Guilder was the only one who took his blood straight from the source. That was what they called Grey, the Source, like he wasn’t even a person but a thing, which he supposed he was. Not always but sometimes, when he was feeling especially hungry, or for other reasons Grey couldn’t guess at, Guilder would appear at the door in his underclothes, so as not to get blood on his suit. He would unhook the bag from its tube, viscous fluid spurting over him, and place the IV in his mouth, sucking up Grey’s blood like a kid taking soda pop from a straw. Lawrence, he liked to say, you’re not looking so hot. Are they feeding you enough? I worry about you all alone down here. Once, long ago, years or even decades, Guilder had brought a mirror with him. It was in what used to be called a lady’s compact. Guilder popped the lid and angled it to Grey’s face, saying, Why don’t you take a look? An old man’s face gazed back at him, wrinkled as a prune—the face of someone sitting on the fence of death.
He was permanently dying.
Then one day he awoke to find Guilder straddling a chair, looking at him. His tie was undone around his neck, his hair askew; his suit was rumpled and stained. Grey could tell he was late in his cycle. He could smell the rot coming off the man—a dumpstery, corpselike, slightly fruity stink—but Guilder made no move to feed. Grey had the sense that Guilder had been sitting there for some time.
“Let me ask you something, Lawrence.”
The question was going to be asked one way or another. “Okay.”
“Have you ever … now, how do I put this?” Guilder shrugged vaguely. “Have you ever been in love?”
Coming from the man’s mouth, the word seemed completely alien. Love was the property of a different age; it was positively prehistoric.
“I don’t understand what you’re asking.”
Guilder’s face bunched with a frown. “Really, it seems like a perfectly simple question to me. Choirs of angels singing in their heaven, your feet levitating three inches off the ground. You know. In love.”
“I guess not.”
“It’s a yes or no thing, Lawrence. It’s one or the other.”
He thought of Lila. Love was what he felt for her, but not the way Guilder meant. “No. I’ve never been in love.”
Guilder was looking past him. “Well I was, once. Her name was Shawna. Though that wasn’t her real name, of course. She had skin like butter, Lawrence. I’m totally serious here. That was how it tasted. Something a little Asian about her eyes, you know that look? And her body, well.” He rubbed his face and exhaled a melancholy breath. “I don’t feel that part anymore. The sex part. The virus pretty much takes care of that. Nelson thought the steroids you were taking might have been the reason the virus was different in you. There might have been some truth to that. But you make your bed, you have to lie in it.” He chuckled ironically. “Make your bed. That’s funny. That’s a laugh.”
Grey said nothing. Whatever mood Guilder was in, it seemed to have nothing to do with him.
“I suppose it’s not such a bad thing on the whole. I can’t honestly say that sex ever did me any favors. But even after all these years, I still think about her. Little things. Things she said. The way the sun looked, falling over her bed. I kind of miss the sun.” He paused. “I know she didn’t love me. It was all a big act was what it was. I knew that from the start, even if I couldn’t admit it to myself. But there you have it.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Why?” His gaze narrowed on Grey’s face. “That should be obvious. You can be pretty obtuse, if you’ll pardon my saying so. Because we’re friends, Lawrence. I know, you probably think I’m the worst thing that ever happened to you. It could certainly appear that way. I’m sure this all might feel a little unfair. But you really left me no choice. Honestly, Lawrence? As odd as it seems, you’re the oldest friend I have.”
Grey held his tongue. The man was completely delusional. Grey found himself involuntarily flexing against his chains. The greatest happiness of his life, short of dying, would be to pop Guilder’s head clean off.
“What about Lila? I don’t mean to pry, but I always thought there was something between you two. Which was pretty surprising, given your history.”
Something twisted inside him. He didn’t want to talk about this, not now, not ever. “Leave me alone.”
“Don’t be like that. I’m just asking.”
“Why don’t you go fuck yourself?”
Guilder inched his face a little closer, his voice lowered confidentially. “Tell me something. Do you still hear him, Lawrence? The truth now.”
“I don’t know who you’re talking about.”
Guilder shot him a correcting frown. “Please, can we not? Do this? He’s real is what I’m asking you. It’s not some bullshit in my head.” He was peering at Grey intently. “You know what he’s asked me to do, don’t you?”
There seemed no point denying it. Grey nodded.
“And on the whole, taking everything into consideration, you think it’s a good idea? I feel like I need your input here.”
“Why does it matter what I think?”
“Don’t sell yourself short. You’re still his favorite, Lawrence, no doubt about that. Oh sure, I may be the one in charge. I’m the captain of this ship. But I can tell.”
“No.”
“No what?”
“No, it’s not a good idea. It’s a terrible idea. It’s the worst idea in the world.”
Guilder’s eyebrows lifted, like a pair of parachutes catching the air.
“Look at you.” For the first time in eons, Grey actually laughed. “You think he’s your friend? You think any of them are your friends? You’re their bitch, Guilder. I know what they are. I know what Zero is. I was there.”
He’d obviously struck a nerve. Guilder began clenching and unclenching his fists; Grey wondered, in a lazy way, if the man was about to hit him. The prospect didn’t concern him in the least; it would break the monotony. It would be something different, a new kind of pain.
“I have to say, your response is more than a little disappointing, Lawrence. I was hoping I could count on a little support. But I’m not going to stoop to your level. I know you’d like that, but I’ll be the bigger man. And just a little FYI: the Project was completed today. A real ribbon cutter. I was saving that as, you know, a surprise, something I thought you’d enjoy hearing about. You could be a part of this if you wanted. But apparently I’ve misjudged you.”
He rose and headed for the door.
“What do you want, Guilder?”
The man turned back, leveling his blood-red eyes.
“What’s in it for you? I never could figure that out.”
A long silence, then: “Do you know what they are, Grey?”
“Of course I know.”
But Guilder shook his head. “No, you don’t. If you did, you wouldn’t have to ask. So I’ll tell you. They’re the freest things on earth. Without remorse. Without pity. Without love. Nothing can touch them, hurt them. Imagine what that would be like, Lawrence. The absolute freedom of it. Imagine how wonderful that would be.”
Grey made no reply; there was none to be made.
“You ask me what I want, my friend, and I’ll give you my answer. I want what they have. I want that little whore out of my head. I want to feel … nothing.”
The vase hit the wall in a satisfying explosion of glass. The car bombing was the last straw. This had to end now.
Guilder summoned Wilkes to his office. By the time his chief of staff entered the room, Guilder had managed to calm himself a little.
“Round up ten more per day.”
Wilkes seemed taken aback. “Um, anybody in particular?”
“It doesn’t matter!” Jesus, sometimes the man could be thick as a plank. “Don’t you get it? It never mattered. Just pull them out of morning roll.”
Wilkes hesitated. “So you’re saying it should just be, you know, arbitrary. Not people we suspect of having ties to the insurgency, necessarily.”
For a second Wilkes just stood there, staring at Guilder with a bewildered look on his face. Not bewildered: disturbed.
“Yes? Am I talking to myself here?”
“If you say so. I can work up a list and send it down the hill to HR.”
“I don’t care how you do it. Just put it together.” Guilder tossed a hand toward the door. “Now get out of here. And send an attendant to clean up this mess.”
43
The route to Hollis was more circuitous than Peter had anticipated. The trail had taken them first to a friend of Lore’s, who knew someone who knew someone else; always they seemed to be one step away, only to find that the target had moved.
Their last lead directed them to a Quonset hut where an illegal gambling hall operated. It was after midnight when they found themselves walking down a dark, trash-strewn alley in H-town. Curfew had long passed, but from everywhere around them came little bits of noise—barking voices, the crash of glass, the tinkling of a piano.
“Quite a place,” Peter said.
“You haven’t been here much, have you?” said Michael.
“Not really. Well, never, actually.”
A shadowy figure stepped from a doorway into their path. A woman.
“Oye, mi soldadito. ¿Tienes planes esta noche?”
She moved forward from the shadows. Neither young nor old, her body so thin it was nearly boyish, yet the sensual confidence of her voice and the way she stood—shifting from one foot to the other, her pelvis pushing gently against her tiny skirt—combined with the heavy-lidded declivity of her eyes, as they trolled the length of Peter’s body, to give her an undeniable sexual force.
“¿Cómo te puedo ayudar, Teniente?”
Peter swallowed; his face felt warm. “We’re looking for Cousin’s place.”
The woman smiled a row of silk-stained teeth. “Everybody’s somebody’s cousin. I can be your cousin if you want.” Her eyes drifted to Lore, then Michael. “And what about you, handsome? I can get a friend. Your girlfriend can come if she wants, too. Maybe she’d like to watch.”
Lore gripped Michael by the arm. “He’s not interested.”
“We’re really just looking for someone,” Peter said. “Sorry to have troubled you.”
She gave a dark laugh. “Oh, it’s no trouble. You change your mind, you know where to find me, Teniente.”
They moved along. “Nice fellow,” Michael said.
Peter glanced back down the alley. The woman, or what he’d assumed was a woman, had faded back into the doorway.
“I’ll be damned. Are you sure?”
Michael chuckled ruefully, shaking his head. “You really have to get out more often, hombre.”
Ahead they saw the Quonset hut. Blades of light leaked from the edges of the door, where a pair of beefy men stood guard. The three of them paused in the shelter of an overflowing trash bin.
“Better let me do the talking,” Lore said.
Peter shook his head. “This was my idea. I should be the one to go.”
“In that uniform? Don’t be ridiculous. Stay with Michael. And the two of you, try not to get picked up by any trannies.”
They watched her march up to the door. “Is this such a good idea?” Peter asked quietly.
Michael held up a hand. “Just wait.”
At Lore’s approach the two men tensed, moving closer together to bar her entry. A brief conversation ensued, beyond Peter’s hearing; then she returned.
“Okay, we’re in.”
“What did you tell them?”
“That the two of you just got paid. And you’re drunk. So try to act it.”
The hut was crowded and loud, the space partitioned by large, hexagonal tables where cards were being dealt. Clouds of silk smoke choked the air, consorting with the sour-sweet aroma of mash; there was a still nearby. Half-dressed women—at least Peter took them to be women—were seated on stools at the periphery of the room. The youngest couldn’t have been a day over sixteen, the oldest nearly fifty, haggish in her clownish makeup. More were moving in and out of a curtain at the back, usually in the arm-draped company of a visibly intoxicated man. As Peter understood it, the whole idea of H-town was to overlook a certain amount of illegal vice but to cordon it off within a specific area. He could see the logic—people were people—but staring it in the face was a different matter. He wondered if Michael was right about him. How had he gotten so prim?
“Not go-to they’re playing, is it?” he asked Michael.
“Texas hold ’em, twenty-dollar ante from the looks of it. A bit rich for my blood.” His eyes, like Peter’s, were patrolling the room for Hollis. “We should try to blend in. How much scrip do you have?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“I gave it all to Sister Peg.”
Michael sighed. “Of course you did. You’re consistent, I’ll give you that.”
“The two of you,” Lore said. “What a couple of pussies. Watch and learn, my friends.”
She strode up to the closest table and took a chair. From the pocket of her jeans she withdrew a wad of bills, peeled off two, and tossed them into the pot. A third bill produced a shot glass, the contents of which she downed with a toss of her sun-bleached hair. The dealer laid out two cards for each player; then the betting began. For the first four hands Lore seemed to take very little interest in her cards, chatting with the other players, folding quickly with a roll of her eyes. Then, on the fifth, with no discernible change in her demeanor, she began to drive up the bet. The pile on the table grew; Peter guessed there were at least three hundred Austins sitting there for the taking. One by one the others dropped out until just a single player remained, a skinny man with pockmarked cheeks who was wearing a hydro’s jumpsuit. The last card was dealt; stone-faced, Lore put down five more bills. The man shook his head and folded his cards.
“Okay, I’m impressed,” said Peter, as Lore raked in the pot. They were standing off to the side, close enough to watch without seeming to. “How did she do that?”
“She cheats.”
“Really? I don’t see how.”
“It’s pretty simple, actually. The cards are all marked. It’s subtle, but you can figure it out. One player at the table is playing for the house so it always comes out ahead. She used the first few hands to figure out who it was and how to read the cards. It also doesn’t hurt that she’s a woman. In here, no one’s taking her seriously. They assume she’ll bet when she has good cards, that she’ll fold when she doesn’t. Three-quarters of the time she’s bluffing.”
“What happens when they realize what she’s doing?”
“They won’t, not right away. She’ll throw a hand or two.”
“And then?”
“Then it’s time to leave.”
A sudden commotion drew their attention to the rear of the room. A dark-haired woman, her dress torn from her shoulders, arms crossed over her exposed breasts, burst through the curtain, screaming incoherently. A second later a man emerged, his pants bunched comically around his ankles. He seemed to be floating a foot off the floor—suspended, Peter realized, by a man gripping him from behind. As the first man hurtled through the air, Peter recognized him; it was the young corporal from Satch’s squad who had driven the transport from Camp Vorhees. The second man, mountainous, the lower half of his face buried in a salt-and-pepper beard, was Hollis.
“Aha,” said Michael.
With impressive nonchalance, Hollis hauled the man to his feet by his collar. The woman was shrieking profanities, jabbing a finger at the two of them—Kill this fucker! I don’t have to put up with this shit! Do you hear me? You’re fucking dead, you asshole!—as Hollis half-shoved, half-levitated him toward the exit.
“That’s our cue,” Peter said.
At a quickstep they made their way for the door, Lore coming up behind them as they exited the hut. The corporal, crying desperate apologies, was simu
ltaneously trying to pull up his pants and scamper away. If Hollis was moved by the man’s appeals, he gave no sign. While the two guards looked on, laughing uproariously, Hollis hoisted the corporal by the waistband and propelled him farther down the alley. As he pulled the man upright again, Peter called his name.
“Hollis!”
For a perplexing instant the man seemed not to recognize them. Then he made a small sound of surprise. “Peter. Hola.”
The corporal was still squirming in his grip. “Lieutenant, for God’s sake do something! This monster’s trying to kill me!”
Peter looked at his friend. “Are you?”
The big man shrugged drolly. “I suppose, since he’s one of yours, I could let it go this one time.”
“Exactly! You could let me go and I’ll never come back, I swear it!”
Peter directed his attention to the terrified soldier, whose name, he recalled, was Udall. “Corporal. Where are you supposed to be? Don’t bullshit me.”
“West Barracks, sir.”
“Then get there, soldier.”
“Thank you, sir! You won’t regret it!”
“I already do. Now get out of my sight.”
He scampered away, holding up his pants.
“I wasn’t going to really hurt him,” Hollis said. “Just put a scare into him.”
“What did he do?”
“Tried to kiss her. That’s not allowed.”
The offense seemed minor. Given all Peter had seen, it didn’t seem like an offense at all. “Really?”
“Those are the rules. Pretty much anything goes except for that. It’s mostly up to the women.” He glanced past Peter. “Michael, it’s good to see you. It’s been a while. You’re looking well.”
“Same here. This is Lore.”
Hollis smiled in her direction. “Oh, I know who you are. It’s nice to finally have a proper introduction, though. How were the cards tonight?”
“Not too bad,” Lore replied. “The plant at table three is a real chump. I was just getting started.”
The man’s expression hardened a discernible notch. “Don’t judge me for this, Peter. That’s all I’m asking. Things work here in a certain way, that’s all.”
The Twelve Page 45
