by Barry, Mike
The scream came at last but it was a pitiful thing, a forlorn bird cry in the dense room; it might have been only the sound of leaking blood. She collapsed against the near wall, dropping her suitcase, the wall bracing her, bringing her up again, she felt the plaster coming up behind her knees and she stood, extended an arm blindly, felt the thickness of the air and it was as if the air had become acqueous. She was swimming within it, the air sustaining her, floating her forward; she began to move then to the bedroom.
The door of the bedroom open, everything in the bedroom open, things pulled apart as if a man in agony had been looking for an antidote, ripping through possessions, furniture, laundry, for the bottle of elixir which would save him, and on the bed, my God, lying on the bed….
She saw him, saw Phil then. Dead, he had somehow at the last moment turned on his back so that he could see light rather than darkness during the passage. His hands were folded on his chest, the blood which lay in streaks on his body covered him like gay strips of rag. There seemed to be no pain in it. Fascinated, compelled, she moved forward, saw the staring, bulging eyes of the corpse and that was all it was, merely a corpse. She had seen a dead dog once in a roadway and he had looked like this.
She looked down at the body of what had been her husband thinking that she should scream now; if there were ever going to be a time to scream, this was definitely it, what with the horror in the living room and the horror in the bedroom—but she could not. She did not even try to force it out of herself, the screaming was cancelled. Phil looked so casual, that was all, so much at peace with himself and his condition, nothing could have left him as relaxed and easeful as this death by violence had; and to scream here would have been like violating a church with curses: it was not appropriate. It did not fit in. Dimly Karen realized that she was hysterical. She was absolutely hysterical.
She raised a hand to her hair, felt it, felt the little puffs and strands, and backed away from the bed, her other hand touching her stomach. That had always aroused him. When she lifted her arms and touched herself, that had been the gesture which most inflamed him, he would come off the bed sometimes laughing, laughing pursue her around the room until his hands disappeared around and inside of her and she had felt his need slamming at the doors of himself, groping and gathering until at last she had submitted. She had always submitted. Did he want her now? There he was, lying on the bed, she was certainly doing everything possible to arouse him but nothing seemed to work.
She put her hand behind her, dropped the zipper of her dress, parted it to the waist and spread it open, dropped it off her arms. Now in her brassiere she confronted him, held the hand behind, opened the brassiere and her breasts shook free. How he had loved her breasts! He had drowned in them, played with them the way, he had once said, children liked to play with crayons, endlessly rolling and squeezing them—but now he seemed to show no response. What was wrong with him? What in hell was wrong with him?
Well, she wasn’t going to go on, carrying on this way if he was going to ignore her, that was all; she didn’t have to put up with this humiliation. She was a married woman and a very pretty one, ten years younger than this drug-pusher of a husband, and if he thought that she was going to stand here all day playing with herself for no response, he had another thought coming. Funny, he never touched drugs himself. Blew a little pot now and then, but said that he didn’t like to mix business with pleasure, wanted to keep tight partitions between the two. That was the way he had put it, “tight partitions.” Well, so much for him. She gave him a last contemptuous look and, gathering her dress around herself, left the room. She would show him. She’d leave him all over again.
Coming back to the living room though, in the center of her determination, the odor and the corpses hit her all over again, and she fell like an arrow to the floor, head first, rocked on her skull for an instant, then fell limp. The blow must have stunned her, or then again maybe it did not stun her, maybe everything that was happening was really happening. One by one the corpses came over to her, covered her with their bloody clothes as if performing an ancient ceremony, and then the three of them, pallbearers, took her into the bedroom and tossed her next to the body of Phillip Sands, where Karen lay for three days and three nights before one of the neighbors finally got curious about the open door and poked her old lady’s brow in. Such shrieks and foolishness! Such an explosion of police! But Karen did not hear any of it, being happily catatonic, and so she remained for many months while the kind physicians of Austin Riggs filled her up and emptied her out, emptied her out and filled her up with the best and most modern varieties of various drugs which perilously restored her sanity to her, and at the age of twenty-five sent her out to make a new life for herself in the wilds of Rego Park, New York.
EPILOGUE
Wulff with the valise took a taxicab out to the bank of the Charles River. The driver wanted to know if he should wait or just go on his way, and Wulff said that he better get going, he had things to do. The driver said that was all right with him, and Wulff gave him five dollars and sent him on his way, taking the valise out to the bank and then standing there inert until the car was gone.
He looked at the muddy surface of the Charles River in isolation. The day had dissolved into grey foam and mist; he could no longer see Cambridge or its university across the shore. No one was out here. Years ago he understood that students, even in bad weather, would come down to the banks of the Charles to make love or just to be together, but that had been a long time ago. All of the dormitories were coed now and half of the students were living off-campus in or out of wedlock. Nobody took a bottle and went down to the Charles in 1973. The dormitories permitted liquor but most of the students used pot.
Wulff stood there quietly. People might still be after him but he had a feeling that they were not. He had a feeling that his Boston siege was over. Cicchini dead, his henchmen dead, Tucci dead, Sands dead, all of the elements of the network fallen away from him. Without Cicchini at the center, the hunt would have to be called off. The Northeast had been a tightly controlled sector. Everything emanated from Cicchini. Now, with him gone, reorganization would have to start at the bottom.
The time of the wars would now be beginning. No one was looking for Wulff.
He looked at the valise. He had had it for one week, two days, and about four thousand miles. For all that it had been through, for all the hands that had touched and clawed at it, it still looked curiously impermeable. He ran his hands over the surfaces, felt the damp of the city festering through his fingertips. The valise merely conveyed qualities. Of itself it meant nothing at all. Its contents meant nothing either. It was only what they could do to men that had caused men to die….
Men had sought this valise, men had died for it; men would seek it again. What lay within the valise was of such importance that lives itself meant nothing. The lives were merely conveyor belts, vehicles for what lay within.
What lay in the valise began on parched empty fields under the foreign sun, the sun drew it out inexorably on its journey of thousands of miles, hundreds of hands, aduleration, manipulation, until finally it ended or some of it ended within the living flesh of human beings.
But only the journey itself mattered. The final trip did not; what happened when these contents intersected with the users could not be mapped out. Only the externals, the consequences could be, and it was these that now possessed Wulff, caused his vision to momentarily blur, until even the muddy waters of the Charles became merely another element of the inner design.
The price was too high, that was all. It was too high from start to finish, too many lives snuffed out, bodies destroyed, futures blotted, children smashed and left broken in alleys, all of this coming from the one weed that sprung under the foreign sun. And yet, high or not, the price had to be paid. It had to be paid in the coin which the drug itself extracted: pain, illusion, terror. Because if you did not pay it the drug would burn and it would consume the world.
But with
this lot too much had happened. Too much had been invested, the cycle had to be broken. He had carried it from San Francisco from a burning freighter, he had killed the men who took it from him to get it back; four men lay dead up the hill because he had to have it—but Wulff could see now that he had been wrong. He had been wrong about this valise. It had cost too much.
It meant starting from the beginning. It meant going back to New York and, as if for the very first time, two endless months ago, to begin to dig. The valise could not be a crutch. Its possession meant nothing. For every Cicchini dead three would rise. And he would have to combat them from the start every time.
Wulff sighed. He had never felt so tired. And yet in a way he had never felt so sure of himself, convinced of his purpose. He knew that he was right. A half million dollars of junk was now out of the streets forever, San Francisco was hurting badly, the Northeast sector was wrecked. New York was tottering.
The war was going well. The war would go on.
Wulff hoisted the valise, felt the weight almost tenderly, like that of the girl who had nestled against him in San Francisco. He brought it to chin level and held it poised, looking out at the waters. Then he walked the three closing steps to the bank, slammed his other hand on the valise, lifted it and flung it into the waters.
The waters took it.
The valise bobbed once, slid out of sight, was gone. Convinced that it would sink, Wulff did not follow it. He turned his back and began the long, long trip toward the next campaign. The next campaign had started now.
The dark, ruined waters of the Charles heaved once in the place where the valise had sunk and then, dense and oily, rolled over to placidity. The river lay in the mist. Cambridge poked lights like little fires through the fog.
Serving as inspiration for contemporary literature, Prologue Books, a division of F+W Media, offers readers a vibrant, living record of crime, science fiction, fantasy, western, and romance genres. Discover more today:
www.prologuebooks.com
This edition published by
Prologue Books
a division of F+W Media, Inc.
10151 Carver Road, Suite 200
Blue Ash, Ohio 45242
www.prologuebooks.com
Copyright © 1973 by Mike Barry
All rights reserved.
Names, characters, corporations, institutions, organizations, events, or locales in this novel are either the product of the author’s imagination or, if real, used fictitiously. The resemblance of any character to actual persons (living or dead) is entirely coincidental.
eISBN 10: 1-4405-4236-8
eISBN 13: 978-1-4405-4236-7
Cover art © 123rf.com/Steven Phraner
