down and roll over? That's what he expects. You want that?"

He rolled onto his back, appearing for a moment as if he were
beginning to give thought to my sense.

"There's no other way," I repeated. Maybe there was-I
couldn't think of any. As I looked into his face as he lay there,
for one evanescent moment his features brightened, as if clouds
thinned enough to let ooze one ray of sunlight past to wash his
face. The pinkish color returned to his skin; his hands relaxed
their hold on the carpet. He breathed deeply, several times, and
sighed.

"You're right," he said, very quietly. "There's no other way."

"Exactly," I said, attempting to think of ways I might further
settle his soul and steady his nerves. Taking his hands, I helped
him sit up. "We'll take it as it falls. You can count on me."