The Sanity's Edge Saloon (The Sea and the Wasteland Book 1) (41 page)

But if that was true then Jack was
crazy.

Brother Bartholomew regaled him with
the tale of his Call to God, and his conclusion after wandering the edge of the
great desert—what he assured Alex was the wasteland from which he came—to come
to Janus and help the goodly people there
overcome
; that was the word he
used. “The
Third Book of Revised Prophets and Revelations
is quite clear
about the coming of the Red Knight who will precede Armageddon. There can be no
stopping what He has set in motion. But in finding you, I am sure that God has
seen something worthy in us. Why send those to fight for goodness, if there is
no goodness to be saved, and no fight to be won?” He did not wait for an
answer. “We shall endeavor to overcome, and, in so doing, prevent Armageddon.
God willing.”

Alex paused, not for consideration of
Bartholomew’s quandary over the flexibility of prophecy, but because the road
turned, affording him his first glimpse of the legendary city of gateways.

Janus spread across the whole of the
canyon floor, a thick, mountainous clog in the cracked earth, pushing from side
to side and from the bottom of the canyon all the way to the top. Tiers and
layers and towers and buildings all jammed together like an intricate mash of
toys, the sole purpose seemingly to jam the way through the valley so that none
could pass save by going through the city. A collection of walls and scaffolds
glittering with torches and window lights against the encroaching darkness, its
rusted steel laid bare by wounds in its concrete flesh leaving brown stains of
corrosion against the white limestone, metal surfaces blackened with grease and
soot. Alex’s first thought was of something cancerous, a malignant growth that
needed to be excised, cut from the channel of the living rock, sealed in a bag
marked “biological waste,” and burned somewhere with no due humanity.

“Magnificent!”

Alex turned, unaware until
Bartholomew had spoken that the man had stopped his pace, stopped his incessant
babbling, and was now standing beside him, tourists at a scenic overlook.

“That’s Janus?” Alex asked, thinking
it belonged on a heavy metal album cover or in some bad, post-apocalyptic
B-movie where science fiction and fantasy were swirled together in a blender.
It was not what he imagined for the final battleground in a holy war. Bristling
with pipes and girders and half-finished buildings, it hunched before them on
powerful legs of stoutly constructed buildings like all the skyscrapers of a
single mega-city tumbled over the edge into a glom and held together with epoxy
and bailing wire. The city was an affront to the senses, an abomination, a…

(It’s
where you’re supposed to be
.)

The realization ignited in his brain,
undeniable, like his intimate knowledge of weapons he had never seen nor held.
There were things to be done here before he could go on; go elsewhere. This
absurdist’s Tower of Babel was his destiny, a fact he knew both intuitively and
absolutely.

“
Jack
,” he whispered, the word
little more than a hiss of breath.

“What was that?”

(
remember … remember …)

“Have you ever heard of the lady of
dark November?” Alex asked.

“No,” Bartholomew said, “I can’t say
as I have. What is it?”

“I’m not sure,” Alex said. “It’s just
something I’m trying to figure out. How soon before we get there?”

“Half an hour, if we hurry,” Brother
Bartholomew offered.

“Then we hurry,” Alex said, and
started off down the road leading to the base of the sprawling city.

Brother Bartholomew trotted up behind
him. “I understand,” he said. “I have felt the urgency of His call as well. But
if you work up a sweat now, you’ll be cold when we reach the bottom. Cradled in
the earth as it is, Janus is well protected, but the nights are very cool.”

Alex pressed on, actually walking a
little faster. “I have to get down there. Tonight.” He could not explain his
certainty, but could not deny it either.

(Tomorrow will be too late—)

“—too late,” Bartholomew was telling
him. “Janus has a curfew, after which pilgrims like us must wait until the
following morning. See there.” The friar pointed at something dotting the area
outside the city gates, specks of light and small shapes. At the foot of Janus
lay a tent city, a makeshift squatter’s settlement. “Janus is already closed
for the night.”

Alex stared more closely, gaze
following along the length of the friar’s arm to the massive iron gateway that
led inside. It was shut tight, Janus closed to all newcomers until the morning.

“Before the signs, before the mist
and the blood-colored moon, Janus was open day and night, receiving messengers
and statesmen and pilgrims and all manner of traders and traveling salesman and
carpet-baggers through all hours.” Bartholomew shrugged apologetically. “These
are hard times.”

Together, they stared down upon the
darkening city, pilgrims swimming in the darkness like insects before the
enormous gates that shown back at him like a tiny mouth upon the city’s mass,
lips pursed over tightly clamped teeth. It was as if the city of Janus was caught in a snarl that would last until dawn. Staring, Alex could almost hear
it, the low, threatening rumble that could turn so quickly if the beast was
roused, cornered,
threatened
.

Brother Bartholomew worked to console
him. “Don’t worry. We’ll be fine, you and I. We’ll find some goodly pilgrims
willing to part with some of their stew and a seat by their fire, and we’ll
camp this night under the spread of heaven. And before the dawn’s light settles
upon the valley floor, we shall be entering the city of gateways.” He smiled
generously, and clapped Alex on the back. “Come on. There’s nothing we can do
about it now. Let’s hurry before this mist gets any thicker.”

Alex nodded, still unable to quell
the impression that he should be inside of the city—not tomorrow, but tonight!
Tomorrow was too late; too late by forever.

But Bartholomew was right. Unless he
could scale ten-story walls, he was stuck waiting outside Janus until morning.

“We’ll be all right, you’ll see,”
Bartholomew said, teeth white in the darkness, eyes glittering motes. “And
tomorrow, the city will welcome us with open arms.”

Alex said nothing, allowing
Bartholomew to lead the way, their pace slowing to something more cautious for
the gathering darkness and obscuring fog of nightfall. He rummaged through the
large satchel as he walked, searching for something to ward off the cold. But the
only thing in the bag besides bullets was a scarf; not of any great help, he
supposed, but better than nothing. He could already see the first frosty hints
of his breath clouding the air, the sweat upon his neck and forehead prickling
coolly on his skin.

He looped the scarf around his neck,
and immediately felt better; not simply warmer, but
better
. The
foreboding sense from the city was gone as if he had just found a suitable
charm to shield him against its dark presence, an amulet no different than the collection
of medallions and crosses the wandering friar wore, that desperate reassurance
for the faithful when faith was in doubt. It made him feel better, less afraid
for the future. Like the weapons he wore, somehow this was a part of his new
reality.

The scarf was red.

FOUR: PLIGHT OF THE

COMMON MAN

For Leland Quince, the trip through
reality was neither drawn out nor elaborate: one moment, he was aboard a subway
car, staring through grime-smeared windows and trying to ignore the stench of
underlying urine beneath old vinyl and dirt, and the next he was curled on his
side in a fetal ball getting the shit kicked out of him.

How the world turns.

“How many times do we have to explain
this to you, Quincey?”

Leland tried to look up and was
rewarded with a hard blow to the cheek, a punch from a thickly gnarled fist
that felt like a knot of solid oak. His head rocked down, bounced against
pavement, and he saw only a brief flash of stars before managing to bury his
head back under his arms.

So they kicked him in the stomach.

“It’s really very simple,” the
speaker continued. “The city’s a dangerous place. You pay us to keep you safe,
make sure no one fucks with your cab or knifes you while you’re takin’ a piss
in an alley. You understand how that works don’t you, Quincy?”

Leland spread his elbows apart,
peering through the gap. A tall, lanky man wearing round, black lenses stared
at him, fingers caressing a long, black baton. Beside him was the man’s
opposite: wide as an ox, broad shoulders and a shelf for a brow, a brutish
expression of pleasure on an enormous horse jaw complete with a grotesque
underbite and jutting teeth. The only thing they had in common was police
uniforms.

“I asked you if you understood,
Quincey?” the tall man pressed.

When Leland didn’t answer, the lanky
man nodded to the other, who immediately punched Leland in the groin.

He felt the air rush from his lungs,
his neck and face bulging as if to contain an explosion. For one moment, he was
blind, his vision a sheet of black and gray, the world disappearing behind an
envelope of pain so great that it overloaded his nervous system. His throat
gagged and choked emptily, wanting to vomit or maybe just to die. Maybe both in
no particular order. Just pain pulsing upwards, slow at first, as if the nerves
had been overloaded, old circuits temporarily offline. Then the pain turned
into something greater than the word itself could describe, and he actually did
gag, throwing up a gout of air and something bitter and yellow that dribbled
down his cheek. His hands fell away from his face in a belated effort to cover
his crotch, their movements slow and tremulous. He wanted to scream, but their
was nothing in his lungs and no impression on even the most primitive level to
suggest it would do anything but prolong his agony.

The lanky man leaned over, hands on
his knees, a smile on his spectacled face. “I guess I’ll have to take that
strange mewling sound you’re making as a yes, hey Quincey?”

Without knowing it, Leland’s neck
creaked in a nod; a reflexive response, the pain bidding his body take over
where his rational brain had so completely failed.

“We’re really a couple o’ good guys,
me and Grude.” The hairy brute behind the smaller man smiled, displaying even
more of the protruding lower teeth, some pointed like an animal’s. “We’ll keep
the junkie’s off your cab, make ‘em stick to mugging old folks for flop funds.
And we’ll make sure the hops and doormen don’t blow you out for parking near
their buildings without kickbacks. We’re a full-service operation, Quincey. We
look after our members, twenty-four/seven. Thirty-five a week’s not so bad when
you think of it that way. You hustle, you can make that in a couple days. The
rest is all gravy. Ain’t that so, Grude?” The large cop nodded his agreement,
saying nothing.

The businessman could only stare, his
face bright red, shivering from alternating flashes of fever and cold.
What
was he doing here? What was going on? Could this actually be…?

“
Jack
?” the word slipped past
his lips like a breath, a singular curse above all other forms of profanity or
sacrilege.

The gangly cop’s hand shot out
snake-quick, catching Leland’s collar and jerking him to within a bare six
inches. His breath smelled of cigarettes and garlic, the reek of bad aftershave
barely covering an animal stink. “Don’t you make the mistake of trying to
report us again, Quincy, or you might find yourself with real problems; you got
me? It’s a dangerous city. Lots o’ people. And no one gives a shit about what
happens down here in the cracks. You might find yourself jumped in an alley
just like this one. Perp might gut you and leave you to die with your bowels
hanging out of a hole in your belly. Slow and messy. And ain’t nobody gonna
regard your death as anything more than another job-opening, relief for the big
pool of the unemployed, so to speak.”

The large cop reached into Leland’s
pocket and pulled out his wallet. He tipped it open and shook it, disclosing
six dollars in greasy, tattered ones and a couple pieces of paper, sales slips
and business cards that had likely spent their lives in there and would leave
as fragments of lint, worn away a little at a time until they simply
disappeared. He dropped the empty wallet and retrieved the bills, thick fingers
ending in yellowed, claw-like nails.

“Have the balance by tomorrow night,
Quincey, and you’ll be a member in good standing again.” The large one was
already leaving, the other following close behind. “Remember, if you’re not
inside, you’re outside. And no one wants to be outside.”

Then he was alone.

Leland Quince crawled to his knees,
new agonies alluding to blows he did not remember receiving; ones suffered
before he
actually
arrived, while he was still aboard the train. But
somehow he had been here—he had
always
been here!

It didn’t make sense. Nothing made
sense!

He gathered his wallet and the errant
scraps. Besides a driver’s license and a cab permit, he had several small notes
scrawled on worn and folded slips, more of the same pieces that had fallen to
the ground. He recognized the information as stock tickers and prices, but saw
nothing familiar. Several were crossed out. Maybe failures, or maybe he’d
bought them already. But if so, what had he bought them with? His empty wallet
and cabbie permit, the heavy flannel shirt over a T-shirt, his tasteless,
brown, bargain shoes worn nearly through in the sole all spoke to his financial
position. He might have a few dollars at home, likely stashed in a coffee can
because stuffing it under his mattress would seem …
cliché
.

“Bet you think you fucked me over
real good, Jack.”

The alleyway offered no reply.

Leland climbed slowly to his feet,
wall at his back. His pants, threadbare khakis darkened with mismatched
splotches of unremembered residue, pulled tightly at his crotch. He tugged the
fly, trying to give his aching testicles some relief; enough so that he could
shuffle out of the alley before the two cops decided to return. He felt all the
stabs and twinges of someone who had been badly beaten. His mouth tasted like
salted copper; roving his tongue around it revealed a swollen lip mangled on
the inside near the ridge of his teeth. He desperately wanted a drink, though
he doubted he could afford it. But it would be worth it just to dull the pain
for a short while.

Anything was better than this.

He made his way across the empty
street to a small diner, the sun just cresting the horizon, pale in an overcast
sky, frozen and lightless and promising many more miserable days just like this
one. The bite in the wind suggested winter was not far away, and it would be
very cold.

Sandwiched between vintage
automobiles—
not vintage here
—was a yellow-checkered taxi—
his cab!
—the
OFF DUTY
sign lit up on the top. He knew just
by looking at it that the heater didn’t work very well, that the brakes were
beginning to slip; it didn’t always turn over right away when it was cold, and
winter mornings were always brutally cold here (
wherever here was
?). The
front seat smelled like a dozen different car fresheners, none of which fully
concealed the stale smell of human excretions saturating the fabric, haunting
his cab (
his cab?)
forever.

Despair crept at the edge of his
thoughts, and he turned quickly and went into the diner. There was nothing in
the cab that could help him, the certainty of that scaring him more than
anything or anyone he had encountered so far. It was not the lack of aid, but
that he
knew
it. He
knew
it the same way he
knew
where he
was. He was not misplaced. This was exactly where he was supposed to be, where
he had always been—
where Jack put him
. And he would stay here until the
day he died.

“You think you got it all figured
out, don’t you? Well nobody controls me, Jack; you least of all.” He would free
himself from the insanity the Caretaker devised, get himself back to where he
was before, use those stock picks and get back to … well, back to…

His hand froze on the handle of the
diner door.
Where had he been before?
He had vague recollections of
meetings and mergers and multi-national conglomerates, but like that time in
the desert, he could recall none of the details. It was like a dream fading
with each passing moment, details breaking away, becoming lost.

The little shit was trying to take
that, too!

Leland went inside, unsure what he
hoped to find, but refusing to stand still even for a moment. He would get out
of this. It was possible. If Jack could remake reality, then he could do it
again—and if Jack wouldn’t, Leland would do it himself.

The cook leaned his fists on the
counter, eyes narrowing. Two waitresses in short outfits the color of pasty
mint candies looked up from waiting tables and frowned. Even the few patrons in
the place seemed to find him interesting enough to warrant their attention.
Leland glanced down at himself, and was ashamed.

“I was mugged,” he said, trying to
avoid the curious stares.

“Clinic’s down the street,” the cook
said, his stare hardening. “Police are two blocks past.”

“I … I just wanted some coffee.”

“Coffee’s fifteen cents,” the cook
replied, scowling. “You got fifteen cents? ‘Cause if ya got mugged, I expect
you don’t. And this ain’t no soup kitchen.”

Leland’s hand dug into his pocket,
skirting the jangle of keys—
probably keys to the cab; maybe his apartment,
too. But who knew where that was, or what it was like? Oh God!
—and came up
with a small collection of coins: two nickels and six pennies, all of which
looked like they had been rescued from a sewer drain. “I have fifteen cents.”

The cook nodded. “Then you got
yourself a cup of coffee.”

It was a transaction now, pure and
simple; no friends, no enemies, just money. Money made every man equal, freed
you from the dangerous, difficult judgments you might otherwise be forced to
make. No one was any better or worse, simply richer or poorer. Respect was not
earned any more than power or trust or salvation. It was bought. The first rule
of commerce—something he remembered from that distant, former life—money was
everything; anyone who told you differently was selling something.

Leland sat down at the counter, a cup
of coffee set before him. The other patrons returned to their conversations,
his short-lived drama having spent itself out early with no real intrigue.
“Sugar’s an extra penny,” the cook remarked. “And I ain’t got no cream, so
don’t ask.”

Leland placed all sixteen cents on
the counter, what he supposed might well be all the money he had left in the
world, and said, “Let’s splurge.”

The cook shrugged indifferently,
sweeping the ugly pile of coins away before tossing Leland a sugar packet from
below the counter. He studied the packet carefully.
A penny’s worth of sugar
,
he thought before shaking it to chase all the grains to one end, tearing it
open and pouring.
Might as well get my money’s worth.

He sipped carefully, wincing as hot
coffee hit open cuts in his mouth and lips. But in spite of that, Leland was
glad; coffee was a simple comfort in a world where nothing was simple anymore.

Behind him, the door opened, the cook
looking up in surprise. “Uh … can I help you, sir?”

“I’m here to meet someone and I’m
afraid I’m running late. I hope I didn’t miss him.”

Leland placed his coffee back down on
the counter and turned. He knew the voice, knew who he would see standing in
the doorway before he turned, his hands tightening into fists, a muscle in his
jaw thrumming. “
Jack
!”

“Mr. Quince,” the Caretaker replied
amiably.

The Caretaker wore a wide-shouldered
overcoat, gray and unweathered, over a coal-gray suit, a maroon tie. His hair
slicked with gel, a pair of prim, wire spectacles, the lenses dark, his eyes
imperceptible. It was not an outfit Leland had ever seen him wear; not one he could
even imagine the slacker Caretaker in. This was a power suit for the power
hungry; he recognized it, remembered dealing with those who wore them in a
previous life—
his
previous life. Energetic, eager, ruthless, as savage
and vicious as any predator. He remembered liking their kind very much—their
drive, their initiative, their servitude.