Carrion Comfort

by Dan Simmons

  In the brief absence of noise that followed, Saul tried to visualize the board as it stood at the end of Move 35:

  The direction of the end game was too complicated to predict with Saul’s modest chess ability— he knew that he was about to witness a contest between masters— but he could sense that Barent had gained a strong advantage in recent moves and seemed confident of a win. Saul failed to see how the Oberst’s white could achieve much more than a draw with even the best of play, but he had heard the Oberst say that a draw would constitute a victory for Barent.

  One thing Saul did know: as the sole surviving important piece in a field of three pawns, the bishop would be used extensively, even if at great risk. Saul closed his eyes and attempted to withstand the sudden, resurgent waves of pain and weakness.

  “All right, Herr Borden,” Barent said to the Oberst. “It is your move.”

  SEVENTY

  Melanie

  Willi and I consummated our love that mad evening. After all those years.

  It was through our catspaws, of course, prior to our arrival at the Manse. Had he suggested such a thing, or even hinted at it before acting, I would have slapped his face, but his agent in the form of the giant Negro offered no preliminaries. Jensen Luhar grasped Miss Sewell by the shoulders, pushed her forward to the soft grass in the darkness under the oaks, and brutally had his way with her. With us. With me.

  Even while the Negro’s heavy weight still lay atop Miss Sewell, I could not help but recall those whispered conversations between Nina and me during our teenage slumber parties, when the worldly-wise Nina would tell me breathless and obviously overheard stories about the supposed exaggerated anatomy and prowess of colored men. Seduced by Willi, still pinned facedown to the cold ground by Jensen Luhar’s weight, I returned my awareness from Miss Sewell to Justin before remembering, in my dazed state, that Nina’s colored girl had said that she was not from Nina at all. It was good that I knew the girl had been lying. I wanted to tell Nina that she had been right . . .

  I do not relate this casually. Except for my unexpected and dreamlike interludes via Miss Sewell in the Philadelphia hospital, this was my first such experience with the physical side of courtship. However, I would hardly call the rough exuberance of Willi’s man an extension of courtship. It was more like the frenzied spasms of my aunt’s male Siamese when it seized a hapless female who was in heat through no fault of her own. And I confess that Miss Sewell seemed to be in constant heat since she responded to the Negro’s rough and almost non ex is tent overtures with an instant lubricity that no young lady of my generation would have allowed.

  At any rate, any reflection or response to this experience was further cut short by Willi’s man suddenly pushing himself upright, his head swiveling in the night, his broad nostrils flaring. “My pawn approaches,” he whispered in German, He pressed my face back to the ground. “Do not move.” And with that, Willi’s surrogate had scrambled into the lower branches of the oak tree like some great, black ape.

  The absurd confrontation that followed was of little importance, resulting in Willi’s man carrying Nina’s supposed surrogate, the one called Saul, back to the Manse with us. There was one magical moment when, seconds after Nina’s poor wretch was subdued and before the security people surrounded us, all of the external spotlights and floodlights and softly glowing electric lanterns in the trees were switched on and it was as if he had entered a fairy kingdom or were approaching Disneyland via some secret, enchanted entrance.

  The departure of Nina’s Negress from my home in Charleston and the nonsense that followed distracted me for a few minutes, but by the time Culley had carried in Howard’s unconscious form and the body of the colored interloper, I was ready to return my full attention to my meeting with C. Arnold Barent.

  Mr. Barent was every inch a gentleman and greeted Miss Sewell with the deference she deserved as my representative. I sensed immediately that he saw through my catspaw’s sallow veil to the face of mature beauty beneath. As I lay on my bed in Charleston, bathed in the green glare of Dr. Hartman’s machines, I knew that the feminine glow that I was feeling somehow had been accurately transmitted through the rough dross of Miss Sewell to the refined sensibilities of C. Arnold Barent.

  He invited me to play chess and I accepted. I confess that until that moment, I had never held the slightest interest in the game. I had always found chess to be pretentious and boring to watch— my Charles and Roger Harrison used to play regularly— and I had never bothered to learn the names of the pieces or how they moved. More to my liking had been the spirited games of checkers contested between Mammy Booth and myself during the rainy days of my childhood.

  Some time passed between the beginning of their silly game and the point of my disillusionment with Mr. C. Arnold Barent. Much of the time my attention was divided as I sent Culley and the others upstairs to make preparations for the possible return of Nina’s Negress. Despite the inconvenience, it seemed the appropriate time for me to set into motion the plan I had conceived some weeks earlier. During the same period, I continued to maintain contact with the one I had watched for so many weeks during Justin’s outings along the river with Nina’s girl. At this point I had abandoned plans to use him as directed, but maintaining the charade of consciousness with him had become an ongoing challenge because of the visibility of his position and the complexities of the technical vocabulary at his command.

  Later, I would be more than a little pleased that I had taken the effort to maintain this contact, but at the time it was merely another annoyance.

  In the meantime, the silly chess game between Willi and his host progressed like some surreal scene expurgated from the original Alice in Wonderland. Willi shuffled back and forth like a well-dressed Mad Hatter as I allowed Miss Sewell to stand and be moved occasionally— always trusting in Mr. Barent’s promise that she would not be placed in harm’s way— while the other pitiful pawns and players marched to and fro, captured others, were captured in return, died their unimportant little deaths, and were removed from the board.

  Until the instant Mr. Barent disappointed me, I paid little attention and had little involvement in their boys’ game. Nina and I had our own contest to complete. I knew that her Negress would be back before sunrise. As tired as I was, I hurried to make things ready for her return.

  SEVENTY-ONE

  Dolmann Island Tuesday,

  June 16, 1981

  Harod desperately wanted to find an angle. Bad situations were bad enough by themselves; they made him feel goddamned stupid if he didn’t have an angle. So far Harod had not found an angle.

  As far as he could tell, Willi and Barent were completely serious about playing the chess game for high stakes. If Willi won— and Harod had rarely seen the old bastard lose— he and Barent would be continuing their competition on a level that included nuking cities and frying whole countries. If Barent won, the idea was to maintain the status quo, but that concept didn’t impress Harod much because he’d just watched Barent dump the status quo of the entire Island Club just to set up the fucking game. Harod stood on his black tile two squares removed from the rear of the board, three tiles away from the crazy Sewell broad, and tried to think of an angle.

  He would have been content to stand there until he figured something out, but Willi had the first move and said, “P to R-4, bitte.”

  Harod stared. The others stared back. It was fucking eerie the way there were twenty or thirty of the security goons in the shadows, but no one made a damned sound.

  “That refers to you, Tony,” Barent said softly. The billionaire in his black suit stood ten feet away across the diagonals of two tiles.

  Harod’s heart began to beat at his ribs. He was terrified that Willi or Barent would Use him again. “Hey!” he shouted. “I don’t understand this shit! Just tell me where to go, for Chrissakes.”

  Willi folded his arms. “I did,” he said disgustedly. “P to R-4 means pawn to rook four. You are on rook three, Tony. Move one for
ward.”

  Harod quickly stepped onto the white tile in front of him. Now he was one diagonal step away from the blond zombie Tom Reynolds and only two empty squares away from the Sewell woman. Maria Chen stood silently on the white square next to Melanie Fuller’s surrogate. “Look, you’ve got three pawns,” he called. “How the fuck am I supposed to know you mean me?” Harod had to peer around the dark bulk of Jensen Luhar to see Willi.

  “How many pawns do I have on the rook’s file, Tony?” Willi asked rhetorically. “Now shut up, before I move you.”

  Harod turned and spat into the shadows, trying to quell the sudden shaking of his right leg.

  Barent spoke quickly, ruining Harod’s image of chess players pondering for long periods between moves. “King to queen four,” he said with an ironic smile as he took a step forward.

  It seemed like a stupid move to Harod. Now the billionaire was ahead of all his other pieces, only a move forward and a step sideways away from Jensen Luhar. Harod had to stifle an hysterical giggle as he remembered that the huge black man was supposed to be a white pawn. Harod bit the inside of his cheek and wished he were home in his Jacuzzi.

  Willi nodded as if he had expected the move— Harod remembered him saying something earlier about Barent centering his king— and waved his hand impatiently at the bleeding Jew. “Bishop to rook three.”

  He watched the ex-surrogate named Saul limp the three black diagonal tiles to the square Harod had been standing in a moment earlier. Close up, the man looked worse than he had from a distance. The baggy coveralls were soaked through with blood and sweat. The Jew peered at him with the pained, vaguely defensive squint of the terminally nearsighted. Harod was sure that it was the same son of a bitch who had drugged him and interrogated him in California. He didn’t give a good goddamn what happened to the Jew, but he hoped that the guy would take out a few of the white pieces before he got sacrificed. Jesus fucking Christ, thought Harod. This is weird.

  Barent put his hands in his pockets and took a diagonal step to stop on the white square directly in front of Luhar. “King to king five,” he said.

  Harod couldn’t figure the damn game out. The few times he had played as a kid— just enough to learn how the pieces moved and to know he didn’t like the game— he and his hotshot opponents wiped out all their pawns first and then started trading bigger pieces. They never moved their kings unless they were going to castle, a trick Harod had forgotten how to do, or unless someone was chasing them. Now here were these two world chess biggies who had almost nothing but pawns left and were letting their kings hang out like some perverts’ dicks. Screw it, thought Harod and quit trying to figure out the game.

  Willi and Barent were only six feet apart. Willi frowned, tapped his lower lip, and said “Bauer . . . entschutdigen . . . Bischric zum Bischof funf.” Willi looked at Jimmy Wayne Sutter across ten feet of tile and translated, “Bishop to bishop five.”

  The skinny Jewish guy behind Harod had rubbed his face and limped along the black tiles to stand to the right of Reynolds. Harod counted from the back of the board and confirmed that it was the fifth square in the bishop’s row or rank or what ever the fuck it was called. It took him several more seconds to realize that the Jew now protected Luhar’s pawn position while threatening the Sewell woman along the black diagonal. Not that the woman seemed to know she was in danger. Harod had seen corpses that were more animated. He looked at her again, trying to catch a glimpse of her muff under the tattered shirt. Now that some of the basics of chess were coming back to him, Harod felt more relaxed. He couldn’t see any way that he could get hurt as long as Willi left him where he was. Pawns couldn’t take pawns in a head-on collision and Reynolds was one step ahead of him to his right, facing Maria Chen, guarding Harod’s forward flank, so to speak. Harod stared at the Sewell woman and guessed that she wouldn’t look so bad if someone gave her a bath.

  “Pawn to rook three,” said Barent and gestured politely.

  For a panicked second Harod thought that he had to move again, but then he remembered that Barent was the black king. Miss Sewell caught the billionaire’s gesture and took a dainty step forward onto a white tile.

  “Thank you, my dear,” said Barent.

  Harod felt his heart rate kicking into high gear again. The Jew-bishop no longer threatened the Sewell-pawn. She was a diagonal step away from Tom Reynolds. If Willi didn’t have Reynolds capture her, she could take out Reynolds on the next move. And then she’d be a diagonal step away from Tony Harod. Shit, thought Harod.

  “Pawn to knight six,” snapped Willi with no delay. Harod swiveled his head, trying to figure out how he could get there from here, but it was Reynolds who was moving even before Willi had spoken. The blond catspaw stepped forward into the black square even with Miss Sewell and facing Maria Chen.

  Harod licked his suddenly dry lips. Maria Chen was in no immediate danger. Reynolds couldn’t capture her straight on. Jesus, thought Harod. What happens to us pawns if we get captured?

  “Pawn to bishop four,” Barent said dispassionately. Swanson gave Kepler a polite shove and the Island Club member blinked and stepped forward one square. Barent suddenly looked much less alone than did Willi.

  “The fortieth move, I believe?” said Willi and stepped diagonally forward to a black square. “King to rook four, Mein Herr.”

  “Pawn to bishop five,” said Barent and motioned Kepler forward another square.

  The man in the soiled suit stepped forward gingerly, sliding his foot onto the black tile as if the square alongside Barent held a trapdoor. When he was fully on the tile he remained in the rear of it, staring at the naked black man six feet away on the adjoining black diagonal. Luhar stared forward at Barent.

  “Pawn takes pawn,” murmured Willi.

  Luhar took a step forward and to his right and Joseph Kepler screamed and turned to run.

  “No, no, no,” said Barent with a frown.

  Kepler froze in mid-leap, his muscles going rigid, his legs straightening. He swiveled to stand motionless in front of the advancing black man. Luhar paused on the same black square. Only Kepler’s straining eyes showed his terror.

  “Thank you, Joseph,” said Barent. “You have served well.” He nodded to Willi.

  Jensen Luhar took Kepler’s craggy face in both hands, squeezed, and twisted savagely. The snapping of Kepler’s neck echoed in the Grand Hall. He kicked once and died, soiling himself again as he fell. At a gesture from Barent, security men jogged forward and dragged the body away, the head swinging loosely.

  Luhar stood alone in the black square now, staring ahead at nothing. Barent pivoted to face him.

  Harod couldn’t believe that Willi was going to let Barent take Luhar. The black man had been a favorite of the old producer’s for at least four years, sharing his bed at least twice a week. Evidently Barent had the same doubts; he raised a finger and half a dozen security men stepped out of the shadows with their Uzis trained on Willi and his catspaw.

  “Herr Borden?” said Barent, raising an eyebrow. “We can call it a draw and continue with the regular competition. Next year . . . who knows?”

  Willi’s face was a passionless mask of flesh above his white silk turtleneck and white suit jacket. “My name is Herr General Wilhelm von Borchert,” he said tonelessly. “Play.”

  Barent paused and then nodded to his security people. Harod expected a fusillade of gunfire, but they merely made sure they had clear fields of fire and stood in readiness. “So be it,” said Barent and set his pale hand on Luhar’s shoulder.

  Harod thought later that he might have tried to simulate on the screen what came next if he had an unlimited bud get, Albert Whitlock, and a dozen other hydraulic and blood bag technicians, but he never would have gotten the sound right, or the looks on the other extras’ faces.

  Barent set his palm gently on the black man’s shoulder and within a second Luhar’s flesh began to writhe and contort, his pectorals expanding until his chest threatened to explode, the muscled
ridges of his flat belly writhing like a tent flap caught in a rising wind. Luhar’s head seemed to be rising on a hidden steel periscope, the cords in his neck straining, flexing, and finally snapping with an audible ripping sound. The cat’s-paw’s body was oscillating in the grip of a terrible spasm now— Harod had the image of a sculptor’s clay sketch being squeezed and smashed in a fit of artist’s pique— but it was the eyes that were the worst. Luhar’s eyes had rolled back into his head and now the whites seemed to expand until they were the size of golf balls, then baseballs, then white balloons straining to explode. Luhar opened his mouth, but instead of the expected scream a torrent of blood exploded out over his chin and chest. Harod heard sounds coming from inside Luhar as if muscles in the man’s body were tearing loose like piano wires stretched beyond their limits.

  Barent stepped back to keep his dark suit, white shirt, and polished pumps from being spattered. “King takes pawn,” he said and adjusted his silk tie.

  Security men came out and removed Luhar’s body. Only a single empty white square separated Barent and Willi now. The rules of chess prevented either from moving into it. Kings were not allowed to move into check.

  “I believe it is my move,” said Willi. “Yes, Herr Bor . . . Herr General von Borchert,” said Barent. Willi nodded, clicked his heels, and announced his next move.

  “Shouldn’t we be there already?” asked Natalie Preston. She leaned forward to peer through the streaked windscreen.

  Daryl Meeks had been chewing on an unlit cigar and now he shifted it from one side of his mouth to the other. “Head winds’re worse than I thought,” he said. “Relax. We’ll be there soon enough. Watch for party lights off the right side there.”

  Natalie sat back and resisted the urge to reach in her purse to feel the Colt for the thirtieth time.

  Jackson slid forward and leaned on the back of her seat. “I still don’t understand what a kid like you’s doing in a place like this,” he said.