Sharp, stabbing pains in his stomach now. “Bastard.” Heart pounding slow and hard: shirt rustled in time to its spasms.
“Cyanide in the marmalade. Gives it a certain frisson, don’t you think?”
He couldn’t breathe. His heart pounded once, and stopped. Vicious pain in his left arm, then paralysis. From an inch away, he could just see the weave of the white tablecloth. It turned red and then black.
18. The Sun Also Rises
From blackness to brilliance: the morning sun pouring through the window at a flat angle. He screwed up his face and blinked.
Suddenly smothered in terry cloth, between soft breasts. “John, John.”
He put his elbow down to support himself, uncomfortable on the parquet floor, and looked up at Pansy. Her face was wet with tears. He cleared his throat. “What happened?”
“You, you started putting on your foot and . . . you just fell over. I thought . . .”
John looked down over his body, hard ropy muscle and deep tan under white body hair, the puckered bullet wound a little higher on the abdomen. Left leg ended in a stump just above the ankle.
Trying not to faint. His third past flooding back. Walking down a dirt road near Kontum, the sudden loud bang of the mine and he pitched forward, unbelievable pain, rolled over and saw his bloody boot yards away; grey, jagged shinbone sticking through the bloody smoking rag of his pant leg, bright crimson splashing on the dry dust, loud in the shocked silence; another bloodstain spreading between his legs, the deep mortal pain there – and he started to buck and scream and two men held him while the medic took off his belt and made a tourniquet and popped morphine through the cloth and unbuttoned his fly and slowly worked his pants down: penis torn by shrapnel, scrotum ripped open in a bright red flap of skin, bloody grey-blue egg of a testicle separating, rolling out. He fainted, then and now.
And woke up with her lips against his, her breath sweet in his lungs, his nostrils pinched painfully tight. He made a strangled noise and clutched her breast.
She cradled his head, panting, smiling through tears, and kissed him lightly on the forehead. “Will you stop fainting now?”
“Yeah. Don’t worry.” Her lips were trembling. He put a finger on them. “Just a longer night than I’m accustomed to. An overdose of happiness.”
The happiest night of his life, maybe of three lives. Like coming back from the dead.
“Should I call a doctor?”
“No. I faint every now and then.” Usually at the gym, from pushing too hard. He slipped his hand inside the terry cloth and covered her breast. “It’s been . . . do you know how long it’s been since I . . . did it? I mean . . . three times in one night?”
“About six hours.” She smiled. “And you can say ‘fuck.’ I’m no schoolgirl.”
“I’ll say.” The night had been an escalating progression of intimacies, gymnastics, accessories. “Had to wonder where a sweet girl like you learned all that.”
She looked away, lips pursed, thoughtful. With a light fingertip she stroked the length of his penis and smiled when it started to uncurl. “At work.”
“What?”
“I was a prostitute. That’s where I learned the tricks. Practice makes perfect.”
“Prostitute. Wow.”
“Are you shocked? Outraged?”
“Just surprised.” That was true. He respected the sorority and was grateful to it for having made Vietnam almost tolerable, an hour or so at a time. “But now you’ve got to do something really mean. I could never love a prostitute with a heart of gold.”
“I’ll give it some thought.” She shifted. “Think you can stand up?”
“Sure.” She stood and gave him her hand. He touched it but didn’t pull; rose in a smooth practiced motion, then took one hop and sat down at the small table. He started strapping on his foot.
“I’ve read about those new ones,” she said, “the permanent kind.”
“Yeah; I’ve read about them, too. Computer interface, graft your nerves onto sensors.” He shuddered. “No, thanks. No more surgery.”
“Not worth it for the convenience?”
“Being able to wiggle my toes, have my foot itch? No. Besides, the VA won’t pay for it.” That startled John as he said it: here, he hadn’t grown up rich. His father had spent all the mill money on a photocopy firm six months before Xerox came on the market. “You say you ‘were’ a prostitute. Not anymore?”
“No, that was the truth about teaching. Let’s start this egg thing over.” She picked up the bowl she had dropped in the other universe. “I gave up whoring about seven years ago.” She picked up an egg, looked at it, set it down. She half turned and stared out the kitchen window. “I can’t do this to you.”
“You . . . can’t do what?”
“Oh, lie. Keep lying.” She went to the refrigerator. “Want a beer?”
“Lying? No, no thanks. What lying?”
She opened a beer, still not looking at him. “I like you, John. I really like you. But I didn’t just . . . spontaneously fall into your arms.” She took a healthy swig and started pouring some of the bottle into a glass.
“I don’t understand.”
She walked back, concentrating on pouring the beer, then sat down gracelessly. She took a deep breath and let it out, staring at his chest. “Castle put me up to it.”
“Castle?”
She nodded. “Sylvester Castlemaine, boy wonder.”
John sat back stunned. “But you said you don’t do that anymore,” he said without too much logic. “Do it for money.”
“Not for money,” she said in a flat, hurt voice.
“I should’ve known. A woman like you wouldn’t want . . .” He made a gesture that dismissed his body from the waist down.
“You do all right. Don’t feel sorry for yourself.” Her face showed a pinch of regret for that, but she plowed on. “If it were just the obligation, once would have been enough. I wouldn’t have had to fuck and suck all night long to win you over.”
“No,” he said, “that’s true. Just the first moment, when you undressed. That was enough.”
“I owe Castle a big favor. A friend of mine was going to be prosecuted for involving a minor in prostitution. It was a setup, pure and simple.”
“She worked for the same outfit you did?”
“Yeah, but this was freelance. I think it was the escort service that set her up, sort of delivered her and the man in return for this or that.”
She sipped at the beer. “Guy wanted a three-way. My friend had met this girl a couple of days before at the bar where she worked part-time . . . she looked old enough, said she was in the biz.”
“She was neither?”
“God knows. Maybe she got caught as a juvie and made a deal. Anyhow, he’d just slipped it to her and suddenly cops comin’ in the windows. Threw the book at him. ‘Two inches, twenty years,’ my friend said. He was a county commissioner somewhere, with enemies. Almost dragged my friend down with him. I’m sorry.” Her voice was angry.
“Don’t be,” John said, almost a whisper. “It’s understandable. Whatever happens, I’ve got last night.”
She nodded. “So two of the cops who were going to testify got busted for possession, cocaine. The word came down and everybody remembered the woman was somebody else.”
“So what did Castle want you to do? With me?”
“Oh, whatever comes natural – or un-natural, if that’s what you wanted. And later be doing it at a certain time and place, where we’d be caught in the act.”
“By Castle?”
“And his trusty little VCR. Then I guess he’d threaten to show it to your wife, or the university.”
“I wonder. Lena . . . she knows I’ve had other women.”
“But not lately.”
“No. Not for years.”
“It might be different now. She might be starting to feel, well, insecure.”
“Any woman who looked at you would feel insecure.”
She
shrugged. “That could be part of it. Could it cost you your job, too?”
“I don’t see how. It would be awkward, but it’s not as if you were one of my students – and even that happens, without costing the guy his job.” He laughed. “Poor old Larry. He had a student kiss and tell, and had to run the Speakers’ Committee for four or five years. Got allergic to wine and cheese. But he made tenure.”
“So what is it?” She leaned forward. “Are you an addict or something?”
“Addict?”
“I mean how come you even know Castle? He didn’t pick your name out of a phone book and have me come seduce you, just to see what would happen.”
“No, of course not.”
“So? I confess, you confess.”
John passed a hand over his face and pressed the other hand against his knee, bearing down to keep the foot from tapping. “You don’t want to be involved.”
“What do you call last night, Spin the Bottle? I’m involved!”
“Not the way I mean. It’s illegal.”
“Oh golly. Not really.”
“Let me think.” John picked up their dishes and limped back to the sink. He set them down there and fiddled with the straps and pad that connected the foot to his stump, then poured himself a cup of coffee and came back, not limping.
He sat down slowly and blew across the coffee. “What it is, is that Castle thinks there’s a scam going on. He’s wrong. I’ve taken steps to ensure that it couldn’t work.” His foot tapped twice.
“You think. You hope.”
“No. I’m sure. Anyhow, I’m stringing Castle along because I need his expertise in a certain matter.”
“ ‘A certain matter,’ yeah. Sounds wholesome.”
“Actually, that part’s not illegal.”
“So tell me about it.”
“Nope. Still might backfire.”
She snorted. “You know what might backfire. Fucking with Castle.”
“I can take care of him.”
“You don’t know. He may be more dangerous than you think he is.”
“He talks a lot.”
“You men.” She took a drink and poured the rest of the bottle into the glass. “Look, I was at a party with him, couple of years ago. He was drunk, got into a little coke, started babbling.”
“In vino Veritas?”
“Yeah, and Coke is It. But he said he’d killed three people, strangers, just to see what it felt like. He liked it. I more than halfway believe him.”
John looked at her silently for a moment, sorting out his new memories of Castle. “Well . . . he’s got a mean streak. I don’t know about murder. Certainly not over this thing.”
“Which is?”
“You’ll have to trust me. It’s not because of Castle that I can’t tell you.” He remembered her one universe ago, lying helpless while the Hemingway lowered its cane onto her nakedness. “Trust me?”
She studied the top of the glass, running her finger around it. “Suppose I do. Then what?”
“Business as usual. You didn’t tell me anything. Deliver me to Castle and his video camera; I’ll try to put on a good show.”
“And when he confronts you with it?”
“Depends on what he wants. He knows I don’t have much money.” John shrugged. “If it’s unreasonable, he can go ahead and show the tape to Lena. She can live with it.”
“And your department head?”
“He’d give me a medal.”
19. In Our Time
So it wasn’t the cane. He ate enough cyanide to kill a horse, but evidently only in one universe.
You checked the next day in all the others?
All 119. He’s still dead in the one where I killed him on the train –
That’s encouraging.
– but there’s no causal resonance in the others.
Oh, but there is some resonance. He remembered you in the universe where you poisoned him. Maybe in all of them.
That’s impossible.
Once is impossible. Twice is a trend. A hundred and twenty means something is going on that we don’t understand.
What I suggest –
No. You can’t go back and kill them all one by one.
If the wand had worked the first time, they’d all be dead anyhow. There’s no reason to think we’d cause more of an eddy by doing them one at a time.
It’s not something to experiment with. As you well know.
I don’t know how we’re going to solve it otherwise.
Simple. Don’t kill him. Talk to him again. He may be getting frightened, if he remembers both times he died.
Here’s an idea. What if someone else killed him?
I don’t know. If you just hired someone – made him a direct agent of your will – it wouldn’t be any different from the cyanide. Maybe as a last resort. Talk to him again first.
All right. I’ll try.
20. Of Wounds and Other Causes
Although John found it difficult to concentrate, trying not to think about Pansy, this was the best time he would have for the foreseeable future to summon the Hemingway demon and try to do something about exorcising it. He didn’t want either of the women around if the damned thing went on a killing spree again. They might just do as he did, and slip over into another reality – as unpleasant as that was, it was at least living – but the Hemingway had said otherwise. There was no reason to suspect it was not the truth.
Probably the best way to get the thing’s attention was to resume work on the Hemingway pastiche. He decided to rewrite the first page to warm up, typing it out in Hemingway’s style:
Along with Youth
1. Mitraigliatrice
The dirt on the side of the trench was never dry in the morning. If Fever could find a dry newspaper he could put it between his chest and the dirt when he went out to lean on the side of the trench and wait for the light. First light was the best time . You might have luck and see a muzzle flash to aim at. But patience was better than luck. Wait to see a helmet or a head without a helmet.
Fever looked at the enemy trench line through a rectangular box of wood that pushed through the trench wall at about ground level. The other end of the box was covered with a square of gauze the color of dirt. A man looking directly at it might see the muzzel flash when Fever fired through the box. But with luck, the flash would be the last thing he saw.
Fever had fired through the gauze six times. He’d potted at least three Austrians. Now the gauze had a ragged hole in the center. One bullet had come in the other way, an accident, and chiseled a deep gouge in the floor of the wooden box. Fever knew that he would be able to see the splinters sticking up before he could see any detail at the enemy trench line.
That would be maybe twenty minutes. Fever wanted a cigarette. There was plenty of time to go down in the bunker and light one. But it would fox his night vision. Better to wait.
Fever heard movement before he heard the voice. He picked up one of the grenades on the plank shelf to his left and his thumb felt the ring on the cotter pin. Someone was crawling in front of his position. Slow crawling but not too quiet. He slid his left forefinger through the ring and waited.
– Help me, came a strained whisper.
Fever felt his shoulders tense. Of course many Austrians could speak Italian.
– I am wounded. Help me. I can go no farther.
– What is your name an unit, whispered through the box.
– Jean-Franco Dante. Four forty-seventh.
That was the unit that had taken such a beating at the evening show. – At first light they will kill me.
– All right. But I’m coming over with a grenade in my hand. If you kill me, you die as well.
– I will commend this logic to your superior officer. Please hurry.
Fever slid his rifle into the wooden box and eased himself to the top of the trench. He took the grenade out of his pocket and carefully worked the pin out, the arming lever held secure. He kept the pin around his finger so
he could replace it.
He inched his way down the slope, guided by the man’s whispers. After a few minutes his probing hand found the man’s shoulder. – Thank God. Make haste, now.
The soldier’s feet were both shattered by a mine. He would have to be carried.
– Don’t cry out, Fever said. This will hurt.
– No sound, the soldier said. And when Fever raised him up onto his back there was only a breath. But his canteen was loose. It fell on a rock and made a loud hollow sound.
Firecracker pop above them and the night was all glare and bobbing shadow. A big machine gun opened up rong, cararong, rong, rong. Fever headed for the parapet above as fast as he could but knew it was hopeless. He saw dirt spray twice to his right and then felt the thud of the bullet into the Italian, who said “Jesus” as if only annoyed, and they almost made it then but on the lip of the trench a hard snowball hit Fever behind the kneecap and they both went down in a tumble. They fell two yards to safety but the Italian was already dead.
Fever had sprained his wrist and hurt his nose falling and they hurt worse than the bullet. But he couldn’t move his toes and he knew that must be bad. Then it started to hurt.
A rifleman closed the Italian’s eyes and with the help of another clumsy one dragged Fever down the trench to the medical bunker. It hurt awfully and his shoe filled up with blood and he puked. They stopped to watch him puke and then dragged him the rest of the way.
The surgeon placed him between two kerosene lanterns. He removed the puttee and shoe and cut the bloody pants leg with a straight razor. He rolled Fever onto his stomach and had four men hold him down while he probed for the bullet. The pain was great but Fever was insulted enough by the four men not to cry out. He heard the bullet clink into a metal dish. It sounded like the canteen.
“That’s a little too pat, don’t you think?” John turned around and there was the Hemingway, reading over his shoulder. “‘It sounded like the canteen,’ indeed.” Khaki army uniform covered with mud and splattered with bright blood. Blood dripped and pooled at its feet.
“So shoot me. Or whatever it’s going to be this time. Maybe I’ll rewrite the line in the next universe.”
The Mammoth Book of Best Short SF Novels Page 23
