Strange Trades

by Paul Di Filippo

  He fell to the carpet, facedown, a hand going to his wound.

  Metal. He felt metal. His pump had caught the bullet, stopped it penetrating further.

  Twigg lay still.

  Eventually the screaming and inarticulate gurgling stopped.

  But the shooting continued, a single round at a time.

  Ever conscientious, Durchfreude was slowly walking around the scene of slaughter, putting a coup-de-grâce shot or three into each surgically altered brain.

  Twigg opened his eyes.

  He was staring into the lifeless blood-freckled face of Isabelle Fistule a few feet away.

  Between them lay a familiar machete, often employed for fun, now his last hope for survival.

  With infinite slowness he snaked his hand toward it.

  Just as he stealthily clasped the handle Durchfreude’s shoes appeared in his vision. The man’s back was toward Twigg, as he pumped mercy shots into Fistule.

  Still supine, Twigg swung up and around with all his strength.

  A deep pained grunt.

  Hamstrung, the mad assassin collapsed, rifle flying off.

  Twigg was atop the creature in a kind of parody of sexual mounting. The face of the Dark Intercessor remained blank as ever.

  Seeking to compose his mind, Twigg felt a greatness invade him from outside. Perhaps it was only his damaged pump flooding him with an uncontrolled mix of hormones and chemicals and soft drink. But whatever the source, amidst the stench and clotting filth, something celestial descended and rode Twigg like a horse.

  “Speak,” ordered Twigg.

  Durchfreude began a mechanical recitation covering the past few days.

  When he was finished, Twigg said, “The servant is not to blame for the master’s mistakes. Die cleanly now.”

  Durchfreude’s jugular blood sprayed Twigg from waist to head, feeding his power.

  Twigg stood up beneath the splattered gaze of Phineas Gage.

  Alone. He was all alone, the only one of his kind in all the world.

  How wonderful!

  13.

  Fuquan’s Sendoff

  In the three days following the burning of the Karuna and the visit to Titi Yaya’s, much happened.

  Thurman felt dizzied by it all.

  First, the police. They had found the dropped gun in the street and conclusively linked it to the bullet obtained from Fuquan’s charred corpse. The fact that the only fingerprints on the pistol were those of a long-dead respectable businessman proved only that the weapon had probably been stolen and kept unused for years, then handled by a gloved killer. Much persistent questioning ensued. The firemen had reported a fleeing car, but had been unable to provide positive ID that would link it to Shenda. Still, as with any business-related fire—especially one involving apparent concealment of a death—the suspicions of the authorities turned first on the owner and putatively disgruntled employees and customers.

  “Now, Mister Swan,” said Sgt. Botcher. A comb-over, a plump ruddy face, and a black vinyl belt distinguished the policeman. This did not cause Thurman to underestimate him however. “Witnesses report that you had a little run-in with the victim some weeks ago.”

  “It—it was nothing. He got mad when he thought I had eyes for a woman he wanted.”

  “Ah-ha. I see. A woman. Would you mind divulging her name?”

  Thurman knew he couldn’t lie, and also how suspicious all this would sound. “It was Miss Moore.”

  “Miss Moore. The owner. Hmmm. She sure has her hand in a lot of businesses in this city. All properly insured, though, I bet.”

  Sgt. Botcher made a little tick in his notebook. Then he threw Thurman a wild pitch that appeared to be an attempt to establish a specious bond.

  “You’re a vet, Mister Swan?”

  “Yes. The Gulf War.”

  “Me too. ’Nam. One long hellacious fuck-up and fuck-over. Yours was penny-ante. Just a few months of the bosses testing some new systems and keeping their hand in.”

  Thurman tried to imagine his debilitating chronic illness as something penny-ante. Maybe to someone outside Thurman’s skin that was how it looked. “I guess.…”

  “Learned all about guns in the service, naturally.”

  “Well, sure, the necessary drill. But I don’t think I ever fired one in combat. Mainly I was a demolitions man.”

  Sgt. Botcher’s eyes got as wide as camera shutters in a dark room. “That’ll be all, Mister Swan. And please —don’t leave town without letting us know.”

  But the police were only a minor upset in Thurman’s existence. They were blind and unknowing of the strange new reality that had been revealed by Kraft Durchfreude’s hypnotic confession. (And God help the authorities if they were ever unlucky enough to track down that monster!) Tiresome as they were, they grew bored, went away eventually and could be forgotten. A number of other things were more disturbing, less forgettable, and did not seem likely soon to go away.

  The shattering of his newly fashioned cozy routine, for one. With the destruction of the Karuna, he had no way to start his day. No familiar faces and rituals, no laughter and jokes, no hearty boost of generosity, goodwill and nourishing food. It left a void at the center of Thurman’s day. And whenever he encountered other members of the Karuna family, he saw the same sad feelings at work in them.

  “Go home, Thurman,” Vance von Jolly told him when he showed up for work the next morning after the dawn departure from Titi Yaya’s casa de santo. The artist was stretched out on his couch, paint-stained covers pulled over his face. A small rigid tower poked the blanket up at groin level. “Someone’s scraped the canvas of my heart with a blowtorch. The palette of my soul is crusted dry. I drag raced with the Devil and lost.”

  Thurman could take a hint. He left. Back in his lonely apartment, he felt that his life was shutting down again. Old physical and mental aches began to reassert themselves. It would be so easy to slip down that dark bottomless well once more —

  Thurman got up and went looking for Shenda.

  He found her exiting the Kandomble Brothers Funeral Home.

  Shenda looked ragged. Red tired eyes, new downward-dragging lines around her mouth. The mainspring of Karuna, Inc., was plainly unwound. Thurman still found her beautiful.

  She hugged Thurman tightly, then released him.

  “Fuquan’s mother asked me to handle the arrangements. She’s old, and doesn’t have two nickles. It’s all taken care of now. No wake, just the funeral day after tomorrow.”

  “I’ll be there. Shenda—”

  She placed two fingers gently on his lips, as if in a blessing. Electricity sparked. “Not now, Thurman, okay? After the funeral. Right now I have to cobble together temporary jobs for Verity and Buddy and the other baristas who are out of work. Then there’s a lot of official crap connected with the fire. And I want to find a new home for the Karuna. And the police—”

  “Sgt. Botcher. I know. Okay, Shenda. See you back here.”

  He watched her drive away.

  On the morning of the funeral—bright, fragrant, dawn rain- washed, implacably beautiful— Thurman was dressing in his lone suit and leather shoes, disinterred from the closet. It felt strange to be out of sweats and sneakers after so long. Too bad it wasn’t a wedding.…

  The radio was giving the news. There seemed to have been an inordinate number of executive corporate jet crashes over the past twenty-four hours, all inevitably fatal. It was almost as if—

  Thurman put that notion firmly out of his head.

  The Kall-a-Kab dropped him off at the funeral parlor. Thurman thought he’d be among the first. But there was already a crowd numbering in the scores. All the people he knew personally, Shenda prominent, plus dozens of faces he recognized from the happy park meeting. Apparently, every employee of Karuna, Inc., had determined to attend, in a show of solidarity that actually brought tears to Thurman’s eyes.

  Fuquan’s relatives were bunched in a tight, slightly suspicious and leery family knot that quick
ly unraveled under the warm pressure of greetings, introductions and expressions of condolence. Soon they were interspersed among the Karuna Korps, hugging, crying, smiling.

  Inside Kandomble Brothers it was a more somber, closed casket affair, a photo of Fuquan in his off-work finery propped atop the silver-handled box. Foot-shuffling in the general hush, chair-creaking and weeping.

  Thurman hitched a ride to the church with the respectful but ultimately irrepressible SinSin and Pepsi in their absolutely fabulous Miata. Now that was a ride and a half! His brain was put to the test to handle the disorienting transitions, from a folding chair in the parlor to a lap perch in the car to a pew in the church.

  Thurman hadn’t been inside a church in years, and this one wasn’t his old denomination. It felt strange but good. Maybe that incredible visit to the casa de santo had awakened something dormant in him.

  After the preacher spoke his formal eulogy, the lectern was opened to anyone else who had words to offer.

  To Thurman’s surprise, a steady stream of people trekked up to speak.

  Time to toast the roaster.

  Fuquan had been a prick. The speakers neither dismissed nor highlighted that fact. But he had been loved.

  People talked about the man’s high-energy approach to life, his unique entrances and exits, his unstinting involvement with whatever thrilled or irked him. Memories of brawls and love affairs, ups and downs, flush times and bust times, generosities and ingenious scams were trotted out and lovingly recounted.

  Thurman found himself listening with increasing enchantment. There had been a lot more to the feisty guy than he had ever suspected.

  As the flow of speakers ebbed, Thurman realized that one important aspect of Fuquan’s life hadn’t been touched upon.

  Without conscious intention, Thurman found himself heading up the aisle to speak.

  Facing the sea of attentive faces, Thurman hesitated for a nervous moment, then began.

  “I, uh, I only knew Fuquan for a couple of months, and we didn’t always get along, so, um, I don’t have a lot to say. But I do know one thing. He made a lot of people happy and wide-awake with his coffee-roasting, er, prowess. And that’s better than letting them stay grouchy and sleepy. So we all owe him. And who’ll take his place?”

  Thurman stepped down to loud applause and chants of “Amen, brother!” His face burned and his mind spun. It was only by the graveside, as the large crowd dispersed, that he really returned to earth.

  Shenda approached him. She wore a black wool dress molded to her opulent figure and a single string of pearls, black nylons on the strong pylons of her legs. Her high-heels pierced the turf with each step. She laid a hand on his arm.

  “Thurman, I don’t want to be alone. Come home with me.”

  Bullfinch was waiting behind the apartment door. He leaped and cavorted about them like a bright sunny jowly gnome, barking in a queerly modulated way.

  The humans had little attention to spare for the dog.

  Shenda kicked off her shoes and led Thurman into the bedroom.

  They were kissing. Then she loosened his tie and began to unbutton his shirt. Thurman felt suddenly awkward. He stopped her hand.

  “I used to look better than I do now,” he said.

  “But I know you only now.”

  Thurman couldn’t argue with that.

  Sprawled naked on the bed, face alight, cocoa arms and legs open to him, Shenda made Thurman think of a dryad who shared the hue of the exotic heartwood of her home tree, or of an unburnished copper woman.

  Shenda was gentle with his disabilities. At climax, it was as if lightning entered his head and blazed along his spine. Something shifted permanently within him, as when an object was lifted from a balanced tray. A coffeecup, perhaps.

  Thurman fell asleep cradled in Shenda’s embrace. When he awoke, it was twilight. Shenda still held him. Bullfinch had climbed onto the bed, and was snoring. Thurman shifted to look at Shenda’s face. Her eyes were open, and tears trickled down her cheek like the first rivulets of spring.

  “What’s wrong? Did I—?”

  “No, not you. It’s only that nothing lasts. But what else is stinking new, right? Like I should be exempt for my good deeds! Forget it.”

  They talked about many things for the next few hours. At one point Shenda said, “Thurman, the most important thing in my life is the Karuna idea. It has to go on, even if I’m not around. But I never found anyone who could take over. Now I think maybe you could.”

  “Me? How could I ever do what you do? You—you’re like a force of nature! I’m just a washed-up old rag next to you. Besides, you’re not going anywhere anytime soon.”

  “Can’t say, Thurman. Never can say.”

  After some further conversation, Thurman happened to notice a familiar vial atop the dresser.

  “Is that the second potion your aunt concocted the other night?”

  “Oh, yes, I almost forgot. You’re supposed to drink it.”

  Shenda hopped out of bed. Her hand was reaching for the potion.

  The apartment door blew off its hinges with a plaster-shattering crash and two burly men, stocking-masked and armed, burst in.

  14.

  Tarbaby’s Clinch

  For the whole day—one whole wasted, unrecapturable day!—after the destruction of the Karuna Koffeehouse and the revelation of the dark forces behind the disaster, Shenda had felt enervated and full of despair. All her efforts, all her hard work of the past few years toward achieving her vision, had seemed a pitiable, naive facade erected against chaos, a tent in a hurricane. She even let the spontaneous blame and guilt that had erupted that fiery night fester and grow.

  If I hadn’t been so stubborn over my foolish damn principles, if I hadn’t stuck my head up above the mass of the herd, trying to change things, then none of this would have happened. Fuquan would still be alive, and the Karuna would still exist. It’s all my fault for being so uppity, so arrogant, so greedy to make things better. Why couldn’t I have been content with my lot?

  But as she got caught up in managing the myriad details of Fuquan’s funeral and salvaging her business from the ruins, her natural optimism, tempered and reforged, began to reassert itself.

  It wasn’t my fault! If some jerk steals my car, do I blame myself for having too nice a car? No! There’s right and there’s wrong! Titi Yaya taught me that! I didn’t light the match under the Karuna, that pathetic egungun did, following the orders of some bastard named Twigg! Karuna, Inc., is the best and most honest thing I’ve ever done. I built and he destroyed! That’s what it boils down to, making and breaking, sane adult or vicious child.

  This reborn confidence brought something new to light.

  Before the disaster, she hadn’t thought much about living and dying, just gone naturally from day to day.

  After the tragedy, life seemed worthless and she had felt like dying for nothing.

  Now, with the change of heart, she felt like living, and, only if need be, dying for something.

  So when the midnight intruders crashed through her door, Shenda did not meekly surrender.

  Her hand closed not on the potion but on a small necklace box atop the dresser and she hurled it at one of the men. At the same instant Bullfinch flew in a snarling rage at the second.

  But these were not supernaturally sensitive zombies like Durchfreude, these were hardened mundane professionals.

  The first man took the box in the chest without flinching or pausing.

  The second shot Bullfinch in midflight. The dog squealed and thumped to the floor.

  “No!” screamed Shenda, seeing her nightmare realized.

  Thurman was struggling with treacherous limbs to rise from the bed. One of the men was quickly upon him.

  “Hey, feeb,” said the man, “chill.” He used his gunbutt on Thurman’s skull.

  The other now grappled with Shenda, succeeding in pinning her arms.

  Within seconds they had her wrists and ankles secured with du
ct tape, a strip across her mouth. Then they bundled her nakedness in a sheet and carried her outside.

  She was dumped into a car trunk. The car took off.

  For a timeless interval her mind raved, visions of lover and dog and her helpless self, spinning in kaleidoscopic disarray.

  Then Shenda, with greater effort than ever before, forced her habitual mental pause upon herself.

  A curious calm enveloped her now. Always dynamic, always a doer, always proactive, she was now in a situation where she could only lie still, could only react.

  Was this the paralysis of the rabbit frozen before the snake? Shenda thought not, hoped not. The calmness felt too big to be simply an instinctive neural shutdown. Instead, it felt more like an opening up, like an activation of an untapped higher function, a heightened receptivity to something she had previously been only dimly aware of.

  As the car accelerated toward its unknown destination, a memory came back to Shenda. It was one long sealed away, one she had never had access to before.

  She was five years old. Her parents were dead. Titi Yaya had custody of her now. They were on a trip to the ocean. That should be fun.

  But they ended up not at a public beach, but at a secluded rock-shored Atlantic cove barren of homes or other people. Titi Yaya had told the little girl to undress then.

  “Everything?”

  “Everything.”

  Then la iyalocha had given the naked Shenda a white handkerchief knotted around seven bright pennies.

  “Step into the sea, child, and offer the coins to Yemaya while you ask for her protection.”

  Shenda waded out tentatively, the rocks bruising her feet. Waist deep, she tentatively stuck her hand holding the offering under the water.

  Something pulled.

  Shenda didn’t think to let go of the coins, and was dragged under.

  There was a face below the waters. Kindly and wise and warm. Shenda could have looked at it forever.

  But Titi Yaya was already pulling her up, coinless.

  “Yemaya accepts your offering, little Shen-Shen. The orishas are your friends now forever, as long as you honor them.”