by Brian Lumley
Vicenti’s eyes popped open. “What’s that?”
“Yeah,” de Medici continued. “You remember Vegas a year, year and a half ago? Something big went down there. Bunch of punters cleaned ’em out good. Took millions and disappeared. And all legitimate, they won the fucking money! Can you imagine that? They won the mother!”
Vicenti’s eyes were narrow now. He ground his teeth. “Jesus! Oh, yes, I can imagine it. Christ! Didn’t he do the same thing to me, this Garrison? Didn’t he clean me out?” He stared at de Medici and his lips curled back from his teeth. “So the Big Guy and the boys in Vegas think—?”
“Not think,” de Medici cut him off, “they know. He did it to Vegas just like he did it to you. They know it was him ’cos they finally tracked him down. A guy with more tricks up his sleeve than a card-sharp! But…well, you can see why the Big Guy has to cancel your contract on Garrison, okay?”
Vicenti frowned. “Come again?”
“See, right now this guy is worth a lot more alive than dead. The Vegas mob wants to know how he does it. Yeah, and so do we. We’d like for no one else to do it again—not ever! So, after they let him walk, we’re going to pull him in. Then, when we get through with him—” he shrugged. “He’s all yours, if you still want him.”
Vicenti nodded. “Okay. But what about the Blacks? Can you find ’em, get a message to ’em, call ’em off?”
“Yeah, it’s done already. They get back from Rhodes three days from now, Monday, 7:00 P.M. into Gatwick. By that time you should be out of here and on the mend. There’s a general meeting Monday 8:30 at the Big Guy’s usual offices. The Blacks’ll be there. You, too. All of us. Hey!—this is big, Carlo.”
Vicenti pursed his lips, rolled his eyes and stared up at the ceiling. He frowned. “Yeah, big,” he grunted. “But it still doesn’t explain how I thought I saw him when he wasn’t there. And yet, you know, somehow I had a feeling he wasn’t really there.”
He paused and gazed into the eyes of his visitors, then lowered his eyebrows in reproof. “Hey, don’t look at me like that! We’re talking about the same guy bust me out of the Ace of Clubs, remember? Tricks up his sleeve? Brother, you can say that again!”
Chapter 13
Phillip Stone nightmared, and when he woke up he had difficulty deciding just where the bad dream ended and the reality began. He had dreamed of the KGB, of the goons in Peking, of man’s inhumanity to man. But he had never in his life dreamed of anything quite like Charon Gubwa.
The man was a hill of pallid flesh!
Standing, he would be inches taller than Stone; he had at least twice Stone’s girth, must weigh almost four hundred and thirty or forty pounds; and his arms and hands were like great knotted clubs, making Stone’s seem fragile by comparison. As for the pallor of his flesh: it wasn’t sickness, Stone saw, but albinism: he was a pink-eyed, mottled gray albino Negro! And that wasn’t all he was. Stone’s eyes weren’t quite in focus yet, and his mind was certainly way out, but he knew a monstrosity when he saw one. Whoever the big man-woman was, he was a monstrosity.
The light was pretty dim and Stone’s senses were all in conflict with one another. Either he was upside down or gravity had no meaning here—wherever “here” was. But his orientation, chiefly the weight of his own body and the way his clothing fell, told him that he was seated normally and that “down” was where his feet were; while the crick in his neck said that his head was tilted back, which meant that what he was looking at was on the ceiling!
He closed his eyes for a moment, thought about shaking his head to clear it (a mistake, that, for the very thought hurt), and very slowly, carefully opened his eyes again. And this time he understood.
The ceiling was a mirror, or at least a large area in the ceiling’s center was a mirror. What seemed to be happening up there was actually happening directly in front of Stone, but for the moment he was content to witness it secondhand. He didn’t want to attract anyone’s attention, not just yet. First he would like to know where he was; he already knew how he came to be here. More or less.
But…he would also like to know why he was tied to his chair. Or maybe he knew that, too. For if he wasn’t tied down, then by now somebody, even several somebodies, would be suffering a few choice agonies from Stone’s extensive list of such.
All of that, however, could wait—would have to wait. For the moment he would just sit here and watch the action. And the action was…something else!
The great mottled albino freak lay on what looked like a wider-than-average masseur’s table, where three girls worked on the doughy obesity of his body. Their punching and pummelling was performed to the tune of the monster’s sighing, grunting and moaning, and all four—slaves and master alike—were naked as the day they were born. Time was when Stone would have looked at the girls first, but right now he was more interested in the (man? woman?) creature on the masseur’s table.
With his white hair forming a huge frizz of a bush upon his head, and his incredible pink eyes—themselves anomalies in a typically negroid physiognomy—and above all else, the sexual organs of both man and woman…
…Stone’s mind reeled!
Not only from the contemplation of this most inhuman of human beings, but also from the effects of the drug which had stunned him and facilitated his kidnapping. Whatever the stuff had been, his head now felt as if it had been kicked twice too often. There again, it might have been kicked; he remembered making a mess of the face of one of his attackers—perhaps the man had avenged himself while Stone was out for the count. Whichever, it was like the very worst hangover he’d ever known, and Stone had known quite a few. He fought back the nausea he felt welling up and looked at the girls who were working on…on the thing.
Another mistake, another anomaly. Only two of them were girls. As for the other—Stone wasn’t sure. It had breasts, small but definitely female, but the rest of the gear was male—again small, like a young lad’s, but male. And he liked his work, that one. He had an erection, anyway, what there was of it. And so did the mountain of meat he was working on.
Stone now saw that this was more than simple massage. It was the full treatment. Fascinated despite his nausea, he watched the thing through to its end. One of the girls was plying the hermaphrodite’s great penis with one hand, and toying with his opposing parts with the other. The second girl, and the boy-girl, were rubbing warm oil into his flabby body; the latter was also sucking with feminine lips upon the black giant’s great swollen-slug nipples.
How long this had been going on, Stone couldn’t say. But the end came quickly. The huge body began to quiver and heave; massive hands flopped over the side of the table, fluttering like stunned birds; the hermaphrodite’s sperm erupted into the face of the girl working his shaft, who smiled her relief and pleasure…obviously it was important in more ways than one that her master should be completely satisfied.
Stone turned his eyes away then, as that swollen knob of muscle emptied itself in long bursts; but not before the hermaphrodite’s pink eyes had met his own in the mirror, and not before he had seen the slow smile—of sexual pleasure, yes, but also in recognition of Stone’s recovery, his consciousness—which gave the thick, gray-mottled lips the curve of a sharp-horned, leprous moon.
The pink eyes were like magnets: they held Stone’s gaze, drew his head round to look again, as a snake draws a bird before striking. Then—
“You’re awake, Mr. Stone. Splendid!” It was a deep, sonorous voice, negroid but with its charm and lilt almost cultured out. Possibly an adopted voice, falsified, but Stone thought not. And deep underneath, despite its masculinity, there were strangely feminine nuances, girlish or womanish undertones. But the female facet was definitely subservient. Stone found himself wishing he knew more about hermaphoditism in human beings—in anything, for that matter.
“Oh, it wouldn’t do you any good, Mr. Stone,” said the voice, “believe me. I am in no way typical. Indeed I am not a ‘type’ at all. I am unique!”
&nbs
p; The effect of those words—so casually but fluently composed, so easily spoken—was like an electric shock in Stone’s mind. He knew his thoughts had been read as accurately as if he’d spoken them out loud, but the concept was simply too incredible for him to accept as fact.
“More accurately,” the creature on the masseur’s slab smiled again. “And that is a fact! Men don’t always express their thoughts accurately—but they do think them accurately.” Now Stone believed. He was stunned, but he believed.
“Precisely the point of the exercise,” said the creature.
The proof of the pudding, Stone thought, quite deliberately—
“Is in the eating, Mr. Stone, I agree!”
“Impressive,” Stone found himself hard-put to be phlegmatic, “but why bother to show me?”
“It is important that you know. And if I had simply told you, you would not have believed. This way I would hope that you will not try to hide anything from me. The talent is tiring, you see? All of the ESP-abilities are, and I do not wish to tire myself unnecessarily. On the other hand I don’t wish to be duped. For which reason I will, from time to time, occasionally read your mind. Do we understand each other?”
So far, Stone thought.
“Well? I am waiting.”
“Yes,” said Stone, “we understand each other.” And he realized he’d learned nothing at all from that last ploy—except that perhaps the freak spoke the whole truth. And why should he lie? After all, he held all the cards.
Stone knew there were ESPers in MI6, but he would never have believed that anyone could reach such heights of perfection in the art. Actually, he’d always considered it a waste of time and money. But now…? ESPionage, indeed!
“Good,” the other nodded. He held out his arms and his paramours—slaves?—eased him upright until he could swing his legs from the slab. He stood, and a robe of towelling was draped across his shoulders. He fastened it about his vast waist, waved the two girls and the boy-girl away. Stone heard a door open and close pneumatically.
“That must be disconcerting,” said the creature, approaching, looming larger in the ceiling mirror. “You can move your head, Mr. Stone. Why not look at me directly? I am not of the Gorgons, you know.”
Stone raised his head upright and it hurt. Lights flashed before his eyes and inside his skull, causing him to wince. “Jesus!” he said.
“It will pass,” said the other.
Stone winced again, screwed up his eyes, blinked them rapidly. He was glad the lighting was subdued. “Okay, Mr. whoever you are, what’s it all about?”
“Gubwa,” said the other, “Charon Gubwa. I doubt that you ever heard of me.”
“No need to doubt it,” said Stone, trying now to be flippant, “I never heard of you. But I’m all ears if you want to tell?” By now he had ascertained that he was securely strapped in his chair, his arms as well as his legs. Apart from his head, he couldn’t move by so much as an inch. There was absolutely nothing he could do, no physical action he might take, and so it seemed best simply to sit here and listen. At least that way he might learn something—before the other decided he had learned enough.
“Oh, but I want you to learn everything, Mr. Stone,” said Gubwa, proving his point yet again and paying no heed to Stone’s wit. “Everything—for reasons which I shall now explain:
“First, when you know all about me you’ll stop wondering about me. This will leave your mind free to think more clearly about what I require of you. Second, you are intelligent—indeed a member of an ‘intelligence’ organization—and wily, devious minds have always fascinated me. Third, your natural curiosity pleases me, as that of a child pleases his instructor. And finally—”
“—Finally, nothing you tell me will do me any good, because I’m never going to talk about it?”
“Correct!” Gubwa agreed, smiling again. “In fact when I’m finished with you, not only will you not talk about it, you might not even think about it.”
Stone nodded, flexed his muscles one last time against his bonds, shrugged and gave it up. “I’m very angry, Gubwa, but I’m sure you already know that. You probably also know that if I could get out of this chair I’d wreck you, so I don’t suppose it does much harm to tell you! As for the rest of it: I suppose you could call me a captive audience.”
“That is also correct!” Gubwa laughed, but to Stone his laughter sounded like the rattle of a snake. Gubwa was rubbing it in, gloating on Stone’s helplessness. And knowing it brought out the agent’s mean streak.
“Listen, Your Uniqueness,” he growled. “Did you ever stop to think that maybe you’re not so unique? That maybe you’re just another freak?”
Gubwa moved behind him, surprisingly quickly for a being of his size and bulk. Stone’s ears tingled but nothing happened. Then the chair spun silently round on rubber wheels. Gubwa steered it towards metal doors that hissed open. “Oh, but I know I’m a freak,” he said. “That’s what makes me unique. I was born before my time. Like Jesus, da Vinci, Einstein. And I am no less than them, in my way. Indeed I am more than them. I am the destiny of the human race, Mr. Stone. And I shall remold that race in my own image. Homo Sapiens? Bah! Hermaphro Sapiens!”
They passed into Gubwa’s Command Center and Stone found himself wheeled to where he could stare up at the massively-carved figure of the albino where its feet straddled the globe of the world. And at last the agent began to know something of awe, and of fear. The man meant it. His aim was conquest, empire—with himself as Emperor of Earth! He was as mad as a hatter.
“Right on the one hand, wrong on the other!” Gubwa snapped. “I dream of empire, yes, but I am not mad. Indeed I am utterly sane.”
“Most madmen think they’re sane,” Stone growled.
“I do not intend to argue with you, merely to inform you. Then you shall work for me—at least for a little while, longer if you are sensible—and finally…well, I shall leave the end of it up to you. You are, as I have said, intelligent. I could find a place for you in my organization. But do please remember, Mr. Stone, that yours is hazardous work at best, and no one will worry too much if you simply go missing. That is why you are paid so well, after all. The ‘X’ Factor: danger-money!”
Stone remained silent.
“Very well. Now listen to what I have to say. I shall begin at the very beginning…
“My great-grandfather was the son of a South-African chief, of the blood of Shaka and Cetewayo. Unlike those two, he mined yellow metal and blue stones for his white masters. And the earth was also rich in pitchblende, uranium. That was one generation. As a child and a young man, my grandfather worked the same mines, until the precious metals and stones were gone. By which time there was a new interest in the previously useless metal. Finally, my father and mother worked for whites, too, and my father ended his days cleaning the vats in a refinery. He had been bald since he was eighteen and his teeth had fallen out before he was twenty-five. But do not think I hold all this against you white men, for I do not. No, in a way I owe you a debt.
“Perhaps I was meant to be twins, I don’t know, but that’s not how it worked out. You see, I was really the product of three parents. The one in the middle was radiation!
“I was born neither black nor white but gray—not even a true albino, you see? Unique! I had the parts of both male and female, equally well developed. I do not have a womb, no, but all the rest of the equipment is there—sensory certainly. My breasts are real, not merely cosmetic adornments, and my passions are of both man and woman…
“I have pink eyes and they are weak, but in the darkness of a post-holocaust world they would be ideally suited. My size is godlike, towering, and my body has the mass of solidity. My frame, freakish according to you, is a leader’s frame, that of a great emperor. And my powers…
“What do you know of ESP, Mr. Stone? No, do not answer; first let me tell you what I can do. I am telepathic, as you have discovered. I read minds. But that is only one of my powers. I cannot yet levitate, not yet,
but I do have great potential. Here, let me show you…” He went to an upright weighing-machine and stood upon its platform. The needle spun dizzily and twitched to a halt at just over four hundred and thirty pounds.
“Now watch!” ordered Gubwa. He closed his eyes. In a matter of moments a fine beading of sweat stood out upon his brow. The needle on the dial crept down, down. Three hundred pounds. Two hundred and ten. One hundred and seventy.
Gubwa opened his eyes, sighed—and the needle shot up again. He stepped off the platform. “And that is a measure of power I must use constantly, Mr. Stone, else movement itself would be cumbersome. Hypnotism is another art of mine, in which I excel. But you will discover that for yourself soon enough. I am also what you might call a seer: I prognosticate. Not, unfortunately, very accurately—but I can see something of the future. The immediate future, quite clearly—the distant future, dimly. Suffice it to say that when I put my money on a horse it usually wins. In all matters of gambling, I am rather unbeatable.”
Stone frowned. In all matters of…gambling! His mouth fell open. Garrison! So that was how he did it!
Gubwa had chosen that very moment to read his mind. His pink eyes became slits in his puffy, leprous face: his version of a knowing smile. “Indeed,” his voice was very low, very sinister. “Richard Garrison—and you have been given the task of protecting him.”
Stone’s mind went back to Garrison’s file—all he had read and memorized of the man—but in the next moment he gasped, gritted his teeth and bit his lip until it hurt, deliberately dragging his mind away from that subject.
Gubwa laughed, a deep, almost hearty laugh. “Oh, do not concern yourself! I know more of Garrison than ever you could tell me. Far more, though not yet enough. Sincerely, Mr. Stone, there is nothing I want of you in the way of information. Nothing I want out of you at all. Instead, let me tell you something about him.” He quickly outlined the relevant facts, even went so far as to mention several things Stone had not previously known, until the agent once more relaxed in his chair. Gubwa was right: there was nothing Stone had that he didn’t already know.
