by Steven Brust
And yet I’m finding my unwillingness to allow this to happen is growing, which is stupid; rather as if a stone, dropped from a cliff, had decided it was unwilling to hit the ground.
But enough. I think a visit with Jill would be very good for me just now.
Snow is falling, very heavily, and blowing about at the same time, and it is exceedingly cold. I associate snowfalls with mild, humid weather; I think this is unusual.
I am trying to remember how I made it home, and I can’t do it. I walked and I ran and I stumbled, and I suppose it was painful, but I have, mercifully, no memory of it. But I find that I can sit here, and I can still operate my fingers, so I will do so.
I must do something about Jill, but it will have to wait until tomorrow; now it isn’t easy for me to even sit in this chair. I wasn’t certain I’d be able to work these keys, but it seems that I can, at least for now, although I seem to be getting weaker by the moment. My hands are trembling very badly, so that I’m amazed that I am not making numerous mistakes. The trembling is annoying, and it is getting worse. I tried to talk to Jim when I got home, but speaking still hurts, so I just shook my head, made my way up here, and collapsed in the chair. That hurts too, but not so much.
I must do something about Jill.
I went to see her, I think about four or five hours ago now. I entered the house, came up to her room, and just stood there. The door was open, and I wasn’t being quiet, so she heard me as I came in; she was just looking at me, as if she were holding her breath to see what I’d say.
I studied her for a moment, then said, “You’ve redecorated.”
She swallowed, it seemed to take some effort, then nodded. She didn’t speak; probably couldn’t.
I said, “I liked it better before.” She still didn’t say anything. I said, “Whose idea was this?”
When she didn’t answer I said “Whose?” again, putting some snap into it.
She remained mute, like a child who doesn’t know it’s being addressed.
I said, “It was Don, wasn’t it?” She didn’t answer, so I put even more into my voice and repeated, “Wasn’t it?”
At last she nodded.
I said, “I had forbidden you to see him.”
She began to tremble.
“Come here,” I said. After a moment she came. I pressed her into my arms. She gave a small muffled cry as the silver points of the mounting of my pendent dug into her chest. Soon she was quiet. There were footsteps, then, and I heard a door opening down the hall. Tom’s head emerged from the door leading up the attic. I glared at him, but he didn’t seem to notice; just nodded pleasantly to me and continued down the back stairs into the kitchen.
I took Jill by the throat and said, “Restore this room.”
She nodded, just barely.
I said, “Good. I’ll be back to check on you after I’ve settled things with Young Don.”
“No,” she said, very softly. “Please.”
I slapped her, not very hard, and she slumped down onto the floor. “Restore this room by the time I return.”
Don lived near St. Bart’s, in a new, ugly, and no doubt expensive apartment building that will probably be turned into a condominium within another five years. It is two stories of greenish brick, each unit having a little porch area enclosed in an iron rail with access via French windows. They had a great deal invested in their security system.
There are a pair of pine trees flanking the walk, about ten feet in front of the doors. I got cozy with one until someone approached with a key in his hand.
A chubby, thoroughly muffled gentleman in his early thirties stepped up to the door, and I slipped out of the shadows behind him. I followed him through the first door, and stood consulting the list of residents while he unlocked the door. He stopped, looked at me, shrugged, and held the door open. I smiled a thank-you and followed him in. No words were exchanged.
Young Don lived in number 22, which I assumed would be on the second floor. I went up the stairs as if I knew for certain, while the gentleman with the key went down the hall the other way. Yes, it was on the second floor, to the right of the stairs, on the left side of the hall.
I entered without knocking first, which may have startled Young Don, because he gave a little screech just before he discharged his shotgun into my chest.
Being shot at close range by double-ought buckshot fired from a .12-gauge shotgun is like being hit by about eighteen .32 caliber bullets, all within a few inches of each other and hitting at the same time, except that I don’t know of any .32 that will shoot with as much force as a shotgun has. The blast picked me up and carried me into the door with enough force that the impact of my body caused the wood to splinter behind me, so that for a moment I had the sensation of being embedded in the door, before my knees crumbled and I fell in a little heap in front of it. Of course, the wood wasn’t the best.
I wish I could remember those next few seconds, because I’ll bet they were interesting, but, while I have a clear memory of the feel of the door splintering behind me, the next thing I can remember is Young Don saying something I couldn’t make out over the ringing in my ears, and I know that some time passed while I wasn’t looking, so to speak.
I was trying to focus on what he was saying while something in my head said, “Stand up, stand up, stand up.” I braced myself against the shattered door, tried to rise, failed, and tried again. I made some progress.
I heard Don say, “Jill said you’d be here.”
I didn’t try to speak at first; my lungs had been ruptured, and speech requires passing air in and out. I made it to a standing position, leaning against the door. Don’s eyes widened. I took a ragged, experimental breath, and it seemed to work. I said, “I shall draw forth thy bones one by one ere I send thee to the Devil, that for all time thy shapeless body shall serve as a carpet for the minions of Hell.”
For just a second he could only stare at me. In that time, I heard sirens approaching, and knew they were heading for us. Then Young Don worked the pump on the shotgun and pointed it at my chest again.
I laughed in his face. “You told Jill, and even told her what to do with her room, but you didn’t believe it yourself, did you?”
He gave an inarticulate cry and squeezed the trigger again, but this time I was ready; I can move very fast indeed when I have to. The blast of the shotgun faded into the approaching siren, which melted into the cry, which went on in my ears long after it had stopped in his throat.
SIX
re⋅per⋅cus⋅sion n. 1. The indirect effect, influence, or result produced by an event or action. 2. A recoil, rebounding, or reciprocal motion after impact.
AMERICAN HERITAGE DICTIONARY
Several days have passed since I was last in front of my typewriting machine, and I’m finally beginning to feel a little better. The trauma didn’t hit until I tried to get up again the day after I was shot; I collapsed, and lay like a corpse until I fell asleep again several hours later. The next day, when Jim looked in on me, I was hardly able to respond to him. He seemed worried, but what could he do? More days passed in this way, though I’m not certain how many. Yesterday I felt that I might be starting to recover but I didn’t want to press my luck. Today I managed to rise and, after a moment or two, stumble up to my typing room. I need to at least be doing something or I shall go mad.
I am feeling weak and lethargic, but not too bad other than that.
I think I will rest some more now, and tomorrow, or the next day at the latest, I will be about my business. Seeing Jill I must put off for another day or two, but it is high on my list, and then—
Jim and I have had a pleasant enough chat. I told him what had happened with Jill and Don, and he has told me some of his own history, which I’d set down here but I don’t remember enough of the details to make it worthwhile; it is detail that makes a story interesting.
He asked me of my own history, and I told some of it, though in no particular order; because the recollections that come
bubbling forth from my memory like water from a fountain don’t seem to want to emerge in any recognizable pattern; although, now that I think of it, I’ve been relating the day-to-day events of these past weeks very much in order; but that’s merely a matter of setting down what has just happened and isn’t at all the same.
For example, when I think of Laura Kellem, what I get are images of her face, or pieces of conversation that might have happened any time during the years we’ve known each other, or parts of the strange dreams I used to have after we’d first met. That was, I believe, while I was in my third year at University. A friend—his name escapes me—had invited me out to a tavern, and, as was our custom, after a few pints we went stalking through those areas that the painted ladies, as we called them, were known to frequent. Now, in all honesty, neither of us had ever indulged ourselves in spending time or money on these ladies. I don’t know why we never did, whether it was fear of some blot that would follow us around, fear of certain diseases that clergymen and professors would hint at but never name, or merely want of courage, but it is nevertheless the case; on the other hand we both took a strange thrill in passing them by and hearing them speak to us in the cadences of their profession, voices both hard and soft, forbidding and promising.
At first, I thought Kellem was such a one, as I recall seeing her leaning with ease and confidence against the filthy wall of a boarding house in an area where no lady would venture alone; yet I realized that her ankles were decently covered, and she wore a hat, and her dress, though hanging much straighter than was fashionable (most ladies were wearing hoops), was not such as one of the painted ladies would wear, being made of some fabric of dark green with flounces, a bright yellow ribbon hanging down the front, and a small bit of white lace about the collar and the sleeves.
I was intrigued at once by the character shown on her face. I can still remember the way she appeared as if she were in command of the street, as if no one could possibly question her right to be there or make any insinuations about her, much less accost her unpleasantly; and there was, at the same time, a glint of humor in her eyes as if all she saw amused her. I did not then understand it, though I do now.
My first thought was that she had a far more interesting face than Prudence, to whom I had recently become engaged; my second was to reproach myself for thinking such things. It was because of that, no doubt, that, as we walked by, I sent her a look of scorn, as if she were, indeed, what I had first taken her for. To this day I don’t know if that look annoyed her or amused her, but, at all events, she called out to me as I went by.
“Young man,” she said, in a voice at once melodious and sharp, like the timbre of a flute without the breathiness.
We stopped, my friend and I (his name was Richard, I now recall), stopped and looked at each other, then at her. I bowed slightly and said, “Yes, madam?”
For a moment she just stared at me, smiling a secret smile, and the moment grew to the point where I became uncomfortable, although I found her eyes fascinating, as if they had a mysterious pull that promised rapture beyond the limitations of earthly lust or heavenly love. At last she said, “I have become lost, I’m afraid. Would you mind escorting me home?”
Richard and I looked at each other once more, but, after all, she was clearly a lady; how could we refuse? We placed her between us, and she took my arm and we began walking in I know not what direction. Nor, now that I think of it, do I know what became of Richard that night; I do not believe it has ever occurred to me until now to wonder how she managed to get me to her rooms alone without giving either Richard or me any suspicion that anything out of the ordinary was happening. I don’t believe that Richard ever even spoke of the event; it was as if he’d forgotten it had happened; and I certainly never brought it up. But Richard, and, for that matter, Prudence, all begin to fade from memory at about that same time, so I cannot be certain.
All in all, it was a simple and elegant seduction. I’ve done it many times, and perhaps as well, though certainly never better.
I have discovered a place called Flannery’s, located on Terrace, near Fullerton, which is right on the edge of Little Philly. They have a strip bar in front, the sort where the strippers are forty-year-old women wearing caked-on makeup in hopes that a myopic drunk will think they’re college girls and tip accordingly. The drink prices are high, but not as high as the bars where the college girls do “lingerie shows.”
In any case, they have a back room where one can play poker. It is a typical arrangement: the house supplies the dealer, takes five percent of each pot, makes sure there’s a waitress around, and other than that the players are left alone. I was down to a couple of hundred dollars when I started; I left with a little less than three thousand.
Playing cards isn’t the easiest way I know to get the money I need to make life comfortable, but I think it is my favorite. I’m careful at first; staying with small pots and folding if I’m not sure. But after about an hour I get so I can pretty well see who has what, and by the time I’ve been playing with the same people for two hours, I cannot be fooled, or “bluffed” in the parlance of the game.
An experienced dealer can tell at once if there is so much as one card missing from the deck, but after he’s been sitting with me for a couple of hours I can stop worrying. Yet even though I cannot be bluffed, and even though I might have a nine of diamonds waiting to be slipped in where needed, still, every hand is different and I never know what kind of luck I am going to have. Or, to put it another way, I know I’m not going to lose, but I enjoy the process of discovering exactly how I’m going to win.
One of the waitresses, a tall redhead with an odd trace of Latino in her face, started noticing me after a few hours and being especially nice; I guess she was watching the pile of money in front of me grow. By this time the bar was closed, and there were only two waitresses working the four tables of card players. I tipped her well, and returned some of her inane banter, but I realized, as I was beginning to think about leaving, that I had no interest in her at all.
There were ugly looks when I left; it’s that sort of place; and the waitress seemed disappointed, but I left the bar alone. I walked through the heart of Little Philly, which is an area I’d heard talk about, and noticed from newspaper accounts as being dangerous. It seemed quiet enough to me; there were more police cruisers than anything else, and it had none of the atmosphere of danger that I remember from the Lower East Side of New York, or certain parts of Soho. I guess everything is relative.
The rats still played in the sewers, though, and there were a few stray cats who paced me, and a few dogs who howled and ran off. People talk about how peaceful the countryside is, or the deep woods, or the mountains, or the lakes. Maybe so. But there is a certain kind of peace that you find in the middle of a city when you are the only one on the street, and you can hear your footsteps echo on the dry pavement, and the smell of petrol and exhaust is only the faint lingering reminder of what the place is like when it is alive.
The walk was not unpleasant; there was no moon to contend with the stars that were visible through the glow of the streetlights and I was not cold. I expect February to be the coldest month, but I’m told that in Ohio January is usually the worst. February still has a firm grip, but she’s so confident that she doesn’t mind letting the thermometer climb just a little, knowing she can send it back down whenever she wants to. This is such an evening, and I can even imagine that someday the snow will melt, and the pavement will begin to sprout once more. I wonder if I will see the spring.
I regret leaving without that waitress. I am still feeling weak, and very tired.
The nights are getting shorter.
It is time for me to sleep.
This evening seems to be shaping up very nicely indeed. There is a low cloud cover, a breeze that is almost warm, and no moon. The breeze carries with it the least hint of news from the north, suggesting colder weather to come, but I think it is lying; I believe we will have another day or two of
relative warmth before the next murderous cold wave hits. In either case, tonight is pleasant enough.
I dreamed about Susan, and woke up seeing her face.
This is no good. While it has been very nice spending time with her, I cannot afford, especialy now, to
To what? I don’t know how to complete that sentence.
Well, it doesn’t matter. It is time to pay Jill the visit I owe her; for I have no doubt that she has not done what I commanded her to, and probably thinks me out of her life. I will correct this misapprehension, and I will not allow myself to be distracted by her roommate.
It is time to be about it.
I’m a little puzzled by
Oh, this is too amusing for words. Between the previous line and this one has been about five minutes of laughter, bordering on the hysterical at times. Jim came in and looked at me, but I just shook my head and didn’t say anything, so he shrugged and went away. The best jokes, I think, are those played by Lady Fate, and she has just performed a fine one. Let me set this down so that, if sometime later I come to read it, I will be able to savor the humor in all its grandeur.
Jill wasn’t home when I got there, and, as I’d expected, she hadn’t made the changes in her room that I had ordered. I seethed for a moment, then shrugged and went down the hall to say a quick hello to Susan, who was standing in the bathroom, naked, with the door open, brushing her hair. I watched her for a moment, admiring the curve of her back and the set of her shoulders, then went up and stood next to her.
She jumped, but only a little.
“I didn’t mean to startle you,” I said.
“You move like a cat.”
“Miaow.”
She gave me one of her extravagant smiles, then looked puzzled and said, “How did you get in?”
