The Damnation Game (41 page)

He took a step back at the ferocity of her order. What the hell had they done to her?

She sat up fully, and put her head between her legs, elbows on her knees.

“Wait …” she said, still whispering.

Her breath became very regular. He waited, aware for the first time that the room seemed to buzz. Perhaps not just the room: perhaps this whine—as if a generator were humming away to itself somewhere in the building—had been in the air since he’d first come in. If so, he hadn’t noticed it. Now, waiting for her to finish whatever ritual she was engaged upon, it irritated him. Subtle, yet so pervasive it was impossible, after a few seconds of hearing it, to know if it were more than a whine in the inner ear. He swallowed hard: his sinuses clicked. The sound went on, a monotone. At last, Carys looked up.

“It’s all right,” she said. “He isn’t here.”

“I could have told you that. He left the house two hours ago. I watched him go.”

“He doesn’t need to be here physically,” she said, rubbing the back of her neck.

“Are you all right?”

“I’m fine.” From the tone of her voice they might have seen each other only the day before. He felt foolish, as though his relief, his desire to pick her up and run, was inappropriate, even redundant.

“We have to go,” he said. “They may come back.”

She shook her head. “No use,” she told him.

“What do you mean, no use?”

“If you knew what he can do.”

“Believe me, I’ve seen.”

He thought of Bella, poor dead Bella, with her pups suckling rot. He’d seen enough, and more.

“There’s no use trying to escape,” she insisted. “He’s got access to my head. I’m an open book to him.” This was an overstatement. He was less and less able to control her. But she was tired of the fight: almost as tired as the European. She wondered sometimes if he hadn’t infected her with his world-weariness; if a trace of him in her cortex hadn’t tainted every possibility with the knowledge of its dissolution. She saw that now, in Marty, whose face she’d dreamed, whose body she’d wanted. Saw how he would age, would wind down and die, as everything wound down and died. Why stand up at all, the disease in her system asked, if it’s only a matter of time before you fall down again?

“Can’t you block him out?” Marty demanded.

“I’m too weak to resist him. With you I’ll be weaker still.”

“Why?” The remark appalled him.

“As soon as I relax, he’ll get through. Do you see? The moment I surrender to anything, anyone, he can break in.”

Marty thought about Carys’ face on the pillow, and the way, for an insane moment, another face had seemed to peer down between her fingers.

The Last European had been watching, even then; sharing the experience. A ménage a trois for male, female and occupying spirit. Its obscenity touched deeper chords of anger in him: not the superficial rage of a righteous man, but a profound rejection of the European in all his decadence. Whatever happened as a consequence, he would not be talked into leaving Carys to Mamoulian’s devices. If need be he’d take her against her will. When she was out of this buzzing house, with the despair peeling the wallpaper, she’d remember how good life could be; he’d make her remember. He stepped toward her again, and went down on his haunches to touch her. She flinched.

“He’s occupied—” he reassured her, “—he’s at the casino.”

“He’ll kill you,” she said simply, “if he finds you’ve been here.”

“He’ll kill me whatever happens now. I’ve interfered. I’ve seen his hidey-hole, and I’m going to do damage to it before we go, just so he remembers me.”

“Do whatever you want to do.” She shrugged. “It’s up to you. But leave me be.”

“So Papa was right,” Marty said bitterly.

“Papa? What did he tell you?”

“That you wanted to be with Mamoulian all along.”

“No.”

“You want to be
like
him!”

“No, Marty,
no
!”

“I suppose he supplies the best-quality dope, eh? And I can’t, can I?” She didn’t deny this; just looked sullen. “What the fuck am I doing here?” he said. “You’re happy, aren’t you? Christ; you’re happy.”

It was laughable to think how he’d misunderstood the politics of this rescue. She was content in this hovel, as long as she was supplied. Her talk of Mamoulian’s invasions was window dressing. In her heart she could forgive him every crime he perpetrated as long as the dope kept coming.

He stood up. “Where’s his room?”

“No, Marty.”

“I want to see where he sleeps. Where is it?”

She pulled herself up on his arm. Her hands were hot and damp.

“Please leave, Marty. This isn’t a game. It’s not all going to be forgiven when we come to the end, you know? It doesn’t even stop when you die. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

“Oh, yes,” he said, “I understand.” He put his palm on her face.

Her breath smelled sour. His too, he thought, but for the whisky.

“I’m not an innocent any longer. I know what’s going on. Not all of it, but enough. I’ve seen things I pray I never see again; I’ve heard stories … Christ, I understand.” How could he impress it upon her forcibly enough? “I’m shit-scared. I’ve never been so scared in my life.”

“You’ve got reason,” she said coldly.

“Don’t you care what happens to you?”

“Not much.”

“I’ll find you dope,” he said. “If that’s all that’s keeping you here; I’ll get it for you.” Did a doubt cross her face? He pressed the point home. “I saw you looking for me at the funeral.”

“You were there?”

“Why were you looking if you didn’t want me to come?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. I thought maybe you’d gone with Papa.”

“Dead, you mean?”

She frowned at him. “No. Gone away. Wherever he’s gone.”

It took a moment for her words to sink in. At last, he said: “You mean he’s not dead?”

She shook her head. “I thought you knew. I thought you’d be involved with his getaway.”

Of course the old bastard wasn’t dead. Great men didn’t just lie down and die offstage. They bided their time through the middle acts—revered, mourned and vilified—before appearing to play some final scene or other. A death scene; a marriage.

“Where is he?” Marty asked.

“I don’t know, and neither does Mamoulian. He tried to get me to find him, the way I found Toy; but I can’t do it. I’ve lost focus. I even tried to find you once. It was useless. I could scarcely think my way beyond the front door.”

“But you found Toy?”

“That was at the beginning. Now … I’m used up. I tell him it hurts. Like something’s going to break inside me.” Pain, remembered and actual, registered on her face.

“And you still want to stay?”

“It’ll be over soon. For all of us.”

“Come with me. I’ve got friends who can help us,” he appealed to her, gripping her wrists. “Gentle God, can’t you see I need you? Please. I need you.”

“I’m no use. I’m weak.”

“Me too. I’m weak too. We deserve each other.”

The thought, in its cynicism, seemed to please her. She pondered it a moment before saying, “Maybe we do,” very quietly. Her face was a maze of indecision; dope and doubt. Finally she said: “I’ll dress.”

He hugged her, hard, breathing the staleness of her hair, knowing that this first victory might be his only one, but jubilating nevertheless.

She gently broke his embrace and turned to the business of preparing to go.

He watched her while she pulled on her jeans, but her self-consciousness made him leave her to it. He stepped onto the landing. Out of her presence, the hum filled his ears; louder now, he thought, than it had been.

Switching on his flashlight he climbed the last flight of stairs to Mamoulian’s room. With each step he took the whine deepened; it sounded in the boards of the stairs and in the walls—a living presence.

On the top landing there was only one door; the room beyond it apparently spread over the entire top floor. Mamoulian, the natural aristocrat, had taken the choicest space for himself. The door had been left open. The European feared no intruder. When Marty pushed, it swung inward a few inches, but his reluctant flashlight beam failed to penetrate more than an arm’s length into the darkness beyond. He stood on the threshold like a child hesitating in front of a ghost-train ride.

During his peripheral association with Mamoulian he had come to feel an intense curiosity about the man. There was harm there, no doubt of that, perhaps terrible capacities for violence. But just as Mamoulian’s face had appeared beneath Carys’, there was probably a face under that of the European. More than one, perhaps. Half a hundred faces, each stranger than the one before, regressing toward some state that was older than Bethlehem. He had to have one peep, didn’t he? One look, for old times’ sake. Girding his loins, he pushed forward into the living darkness of the room.

“Marty!”

Something flickered in front of him, a bubble burst in his head as Carys called up to him.

“Marty! I’m ready!” The hum in the room seemed to have risen as he entered. Now, as he withdrew, it lowered itself to a moan of disappointment.
Don’t go
, it seemed to sigh.
Why go? She can wait. Let her wait. Stay awhile up here and see what’s to be seen
.

“There’s no time,” Carys said.

Almost angered to have been summoned away, Marty closed the door on the voice, and went down.

“I don’t feel good,” she said, when he joined her on the lower landing.

“Is it him? Is he trying to get to you?”

“No. I’m just dizzy. I didn’t realize that I’d got so weak.”

“There’s a car outside,” he said, offering a supportive hand. She waved him off.

“There’s a parcel of my things,” she said. “In the room.”

He went back to get it, and was picking it up when she made a small noise of complaint, and stumbled on the stairs.

“Are you all right?”

“Yes,” she said. When he appeared on the stairs beside her, pillowcase parcel in hand, she gave him an ashen look. “The house wants me to stay,” she whispered.

“We’ll take it steady,” he said, and went ahead of her, for fear she stumble again. They reached the hallway without further incident.

“We can’t go by the front door,” she said. “It’s double-locked from the outside.”

As they made their way back through the hall, they heard the unmistakable sound of the back door opening.

“Shit,” Marty said, under his breath. He let go of Carys’ arm and slipped back through the gloom to the front door, and tried to open it. It was, as Carys had warned, double-locked. Panic was rising in him, but in its confusion a still voice, which he knew to be the voice of the room, said:
No need to worry. Come up. Be safe in me. Hide in me
. He thrust the temptation aside. Carys’ face was turned to his:

“It’s Breer,” she breathed. The dog-killer was in the kitchen.

Marty could hear him, smell him. Carys tapped at Marty’s sleeve, and pointed to a bolted door under the well of the stairs. Cellar, he guessed. White-faced in the murk, she pointed down. He nodded.

Breer, about some business, was singing to himself. Strange, to think of him happy, this lumbering slaughterer; content enough with his lot to sing.

Carys had slid the bolt open on the cellar door. Steps, dimly illuminated by the thrown light from the kitchen, led down into the pit. A smell of disinfectant and wood shaving: healthy smells. They crept down the stairs; cringing at each scraped heel, each creaking step. But the Razor-Eater was too busy to hear, it seemed. There was no howl of pursuit. Marty closed the cellar door on them, desperately hoping Breer would not notice that the bolts had been drawn, and listened.

In time, the sound of running water; then the clink of cups, a teapot perhaps: the monster was brewing chamomile.

Breer’s senses were not as acute as they had been. The heat of the summer made him listless and weak. His skin smelled, his hair was falling out, his bowels would scarcely move these days. He needed a holiday, he’d decided. Once the European had found Whitehead, and dispatched him—and that was surely only a matter of days away—he’d go and see the aurora borealis.

That would mean leaving his houseguest—he felt her proximity, mere feet away—but by that time she would have lost her appeal anyway. He was more fickle than he used to be, and beauty was transient. In two weeks, three in cool weather, all their charms dispersed.

He sat down at the table and poured a cup of the chamomile. Its scent, once a great joy to him, was too subtle for his dogged sinuses, but he drank it for tradition’s sake. Later he’d go up to his room and watch the soap operas he loved so much; maybe he’d look in on Carys and watch her while she slept; oblige her, if she woke, to pass water in his presence.

Lost in a reverie of toilet training, he sat and sipped his tea.

Marty had hoped the man would retire to his room with his brew, leaving them access to the back door, but Breer was clearly staying put for awhile.

He reached back in the dark to Carys. She was on the stairs behind him, trembling from head to toe, as was he. Foolishly he’d left his jimmy, his only weapon, somewhere in the house; probably in Carys’ room. Should it come to a face-to-face confrontation, he was weaponless. Worse; time was passing. How long before Mamoulian came home? His heart sank at the thought. He slid down the stairs, hands on the cold brick of the wall, past Carys and into the body of the cellar itself. Perhaps there was a weapon of some kind down here. Even, hope of hopes, another exit from the house. There was very little light, however. He could see no chinks to suggest a trapdoor or coalhole. Certain that he was out of direct line with the door, he switched on his flashlight. The cellar was not entirely empty. There was a tarpaulin strung up to divide it, an artificial wall.

He put his hand up to the low roof and guided himself across the cellar step by tentative step, clinging to the pipes on the ceiling for equilibrium. He pulled the tarpaulin aside, and aimed the flashlight beam into the space beyond. As he did so his stomach leaped up into his mouth. A cry almost came; he stifled it an instant before it escaped.