The Language Of Cannibals m-8

by George C. Chesbro

  "How does it look?" I asked.

  "Gory. Want to see?",

  "Why not? I've never seen my own brains, and I need something to cheer me up."

  Garth got to his feet and rummaged around in the surrounding piles of junk until he found a cracked hand mirror, which he brought back to me. I looked at myself in the mirror, decided that, all in all, my head didn't look as bad as I had expected. The right eye was swollen shut, which was no surprise. Scalp wounds are notoriously bloody, and all the blood was coming from an area above my right eye where two or three of the dozen or so stitches closing the gash had torn loose. There was also a shaved area the size of a pancake on the right side of my head, just above the ear, and another cut; I counted eight stitches there, and they had held firm.

  "No sign of any brains," I said.

  "I can't believe you actually said that. You're stealing my best lines."

  A few minutes later Mary came back into the attic storage room, quickly and quietly closing the door behind her. She carried a paper bag, which she set down beside her as she knelt on the floor in front of me. Her face was still ashen, but she didn't flinch when she saw my wounds, and her voice was steady when she spoke.

  "I'm afraid this is going to hurt a bit, Mongo," she said as she removed a bottle of hydrogen peroxide, a thick roll of bandages, and cotton swabbing from the bag. "There's nobody living on these two upper floors, so you can yell a little bit if you want to."

  "I'll take care of it, Mary," Garth said evenly but firmly as he took the bottle of hydrogen peroxide from her hand. "I like to hear Mongo squeal."

  "But-"

  "I'll take care of it. Now, I don't know about you two, but I'm hungry. We have to keep our energy levels up. Mary, do you suppose you can sneak us all up something to eat?"

  "I think so," she replied distantly. She studied Garth intently for a few moments, then abruptly got to her feet and once again slipped out through the door.

  I leaned back in the chair and closed my good eye as Garth began his ministrations. He daubed more blood away from my eye and cleansed the wound with peroxide, then fashioned an effective pressure bandage from cotton wadding held in place by surgical tape. As his fingers moved, he had an almost blank stare, and he was humming some tune in a voice so low it was nearly inaudible. His touch and the humming had a near-hypnotic effect, and for the first time since I had awoken in the hospital I was virtually free of pain. When I opened my eye, I was startled to see Mary sitting on the floor a few feet away, staring at Garth as he worked on me. I had not heard the door open or close.

  Beside her was a silver tray containing a loaf of bread, cold cuts, silverware, a tall pitcher of orange juice, and glasses. It seemed Garth's usual calming influence had also worked its powers on the woman, for some color had returned to Mary's face, and she no longer seemed as tense and nervous.

  "It's not serious, Mary," Garth said softly, tilting his head back in her direction as he began to quickly and expertly rebandage my head, this time leaving both eyes uncovered. "Just messy. You have to understand my brother. The man craves constant attention, and he's not past flying his car through the air, banging up his head, and bleeding all over the place just to get sympathy."

  I tried to think of an appropriate reply, but I didn't feel I knew Mary Tree well enough yet to employ the obscenities required; besides, I was too tired, if now pleasantly so, to engage in a lot of bantering. I satisfied myself with an exaggerated roll of my good eye.

  The woman removed her bifocals and set them on the floor beside the tray, then brushed her hands back through her long, fine, graying golden hair. She cocked her head slightly and continued to stare at Garth's profile as he worked on me. There was a strange light in her eyes. "Garth Frederickson," she said at last in a low, husky, decidedly sexy voice, "we've only just met, and yet I have this odd feeling that I've known you a very long time. Maybe it's just that I've wanted to know someone like you. I don't really understand it. There's no artifice or sham in you, and yet I think you're the strangest man I've ever met."

  I mumbled, "You've got that right, Mary."

  But the folksinger had eyes only for Garth and no time for my piquant observations. I wasn't even sure she'd heard me.

  "There's such a strange mix in you," she said, still staring at Garth. "There's no cruelty in you, and yet I sense a great capacity for violence. . even brutality. At the same time there's this incredible gentleness in you, which is what I'm seeing right now. You're like some great jungle cat, ready to either purr or pounce at any given moment. I suspect that with some people you display infinite patience, and no patience at all with others. A half hour ago you were prepared to kill two men on sight."

  "Oh, I'm still prepared to kill those two particular men on sight," Garth said mildly.

  "I don't understand how you can live with those kinds of emotional extremes, two personalities which are contradictory, and at war in you."

  Garth merely shrugged. "I don't see, or feel, any contradiction. Different types of people elicit different reactions and require different handling."

  I said, "Garth has never hurt anyone who wasn't truly deserving, Mary."

  "Violence begets violence," the woman said quietly, her tone slightly accusatory, but also uncertain.

  "There's nothing complicated about me, Mary," Garth said evenly. "I am what you feel I am."

  "But what I feel you are would be-is-quite different from what Gregory Trex or Jay Acton would feel if they met up with you."

  Garth finished bandaging my head, using thin strips of surgical tape to secure the end of the bandage just behind my left ear. It was an excellent job, much better than had been done at the hospital; I felt considerably less pressure on the gash over my right eye and on the wound on the side of my head. Garth studied his handiwork for a few moments, grunted with satisfaction, then turned to face Mary and resumed speaking as if no time had passed between her words and his.

  "Mary, you're a person who would sacrifice her life to save the life of another. But there are people who would gladly accept your sacrifice and laugh at you as they spat on your corpse. Dying for those kinds of people makes no sense to someone like me; you'll save far more lives if you just kill them and be done with it. It's what's called for, and it's what they really deserve. To me, your way of thinking is hopelessly complicated, like your behavior. I don't understand it. But it doesn't matter, because you've more than earned the right to think and behave as you like. I think we're about the same age. At a time long ago when my biggest concerns were pimples and finding ways to get girls to go out with me, you were already a world-class performer, singing on stages around the world and using your music to try to get nations to stop wasting their money on arms and use it to feed their people. You'd fight evil with a song, and that makes you the bravest person I know. I've always loved your music, and I've always thought you were just about the sexiest woman alive. Those tapes you gave Mongo to give me were a very fine gift, and I thank you."

  Mary blushed-but she did not take her eyes away from Garth's. It certainly looked to me like the beginning of a mutual admiration society.

  I said, "Let's eat."

  The three of us sat cross-legged on the floor around the tray, making sandwiches from the bread and cold cuts and drinking the fresh-squeezed orange juice. With some food in my stomach, and my swollen right eye beginning to open, I felt a little better; my vision was not quite so blurred, and my headache was no worse than what I might suffer from a serious hangover-pesky, but not hopelessly debilitating.

  "Well, Mongo," Garth said when we finished eating, "now I think it's time to evaluate our situation. I'd say we're in a peck of trouble. What do you say?"

  I looked at Mary, grinned. "That brother of mine is such a perceptive analyst. Some of his insights will take your breath away."

  Garth smiled benignly at me. "A local loony wants you dead because you embarrassed him. The KGB wants you dead because you can unmask one of their top agents. A very powerf
ul right-winger and his FBI buddy would probably be just as happy if either the KGB or the local loony succeeds in getting you dead, because then you won't be in a position to embarrass them. The police around here turn out to be local errand boys who are willing to lock you up on a trumped-up murder charge, which has probably been engineered so that some sniper will know where to find you in order to put a bullet through your head. The FBI could probably guarantee your-our-safety, but Culhane's buddy Hendricks will make sure the FBI doesn't touch you-us-with a ten-mile-long pole. You're a fugitive from justice, and a warrant for my arrest is going to be issued just as soon as the police find out you're missing. Having talked to you means that both Mary and I are marked for death. The FBI will almost certainly ignore what we have to say, the local police can't guarantee our safety, and there are no good guys in the local vicinity; it seems all the guys around here are bad, hopelessly biased, blind, buffaloed, or simply don't want to be bothered. Have I left anything out?"

  "No, I think that about covers it."

  "Now, what's our next move?"

  "Surely you jest," I said with a shrug. "Our next move is obvious; we call in the very old, very bald cavalry."

  "My thinking exactly," Garth said, and turned to Mary. "Where's the nearest phone?"

  "There are three, but they're all down on the first floor-two in our offices, and one for personal use in our recreation room."

  "You don't have one in your room?"

  "No."

  "Can I get down there and use the phone without anyone seeing me?"

  Mary grimaced. "I'm not sure, Garth. We have some early risers here. You'd have to go through the main living areas to get to any of the phones, and you'd have to stand out in the open to use them."

  Garth grunted, then pushed himself to his feet and began searching through the dusty rubble in the storage room. In an old rolltop desk he found yellowed paper and a stub of a pencil. He wrote on the paper, then came back across the room and handed the slip to Mary.

  "This is a number where you can reach a friend of ours," he said, smiling reassuringly. "His name is Mr. Lippitt. It isn't necessary that you know who he is or what he does. He's a heavyweight, and he can guarantee our safety until we get this business all straightened out. When you call that number, somebody will answer by repeating the number. Identify yourself as a friend of Robert and Garth Frederickson, say you want to talk to Mr. Lippitt, and state that it's a 'Valhalla priority.'"

  Mary studied the name and number on the slip of paper, then looked up at Garth and me. "Valhalla priority? What does that mean?"

  "It's not important," Garth said curdy, shaking his head. "After you make the call, you'll forget those words, Mr. Lippitt's name, and the number. Also, please destroy the paper immediately. What will happen is that you'll get through to Mr. Lippitt at once, with no questions asked, no matter where he is. He won't have much to say, and he'll probably be suspicious because he doesn't know you. Just tell him what's happened; tell him everything Mongo told you. Tell him where we are, and why we need him to help us get out of here. There should be men here within the hour to take us out, maybe by helicopter."

  "Wow," Mary said softly as she once again looked at the slip of paper in her hand.

  "Everything's going to be all right, Mary," Garth said evenly as he helped her to her feet. "Just make the call. Try not to be seen, but if you are just act as if nothing is wrong."

  "I'll be right back," Mary said, and once more slipped out of the room.

  "There's going to be a lot of nasty fallout from this, Garth," I said. "Hendricks and everyone else at the FBI are going to go apeshit when they find out Lippitt has muddied up their turf. Gregory Trex and Jay Acton and Dan Mosely's buddy-buddy relationship with Elysius Culhane notwithstanding, it's going to be hard to explain why I felt it necessary to skip away from police custody, and why you felt it was necessary to aid and abet me. You had to be there. They're going to say we overreacted."

  "As long as we all get out of Cairn alive, anybody can say anything he likes."

  "I'm thinking of Mr. Lippitt; he's not exactly a favorite son of the right wing. He could be accused of helping two of his friends elude justice, at considerable expense to the taxpayers. You know the right wing controls a lot of newspaper space and airtime. We don't want Mr. Lippitt hurt."

  Garth shook his head. "Mr. Lippitt can take care of himself in any war, bureaucratic or otherwise. If he's smart, and we know he is, he'll send a second team to snatch Acton. With Elysius Culhane's KGB staff member on ice and ready to be trotted out for public show-and-tell, nobody on the right is going to touch a hair on Lippitt's head."

  "A hair on, Lippitt's head?"

  "I was speaking figuratively, of course."

  "That's good."

  The door opened, and Mary stepped in. She still held the slip of paper Garth had given her in a hand that trembled noticeably. Her face was ashen again, but her voice was steady. "The phones don't work," she said, looking back and forth between Garth and me. "I can't get a dial tone on any of them."

  "We waited too long," I said as I watched Garth take the Colt from his jacket pocket and remove the safety catch. "Somebody's cut the goddamn phone lines. They found out I was gone, saw that your car was still in the parking lot, and guessed where we'd go. Or maybe Mary's car was spotted after all."

  Garth nodded tersely, then turned to Mary, who was staring at the gun in his hand. "Mary, you must do exactly as I say, and you must do it quickly. I don't know how much time we have. Right now there are men, maybe your death squad, watching this house, waiting for Mongo, you, and me to show ourselves. When we don't, they're likely to get impatient and come in after us. You have to get everyone else out of here; tell them to go jogging or take a walk into town, or whatever, but get them out."

  Mary, who was still staring wide-eyed at the Colt in Garth's right hand, shook her head absently. "What reason am I supposed to give them, Garth?"

  "I don't know; anything. Just get them out. I don't think the men will hassle the others; they want us."

  "I'll send someone for the police."

  Garth shook his head impatiently. "I doubt you'll find any cops in this part of town right now, but even if you did, it wouldn't do any good. Both Mongo and I, and maybe you, would be right back in the situation we just got Mongo out of."

  Mary started to leave, and I grabbed her arm. "Mary, I know you don't have guns in the house, but do you have anything I might be able to use to defend myself? A knife, maybe? The people who are after us will kill us in cold blood if they get the chance."

  "I believe you," she replied in a hoarse voice. "I'll see what I can find."

  "Go," Garth said, and gently pushed her out of the room.

  Garth turned off the light, left the door open a crack, and listened. I moved closer, listened with him. I said, "Unless they actually saw us in the car, they can't be certain we're here. They're just guessing."

  "Unless they saw us in the car." "Right."

  We waited by the door, listening. The air in the room suddenly felt musty and heavy in my lungs. From below I thought I heard a knock, and then the sound of muffled voices, but I couldn't be sure. Then there was silence. Footsteps, another knock, more voices.

  And then gunfire-a short burst of automatic weapons fire from the ground or second floor. Shouts. Screams.

  "Shit!" I said, and reached for the doorknob.

  "Wait," Garth said, pushing me back.

  "Jesus Christ, Garth, they were already in the house. They must have seen or heard Mary trying to move the others out and decided they'd waited long enough. We can't just let them kill those people down there."

  Garth shook his head. "Wait. I don't think they're going to gun down a bunch of pacifists. That shooting was just to get their attention-and ours. They still may not be certain we're here; Mary may be able to bluff them."

  Suddenly there was another burst of gunfire and then the sound of running feet. There were more shouts, but from where we were
it was impossible to tell what was happening or being said.

  "Christ, Garth, can we take that chance?!"

  Garth held up the Colt. "Walking down there is the same as committing suicide. They have at least one automatic weapon, and this thing isn't going to be much use against it."

  I couldn't argue with that.

  We waited some more. There was no further gunfire, but muffled shouts continued to drift up from below. Then there was silence, which lasted for three or four minutes. Both Garth and I strained to hear some sound; what we finally heard was what sounded like heavy, booted footsteps on the main staircase, slowly ascending. The footsteps came closer, finally stopped at the top of the stairs on our floor, perhaps twenty feet to our right.

  "We know the two of you are in here someplace!" a man shouted. I'd half expected the gunman coming up the stairs to be Gregory Trex, but this was not a voice I recognized. "We've got everybody downstairs in the big room! If you two aren't down there in five minutes, those people are going to start to die! We'll shoot the folksinger first!"

  Somewhere below a woman screamed, the agonized sound penetrating clearly, harrowingly, up through the hardwood floors and thick plaster ceilings of the old mansion. I thought it might have been Mary, but I wasn't sure. I swallowed hard, glanced at the luminous dial of my wristwatch.

  "They may plan to kill everybody anyway," I said in a voice that had gone hoarse. "Ten to one they're local boys, and masks aren't going to keep them from being recognized."

  "Uh-huh," Garth said. From the light seeping in from the hallway, I could see that he was staring at the gun in his hand.

  "If we go down there, we'll be walking right into an ambush. They certainly mean to kill us, and they probably won't waste any time doing it."

  "Uh-huh."

  "But we don't have much choice, do we?"

  "Nope," Garth said as he turned me around and pulled up my shirt. He stuck the gun into the waistband of my jeans, pulled my shirt back down over it. "This Colt isn't going to do us much good in a straight shoot-out, but on the other hand, they don't know we have a gun at all. We're just going to have to rely on the Fredericksons' natural talents for stealth and cunning to get us through this. If we can get close enough to them, catch them off guard before they cut us down, I just might be able to relieve them of duty. You do the talking, I'll do the shooting. Bail out when you feel me grab the gun."