The Damnation Game (27 page)

“You shouted,” he explained. “I heard you shout.”

She didn’t remember doing so. “I want Marty,” she told him.

“No,” he replied politely.

“Where is he?” she demanded, and made a move, albeit weakly, toward the open door.

“I said no!” He stepped in her path. He didn’t need to touch her.

His very proximity was sufficient to halt her. She contemplated trying to slip by him, and out into the hallway, but how far could she get before he caught her? There were two basic rules when dealing with mad dogs and psychotics. The first: don’t run. The second: show no fear. When he reached out toward her she tried not to recoil.

“I won’t let anybody hurt you,” he said. He ran the ball of his thumb across the back of her hand, finding a speck of sweat there, and brushing it away. His stroke was feather-light; and ice-cold.

“Will you let me look after you, pretty?” he asked.

She said nothing; his touch appalled her. Not for the first time tonight she wished she weren’t a sensitive: she’d never felt such distress at another human’s touch.

“I would like to make you comfortable,” he was saying. “Share …” He stopped, as though the words escaped him. “… your secrets.”

She looked up into his face. The muscles of his jaw fluttered as he made his proposals, nervous as an adolescent.

“And in return,” he proposed, “I’ll show you my secrets. You want to see?”

He didn’t wait for an answer. His hand had plunged into the pocket of his stained jacket and was taking out a clutch of razors. Their edges glinted. It was too absurd: like a fairground sideshow, but played without the razzmatazz. This clown, smelling of sandalwood, was about to eat razors to win her love. He put out his dry tongue and laid the first blade on it.

She didn’t like this one bit; razors made her nervous, and always had.

“Don’t,” she said.

“It’s all right,” he told her, swallowing hard. “I’m the last of the tribe. See?” He opened his mouth and put out his tongue. “All gone.”

“Extraordinary,” she said. It was. Revolting, but extraordinary.

“That’s not all,” he said, pleased by her response.

It was best to let him go on with this bizarre display, she reasoned. The longer he took showing her these perversities, the more chance there was of Marty coming back.

“What else can you do?” she asked.

He let go of her hand and started to unbuckle his belt.

“I’ll show you,” he replied, unbuttoning.

Oh, Christ
, she thought,
stupid, stupid, stupid
. His arousal at this exhibition was absolutely plain even before he had his trousers down.

“I’m past pain now,” he explained courteously. “No pain, whatever I do to myself. The Razor-Eater feels nothing.”

He was naked beneath his trousers. “See?” he said, proudly.

She saw. His groin was completely shaved, and the region sported an array of self-inflicted adornments. Hooks and rings transfixing the fat of his lower belly and his genitals. His testicles bristled with needles.

“Touch me,” he invited.

“No … thank you,” she said.

He frowned; his upper lip curled to expose teeth that in his pale flesh looked bright yellow.

“I want you to touch me,” he said, and reached for her.

“Breer.”

The Razor-Eater stood absolutely still. Only his eyes flickered.

“Let her alone.”

She knew the voice; too well. It was the Architect, of course; her dreamguide.

“I didn’t hurt her,” Breer mumbled. “Did I? Tell him I didn’t hurt you.”

“Cover yourself up,” the European said.

Breer hoisted up his trousers like a boy caught masturbating, and moved away from Carys, throwing her a conspiratorial glance. Only now did the speaker come into the steam room. He was taller than she’d dreamed he’d be, and more doleful.

“I’m sorry,” he said. His tone was that of the perfect maitre d’, apologizing for a gauche waiter.

“She was sick,” Breer said. “That’s why I broke in.”

“Sick?”

“Talking to the wall,” he blustered. “Calling after her mother.”

The Architect understood the observation immediately. He looked at Carys keenly.

“So you saw?” he said.

“What was it?”

“Nothing you need ever suffer again,” he replied.

“My mother was there. Evangeline.”

“Forget it all,” he said. “That horror’s for others, not for you.”

Listening to his calm voice was mesmeric. She found it difficult to recall her nightmares of nullity; his presence canceled memory.

“I think perhaps you should come with me,” he said.

“Why?”

“Your father’s going to die, Carys.”

“Oh?” she said.

She felt utterly removed from herself. Fears were a thing of the past in his courteous presence.

“If you stay here, you’ll only suffer with him, and there’s no need for that.”

It was a seductive offer; never to live under the old man’s thumb again, never to endure his kisses, that tasted so old. Carys glanced at Breer.

“Don’t be afraid of him,” the Architect reassured her, laying a hand on the back of her neck. “He is nothing and no one. You’re safe with me.”

“She could run away,” Breer protested, when the European had let Carys go off to her room to gather up her belongings.

“She will never leave me,” Mamoulian replied. “I mean her no harm and she knows it. I rocked her once, in these arms.”

“Naked, was she?”

“A tiny thing: so vulnerable.” His voice dropped to a near-whisper: “She deserved better than him.”

Breer said nothing; simply lolled insolently against the wall, peeling dried blood from under his nails with a razor. He was deteriorating faster than the European had anticipated. He’d hoped Breer would survive until all of this chaos was over, but knowing the old man, he’d wheedle and prevaricate, and what should have taken days would occupy weeks, by which time the Razor-Eater’s condition would be poor indeed. The European felt weary. Finding and controlling a substitute for Breer would be a drain on his already depleted energies.

Presently, Carys came downstairs.

In some ways he regretted losing his spy in the enemy camp, but there were too many variables remaining if he didn’t take her. For one, she had knowledge of him, deeper knowledge than she was perhaps aware of. She knew instinctively his terrors of the flesh; witness the way she had driven him out when she and Strauss had been together. She knew too his weariness, his dwindling faith. But there was another reason to take her. Whitehead had said that she was his only comfort. If they took her now the pilgrim would be alone, and that would be agony. Mamoulian trusted it would prove unendurable.

Chapter 39

A
fter searching as much of the grounds as was lit by the floodlights, and finding no sign of Whitehead, Marty went back upstairs. It was time to break Whitehead’s commandment, and look for the old man in forbidden territory. The door to the room at the end of the top corridor, beyond Carys’ and Whitehead’s bedroom was closed. Heart in mouth, Marty approached, and tapped on it.

“Sir?”

At first there was no sound from within. Then came Whitehead’s voice; vague, as if woken from sleep: “Who is it?”

“Strauss, sir.”

“Come in.”

Marty pushed the door gently and it swung open.

When he had imagined the interior of this room it had always been a treasure house. But the truth was quite the reverse. The room was Spartan: its white walls and its spare furnishings a chilly spectacle. It did boast one treasure. An altarpiece stood against one of the bare walls, its richness quite out of place in such an austere setting. Its central panel was a crucifixion of sublime sadism; all gold and blood.

Its owner sat, dressed in an opulent dressing gown, at the far end of the room, behind a large table. He looked at Marty with neither welcome nor accusation on his face, his body slumped in the chair like a sack.

“Don’t stand in the doorway, man. Come in.”

Marty closed the door behind him.

“I know what you told me, sir, about never coming up here. But I was afraid something had happened to you.”

“I’m alive,” Whitehead said, spreading his hands. “All’s well.”

“The dogs—”

“—are dead. I know. Sit.”

He gestured to the empty chair opposite him across the table.

“Shouldn’t I call the police?”

“There’s no need.”

“They could still be on the premises.”

Whitehead shook his head. “They’ve gone. Sit down, Martin. Pour yourself a glass of wine. You look as if you’ve been running hard.”

Marty pulled out the chair that had been neatly placed under the table and sat down. The unadorned bulb that burned in the middle of the room threw an unflattering light on everything. Heavy shadows, ghastly highlights: a ghost show.

“Put down the gun. You won’t be needing it.”

He lay the weapon down on the table beside the plate, on which there were still several wafer-thin slices of meat. Beyond the plate, a bowl of strawberries, partially devoured, and a glass of water. The frugality of the meal matched the environment: the meat, sliced to the point of transparency, rare and moist; the casual arrangement of cups and strawberry bowl. An arbitrary precision invested everything, an eerie sense of chance beauty. Between Marty and Whitehead a mote of dust turned in the air, fluctuating between the light bulb and table, its direction influenced by the merest exhalation.

“Try the meat, Martin.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“It’s superb. My guest brought it.”

“You know who they are, then.”

“Yes, of course. Now eat.”

Reluctantly Marty cut a piece of the slice in front of him, and tasted it. The texture dissolved on the tongue, delicate and appetizing.

“Finish it off,” Whitehead said.

Marty did as the old man had invited: the night’s exertions had given him an appetite. A glass of red wine was poured for him; he drank it down.

“Your head’s full of questions, no doubt,” Whitehead said. “Please ask away. I’ll do my best to answer.”

“Who are they?” he asked.

“Friends.”

“They broke in like assassins.”

“Is it not possible that friends, with time, can become assassins?” Marty hadn’t been prepared for that particular paradox. “One of them sat where you’re sitting now.”

“How can I be your bodyguard if I don’t know your friends from your enemies?”

Whitehead paused, and looked hard at Marty.

“Do you care?” he asked after a beat.

“You’ve been good to me,” Marty replied, insulted by the inquiry. “What kind of coldhearted bastard do you take me for?”

“My God …” Whitehead shook his head. “Marty …”

“
Explain to me
. I want to help.”

“Explain what?”

“How you can invite a man who wants to kill you to eat dinner with you.”

Whitehead watched the dust mote turning between them. He either thought the question beneath contempt, or had no answer for it.

“You want to help me?” he said eventually. “Then bury the dogs.”

“Is that all I’m good for?”

“The time may come—”

“So you keep telling me,” Marty said, standing up. He wasn’t going to get any answers; that much was apparent. Just meat and good wine. Tonight, that wasn’t enough.

“Can I go now?” he asked, and without waiting for a reply turned his back on the old man and went to the door.

As he opened it, Whitehead said: “Forgive me,” very quietly. So quietly in fact that Marty wasn’t sure whether the words were intended for him or not.

He closed the door behind him and went back through the house to check that the intruders had indeed gone; they had. The steam room was empty. Carys had obviously returned to her room.

Feeling insolent, he slipped into the study and poured himself a treble whisky from the decanter, and then sat in Whitehead’s chair by the window, sipping and thinking. The alcohol did nothing for the clarity of his mind: it simply dulled the ache of frustration he felt. He slipped away to bed before dawn described the ragged bundles of fur on the lawn too distinctly.

VII

No Limits

Chapter 40

I
t was no morning for burying dead dogs; the sky was too high and promising. Jets, trailing vapor, crossed to America, the woods budded and winged with life. Still, the work had to be done, however inappropriate.

Only by the uncompromising light of day was it possible to see the full extent of the slaughter. In addition to killing the dogs around the house, the intruders had broken into the kennels and systematically murdered all its occupants, including Bella and her offspring. When Marty arrived at the kennels Lillian was already there. She looked as though she’d been weeping for days. In her hands she cradled one of the pups. Its head had been crushed, as if in a vise.

“Look,” she said, proffering the corpse.

Marty hadn’t managed to eat anything for breakfast: the thought of the job ahead had taken the edge off his appetite. Now he wished he’d forced something down: his empty belly echoed on itself. He felt almost lightheaded.

“If only I’d been here,” she said.

“You probably would have ended up dead yourself,” he told her. It was the simple truth.

She laid the pup back on the straw, and stroked the matted fur of Bella’s body. Marty was more fastidious than she. Even wearing a pair of thick leather gloves he didn’t want to touch the corpses. But whatever he lacked in respect he made up for in efficiency, using his disgust as a spur to hurry the work along. Lillian, though she had insisted on being there to help, was useless in the face of the fact. All she could do was watch while

Marty wrapped the bodies in black plastic refuse bags, loaded the forlorn parcels into the back of the jeep, and then drove this makeshift hearse across to a clearing he’d chosen in the woods. It was here that they were to be buried, at Whitehead’s request, out of sight of the house. He’d brought two spades, hoping that Lillian would assist, but she was clearly incapable. He was left to do it single-handed, while she stood, hands thrust into the pockets of her filthy anorak, staring at the leaking bundles.