Carrion Comfort

by Dan Simmons

  “Two weeks,” said Saul. “One way or the other it’ll be all over in two weeks.”

  “Two weeks you got,” said Jackson. “Then we’ll do what ever we have to do to get Marvin back, whether your part is finished or not.”

  “It will be finished,” said Saul. He looked at the big man sitting in the backseat. “Jackson, I don’t know whether that’s your first or last name.”

  “Last,” said Jackson. “I gave up my first name when I came back from Nam. Didn’t have any use for it anymore.”

  “My name ain’t really Catfish, neither, Laski,” said Catfish. “It Clarence Arthur Theodore Varsh.” He shook Saul’s proferred hand. “But, hey, man,” he said with a grin, “being ’cause you be a friend of Natalie and all, you can call me Mr. Varsh.”

  The last day before leaving had been the worst. Saul had been sure that nothing would work— the old lady would not come through with her part of the bargain or had not been capable of the conditioning she said she had been carrying out for three weeks in May as Justin and Natalie had stared across the river through binoculars. Or Cohen had been mistaken in his information— or had been correct, but the plans had been changed in the intervening months. Or Tony Harod would not respond to the phone call in early June— or would tell the others once on the island— or would not tell them, but would kill Saul and whomever Melanie Fuller sent as soon as they were out of sight of land. Or he would deliver Saul to the island and then Melanie Fuller would choose that time to turn on Natalie, slaughtering her while Saul was locked away, awaiting his own death.

  Then Saturday afternoon arrived and they were driving south to Savannah, getting set in the parking area near the canal even before twilight had faded. Natalie and Jackson hid themselves in underbrush sixty yards to the north, Natalie with the rifle they had pulled from the deputy’s vehicle in California and kept separate when they packed away the M-16 and most of the C-4 explosive.

  Catfish, Saul, and the thing Justin had referred to as Miss Sewell waited, the two men occasionally drinking coffee from a metal Thermos.

  Once the woman’s head had swiveled like the head of a ventriloquist’s dummy, she stared straight at Saul, and said, “I don’t know you.”

  Saul said nothing, staring back impassively, trying to imagine the mind behind so many years of mindless violence. Miss Sewell had closed her eyes with the mechanical abruptness of a clockwork owl. No one had spoken again until Tony Harod arrived shortly before midnight.

  Saul had thought for a second that the diminutive producer was going to shoot during the long seconds he stood aiming the pistol at Saul’s face. Tendons had stood out on Harod’s throat and Saul could see the trigger finger growing white from tension. Saul had been frightened then, but it was a clean, controllable fear— nothing like the anxiety of the past week or the raging, debilitating fear of the Pit and the hopelessness of his nightly dreams. What ever happened next, Saul had chosen to be there.

  In the end, Harod had contented himself with cursing Saul and striking him twice across the face, the second backhanded blow laying open a shallow cut on Saul’s right cheek. Saul had not spoken or resisted and Miss Sewell remained equally impassive. Natalie had orders to fire from ambush only if Harod actually shot Saul or Used another to assault him with intent to kill.

  Saul and Miss Sewell were put in the backseat of the Mercedes, thin chains wrapped repeatedly around their legs and wrists. Harod’s Eurasian secretary— Saul knew from Harrington’s and Cohen’s reports that her name was Maria Chen— was efficient but careful not to shut off circulation as she pulled the chains tight and set the small locks in place. Saul looked at her quizzically, wondering what had brought her here, what motivated her. He suspected that this had always been the downfall of his people, the eternal Jewish quest for understanding, motivation, and the reasons for things, endless Talmudic debates over nuance even as their shallow and efficient enemies chained them securely and carried them off to the ovens; their murderers never worried about the questions of means versus ends or morality as long as the trains ran on time and the paperwork was properly done.

  Saul Laski jerked awake just before his slide into the REM state triggered his dreams. He had entered a hundred of the biographies Simon Wiesenthal had provided into the catalog of hypnotically induced personas, but only a dozen kept recurring in the dreams he had conditioned himself to have. He did not dream their faces— despite his hours staring at photographs in Yad Veshem and Lohame HaGeta’ot— because he was looking through their eyes, but the landscapes of their lives, dormitories and work-houses, barbed wire and staring faces, had again become the true landscape of Saul Laski’s existence. He realized, as he lay in the stone niche under the rock of Dolmann Island, that he had never really left the landscape of the death camp. In truth, it was the only country of which he was a true citizen.

  He knew then, as he teetered on the brink of sleep, whose dreams would claim him that night: Shalom Krzaczek, a man whose face and life he had memorized but which were lost to him now that the details had become induced reality, data lost in the haze of true memories. Saul had never been to the Warsaw Ghetto, but he remembered it nightly now— the line of refugees fleeing the fires through the sewers, excrement tumbling onto them as they crawled through black and narrowing pipes, one at a time, cursing and praying that no one ahead of them would die and block their way as scores of panicked men and women scraped and crawled and forced their way into the Aryan sewers, beyond the wall and the wire and lines of Panzers; Krzaczek leading his nine-year-old grandson Leon through the Aryan sewers where Aryan excrement rained down on them and floated around them as the water rose, choking them, drowning them, then light ahead, and Krzaczek was leading no one, crawling alone into the Aryan sunlight, but turning then, turning, forcing his body back into that narrow, stinking hole after fourteen days in the dark sewers. Going back to find Leon.

  Knowing that this would be the first of his dreams that were not dreams, Saul accepted it. And slept.

  SIXTY-TWO

  Dolmann Island Sunday,

  June 14, 1981

  Tony Harod watched Willi arrive an hour before sunset on Sunday, the twin-engined executive jet setting down on a smooth runway painted with the shadows of tall oaks. Barent, Sutter, and Kepler joined Harod in the small, air-conditioned terminal at the end of the taxi apron. Harod was so sure that Willi would not be on the plane that when the familiar faces of Tom Reynolds, Jensen Luhar, and then Willi Borden himself appeared, Harod almost gasped in surprise.

  No one else seemed shocked. Joseph Kepler made the introductions as if he were an old friend of Willi’s. Jimmy Wayne Sutter bowed and smiled enigmatically as he shook Willi’s hand. Harod could only stare as they shook hands and Willi said, “You see, my friend Tony, paradise is an island.” Barent was more than gracious as he pumped Willi’s hand in welcome, grasping the producer’s elbow in a politician’s grip. Willi was dressed in evening clothes: black tie and tails.

  “This is a long overdue plea sure.” Barent grinned, not releasing Willi’s hand.

  “Ja,” said Willi, smiling, “it is.”

  The entourage moved to the Manse in a convoy of golf carts, picking up aides and bodyguards as they went. Maria Chen greeted Willi in the Great Hall, kissing him on each cheek and beaming at him. “Bill, we’re so glad that you’re back. We missed you terribly.”

  Willi nodded. “I have missed your beauty and your wit, my dear,” he said and kissed her hand. “Should you ever get tired of Tony’s poor manners, please consider my employ.” His pale eyes sparkled.

  Maria Chen laughed and squeezed his hand. “I hope we all will be working together soon,” she said.

  “Ja, perhaps very soon,” said Willi and took her arm as they followed Barent and the others into the dining room.

  Dinner was a banquet that lasted until well after nine. There were more than twenty people at the dinner table— only Tony Harod had brought a single aide— but afterward, when Barent led the way to th
e Game Room in the empty west wing, there were just the five of them.

  “We don’t start right away, do we?” asked Harod with some alarm. He had no idea whether he could Use the woman he’d brought from Savannah and he had not even seen the other surrogates.

  “No, not yet,” said Barent. “It is customary to conduct Island Club business in the Game Room before choosing the surrogates for to night’s game.”

  Harod looked around. The room was impressive: part library, part Victorian English club, and part executive boardroom: two walls of books with balconies and ladders, leather chairs with softly glowing lamps, separate snooker and pool tables, and— near the far wall— a massive circular, green-baized table illuminated by a single hanging lamp. Five leather wing-back chairs sat in the shadows around the circumference of the table.

  Barent touched a button on a recessed panel and heavy curtains silently drew back to reveal thirty feet of window looking down on floodlit gardens and the long tunnel of Live Oak Lane. Harod was sure that the faintly polarized glass was opaque from the outside and quite bulletproof.

  Barent held his hand out palm up, as if presenting the room and the view to Willi Borden. Willi nodded and sat in the nearest leather chair. The overhead lighting transformed his face into a lined mask and set his eyes in pools of darkness. “Ja, very nice,” he said. “Whose chair is this?”

  “It was . . . ah . . . Mr. Trask’s” said Barent. “It seems fitting that it is now yours.”

  The others sat, Sutter pointing Harod to the proper chair. Harod sank into the aged, luxurious leather, folded his hands on the baize tabletop, and thought of Charles Colben’s body feeding fish for the three days until they had found it in the dark waters of the Schuylkill River. “Not a bad club house,” he said. “What do we do now— learn the secret oath and sing songs?”

  Barent chuckled indulgently and looked around the circle. “The twenty-seventh annual session of the Island Club is now convened,” he said. “Is there any old business?” Silence. “New business that needs to be dealt with to night?”

  “Will there be other plenary sessions when new business can be discussed?” asked Willi.

  “Of course,” said Kepler. “Anyone can call a session at any time this week except when the games are actually in progress.”

  Willi nodded. “In that case I will save my new business until a future session.” He smiled at Barent, his teeth glowing yellowly in the harsh light from above. “I must remember my place as a new member and act accordingly, nicht wahr?”

  “Not at all,” said Barent. “We are all equal around this table . . . peers and friends.” Barent looked directly at Harod for the first time. “There being no new business to night, is everyone ready to tour the surrogate pens and make their choices for to night?”

  Harod nodded, but Willi spoke up. “I would like to use one of my own people.”

  Kepler frowned slightly. “Bill, I don’t know if . . . I mean, you can if you wish, but we try to avoid using our . . . uh . . . permanent people. The chance of winning all five nights is . . . ah . . . quite low, really, and we want to avoid offending anyone or having him depart with bad feelings because of . . . uh . . . losing a valuable resource.”

  “Ja, I understand,” said Willi, “but I still would prefer to use one of my own. It is allowed, yes?”

  “Yep,” said Jimmy Wayne Sutter, “but you have to have him inspected and kept in the surrogate pens just like the others if he survives to night.”

  “Agreed,” said Willi. He smiled again, increasing Harod’s impression that he was listening to an eyeless skull speak. “It is nice of you to humor an old man. Shall we see the pens and choose the pieces for to night’s game?”

  It was the first time Harod had been north of the security zone. The underground complex surprised him even though he had known there must be a security headquarters somewhere on the island. Although twenty-five or thirty men in coveralls were visible at guard posts and monitoring rooms, the security seemed almost non ex is tent compared to the crush of bodyguards during Summer Camp week. Harod realized that the bulk of Barent’s security force must be at sea— billeted on the yacht or the picket ships— concentrating on keeping people away from the island. He wondered what these guards thought of the surrogate pens and the games. Harod had worked in Hollywood for two decades; he knew that there was nothing people would not do to other people if the price was right. Sometimes they would line up to do it for free. Harod doubted that Barent would have had trouble finding people for this kind of work even without his unique Ability.

  The pens were strange, carved into native rock in a corridor much older and narrower than the rest of the complex. He followed the others past the shelves holding curled, naked forms, and thought for the twentieth time that this was real B-movie stuff. If a writer had presented Harod with a treatment like this he would have strangled the dumb bastard and then had him posthumously kicked out of the Guild.

  “These holding pens predate the original Vanderhoof plantation and even the older Dubose place.” Barent was saying. “An archaeologist-historian I employed theorized that these particular cells were used by the Spanish to house rebellious elements of the island Indian population, although the Spanish rarely established bases this far north. The cells, at any rate, were carved out prior to 1600 A.D. It is interesting to contemplate the fact that Christopher Columbus was the first slave-master of this hemi sphere. He shipped several thousand Indians to Eu rope and enslaved or killed many thousands more on the islands themselves. He might have wiped out the entire indigenous population if the Pope had not intervened with threats of excommunication.”

  “The Pope probably stopped it because he wasn’t getting a big enough share of the action,” said the Reverend Jimmy Wayne Sutter. “Can we pick from any of these?”

  “Any except the two Mr. Harod brought in last night,” said Barent. “I presume they are for your personal use, Tony?”

  “Yeah,” said Harod.

  Kepler came closer and jostled Harod’s elbow. “Jimmy tells me one of them is a man, Tony. Are you changing your preferences or is this a special friend of yours?”

  Harod looked at Joseph Kepler’s perfectly trimmed hair, perfect teeth, and perfectly tanned skin, and seriously considered reducing the arrangement to something less than perfection. He said nothing.

  Willi raised an eyebrow. “A male surrogate, Tony? I leave for only a few weeks and you surprise me. Where is this man you will use?”

  Harod stared at the old producer but could detect no message in Willi’s countenance. “Down there somewhere,” he said, gesturing vaguely down the full length of the corridor.

  The group spread out, inspecting bodies like judges at a dog show. Either someone had warned the prisoners to stay quiet or the mere presence of the five quelled any noise immediately, for the only sounds were the echoes of footsteps and a slight trickle of water from the darkest, unused section of the ancient tunnel.

  Harod was nervous, going from niche to niche in search of the two he had brought from Savannah. Was Willi playing with him again, Harod wondered, or had he been off on his assessment about what was going on? No, goddammit, it made no sense for any of the others to have him smuggle specially conditioned surrogates onto the island. Unless Kepler or Sutter were up to something. Or Barent was playing an especially cute game. Or unless it was simply a trap to discredit him.

  Harod felt sick. He hurried down the corridor, peering through bars at white, frightened faces, wondering if his own looked as terrified.

  “Tony,” said Willi from twenty paces down the tunnel. There was the snap of command in his voice. “Is this your male surrogate?”

  Harod hurried over and stared at the man lying on the chest-high ledge. The shadows were deep, gray stubble outlined the man’s gaunt cheeks, but Harod was sure it was the man he had brought from Savannah. What the hell was Willi up to?

  Willi leaned closer to the bars. The man stared back, eyes red from being awakened. Somethi
ng beyond recognition seemed to pass between the two. “Wilkommen in der Hölle, mein Bauer,” Willi said to the man.

  “Geh zum Teufel, Oberst,” said the prisoner through gritted teeth. Willi laughed, the noise echoing in the narrow corridor, and Harod knew that he had royally fucked up.

  Unless Willi was jerking him around.

  Barent came up to them, his blow-dried gray hair glowing softly in the light from a bare 60-watt bulb. “Is there something funny, gentlemen?”

  Willi clapped Tony oh the shoulder and smiled at Barent. “A little joke that my protégé was telling me, C. Arnold. Nothing more.”

  Barent looked at both of them, nodded, and moved away down the narrow corridor.

  Still holding Harod’s shoulder, Willi squeezed until Harod grimaced with the pain. “I hope you know what you are doing, Tony,” Willi hissed, his face red. “We will talk later.” Willi turned and followed Barent and the others toward the security complex.

  Shaken, Harod looked at the man he had been sure was Willi’s pawn. Naked, his pale face almost swallowed by shadows, curled on cold stone behind steel bars, the man seemed old, frail, and all but worn away by age and hard times. A livid scar ran the length of his left forearm and his ribs were clearly visible. To Harod, the old man seemed harmless enough; the only possible sense of threat coming from the visible glare of defiance smoldering in the large, sad eyes.

  “Tony,” called the Reverend Jimmy Wayne Sutter, “hurry and choose your surrogates. We want to return to the Manse and begin our play.”

  Harod nodded, took a last look at the man behind bars, and moved away, peering intently at faces, trying to find a woman young enough and strong enough, yet easy to dominate for the night’s activities.

  SIXTY-THREE

  Melanie

  Willi was alive!

  Staring through Miss Sewell’s eyes, I looked up through the bars of the cage and recognized him at once, even with the light bulb behind his head throwing a halo of harsh light around his remaining white wisps of weasel-fur hair.