Ambient

by Jack Womack

  Strands of his hair stirred faintly in the AC's breeze. He made no movement, showed no response, gave no word, brought no action, expressed no thought, and granted no gesture. Wishing almost that I, too, could find such encompassing rest, ignoring my body's pains, I stood and walked to the windows, drawing back the drapes. He and Renaldo looked grayer in the light than they had in shadow. Outside, the clouds were so thick that nothing of the city could be seen. There was a choice no longer, I knew; if I wanted that chance to be with Avalon at least one last time, I'd have to go up there alone and take it as it fell myselfthere was nothing so much that I wanted so much as that chance, no matter the result. The hair rose at the nape of my neck; apprehension chilled my running blood. If Mister Dryden had been so scared as to do this, why should I be so set to act without pause? I had a choice, though, over how fearful I should let myself be; so used all strength to deny such terror. There was no need to worry until I knew about which I should be worrying. I repeated that to myself, as if by saying it often enough it would so become.

  13

  No one saw me go, least of all those of whom I'd so recently taken leave. Returning by the guard's chair, emerging in the lobby, I set my path past the display cases, sliding between them as if being pulled along by another. I scooted up to the doors facing the plaza; Jimmy stood out there by the car, looking away from the building. In a trice I was at him, my gun's barrel pressing his ear.

  "Irie, man, irie. What calls?" he asked, quietly enough, as if I'd been expected.

  "We're going to the estate," I said, ready if he wished to debate; he didn't. He opened the passenger door and walked around to the driver's side.

  "Big bullbucker be mighty mad when he finds his wheels gone."

  "No, he won't," I said, sitting down. "He's dead."

  Jimmy slowly lowered himself into the car, easing behind the wheel. I closed the door. He looked at me, his eyes bloodblister black.

  "By your hand?" he asked.

  "By his," I said. He pressed the ignition; we pulled away.

  "You sit high clever now, man," he said. "Why'd he run such a field?"

  "He was afraid."

  "With reason?"

  "I'm not sure."

  We rolled along; left Midtown, passed into the Upper West, leaving view of the ugly towers enclosing Columbus Circle. So set I was on what I had to do that Jimmy's wishes, or thoughts, did not occur to me at once.

  "Jah at last called hellfire down on duppy clots," Jimmy said, smiling, packing his bowl. "Big trees fall and make little noise. What do you aim then, O'Malley? Set to work your charms?"

  "I don't know," I said. "I'm figuring it as we go."

  As we drove up Broadway the wind rose; snow cascaded over the still and the quick. Brownish-white clumps pelted the car; Jimmy switched on the wipers and the cleaning sprayers. This wasn't natural snow-such rarely fell in New York anymorebut variant precipitation; dried human waste, lifted by gusts, so often sprinkling the city. La Muerda, Ambients called it. As neighborhood water supplies ran out, or were cut off, the snows became more common. These showers never lasted longer than a few minutes; no one complained.

  "Where's our sweet sister?" Jimmy asked, expelling strands of smoke.

  "I think she's at the estate," I said. "I hope she is."

  "And so you come up now to court?"

  "Yeah," I said, keeping my gun aimed at him in the event he proved not so calm as he seemed. "She disappeared. I thought he'd picked her up. He didn't."

  "You think she keep whole up there?" he asked. "She was big with soul when I last lay eyes. Fighting every step."

  "I hope. I'm not even sure what's happening."

  "Well," he said. "What's happening to me, it sounds, is that you took one bird out of the bush. One more left whistling in the trees. No one misses. You worry overmuch, man. Drydens here. Drydens gone."

  "It'll be easy for them to pin me for this."

  "So who saw you, man? Renaldo?"

  "Yeah," I said, "but he's dead, too."

  "Not by his hand," Jimmy said; I shook my head. "You be worse bullbucker than you know. Worse more than they ever know. Ice-cold. "

  Broadway's course was silk-smooth; we sailed clipsteady, suffering no interruption, attracting no attention in our IA lane. Before I left the office, I'd wedged Renaldo into one of the closets and laid Mister Dryden out on the sofa as if for an afternoon nap. He'd set no appointments for the afternoon and I suspected no one would drop by calling. Jimmy passed an Army travelall.

  "You think something come down hard that she didn't expect?"

  "Maybe," I said. "I wish I knew."

  "Not for us to tell yet, O'Malley. All in time."

  Near the corner of Ninety-sixth, Army vehicles blockaded traffic moving downtown; troops marched toward the river as if planning to swim en masse to Jersey. Five enormous Croton trucks, tankfull with water to be delivered to approved neighborhoods, avoided the blockade by crunching down the boulevard's median. We passed Columbia's razorwired walls. As we entered West Harlem, we noticed that the barricade guard had received new rockets; Friday's wreckage, gnarled as old driftwood, still hung down from the el tracks as if abandoned in play.

  "Think we'll have trouble getting in?"

  "Not with me driving, man. Not with Martin at the gate. Martin stands on the Lion's side."

  "Whose side are you on?" I asked.

  "The side of I and I, man. No one takes lien on my soul."

  "Each of them thought you're on the other's side-"

  He laughed. "Drydens look but never see. Speak but never talk. Where I drive, my hand turns the wheel. If they want to buy gas they can."

  West Harlem was high ground beyond 137th, past the valley, but no more popular because of it. The depredations of the gangs, and of the Army in controlling the gangs, had tolled and rung hard. Smaller buildings were boarded and shelled; larger ones, where squatters dwelt, were enlivened only by drying laundry, parrot-bright, billowing from the windows. Gigantic billboards attached to the fronts of the biggest apartment blocks peeled and faded in the dim sunlight, advertising products no longer sold, candidates long since defeated, shows no longer running. At 155th, artfully crafted ruins marked the remains of a splendid old church; the rubble looked over an abandoned cemetery, across Broadway. The boneyard stones were toppled and broken; machetes would blunt, carving paths through the underbrush.

  "Avalon might be dead," I said, more to myself than to Jimmy, as if in heart suspecting that I should adjust myself to that idea.

  "Might be," said Jimmy, nodding. "Isn't."

  "How can you be sure?"

  "Hunching, man. That's all. She's a sharp knife that cuts too deep for that."

  Finishing his bowl, he tapped it out in a cup he kept attached with tape to the dash. We entered the Inwood Secondary Zone. This far up, the land was high and would remain forever dry. The area was reasonably secure, and the population was almost so great as in the Upper West. There were cars, buses, even cabs; boozhie stores in the zone flourished, selling goods six months' backdated from what was sold in Chelsea, or in the Upper East. Passing through Inwood, a rider could almost forget that New York surrounded; for a moment dreams would fleshen, and it would seem that nothing too untoward had ever happened, anywhere-then you awoke, crossing the drawbridge into the Bronx.

  "Good place to retire, someday," said Jimmy.

  The Broadway el had been torn down years before for scrapI believe the city, or Dryco, had sold the metal to Russia-and we had an unhindered view of the surrounding terrain. To our left was Riverdale, where Home Army generals of the New York district lived. On the right were the Bronx hills and plains, cleared and awaiting reconstruction. Buildings marked for preservation-there were many-remained under Army guard: old apartment buildings on the Concourse; blocks of Tremont flats; red Belmont rows; Kingsbridge courts guarded by pairs of stone lions; large houses along Pelham Parkway; throughout the realm, rolling, brick-salted veldts. Every vacant lot bore a sign readin
g PROPERTY OF DRYCO/TRESPASSERS SHOT. The ruin of Yankee Stadium, webbed and netted with leafy vines, rose high over the southern flat. It had been destroyed when the old Yankees won the series for the last time; overexuberant fans celebrated by burning out the stadium. The Yankees moved to Nashville, changing their name; the Old Man planned to preserve the stones as a bit of old Rome overlooking the Major Deegan.

  Passing Van Cortlandt Park, the leaves of the trees greenishbrown in their confusion of the seasons, I tried imagining what it would be like to be driving toward something at which I wished to arrive, to be with people I knew I needn't fear.

  "Let's see if they caught you yet," said Jimmy, turning on the radio.

  They hadn't. The President announced that further inference as to his role in the death of the security adviser, once the vids were released, would be dealt with in the standard manner. Two copters collided over Newark International during an accident drill and crashed, killing the volunteer victims lying on the runway below. A woman, mindshot, stabbed little Tamoor as he was being wheeled out of recovery. Russian armies were marching into Ankara so that proper order might restore itself. A refinery blew in Bayonne; turning to look behind us, I saw the southwestern sky filled with boiling brown smoke. The wind blew south; the Downtown Zone wouldn't need to be evacuated.

  In an hour we reached the estate. As we came to the gates, Jimmy switched on the intercom.

  "Approaching, Martin," he said.

  "AO."

  We parked in front of the house after we drove up. The place appeared deserted, as it usually did during the week. The chapel gleamed an unsavory pink in the afternoon light.

  "Come in with me," I said, prompting him with my gun. Jimmy was acting altogether too agreeably, as if by humoring me, allowing me to push him along through a display he cared not to see, he would, at journey's end, be granted some trivial though satisfying reward. Stepping onto the slate ledge leading to the door of the Old Man's house, I felt ready for whatever might come, having reached-even as I worried-that state of blessed equanimity wherein I could accept all that might befall me, knowing that these actions either worked toward the purpose of my own devising, or else toward a purpose of another sort, about which I would have no say, over which I should have no control. Even so I wavered as I lifted my mind to the doorknob, feeling lightheaded by the effort of exuding such false calm, as if I were a salesman come to convince the purveyor of my competitor's supplies that henceforth he should do business solely with me. I touched the door gently, prepped for the alarm to sound. It creaked open, unlocked.

  "Something's funny," I said.

  "So laugh," whispered Jimmy, going ahead of me.

  "What about Biff and Barney?" I asked. They usually stayed within the house during the week.

  "Not to fear," he said. "Where'll he be?"

  "In the study, I'm sure. Go on."

  We edged our way through the long wide hall, toward the study, in the rear just before the back stairs. The study's door proved not so yielding.

  "Locked," I said, touching it.

  Jimmy leaned forward, knocking; the door slid open. He stood to one side, allowing me entrance. I vizzed the room highlow, seeing at once that Mister Dryden had spoken true; nothing more scarring than dust marred the room's composure. the TVC was on, the vol was down. Those three file cabinets, unscratched, stood as they always had, across from his spotless desk. The Old Man sat behind his desk, aglow with charm and delight. To his right sat Avalon.

  "Get on in here, O'Malley," he said, motioning that I step forward. "We've been waitin' for you."

  Jimmy, calmly pushing me ahead as if to reassure, gently slid the gun from my hand as if disarming a child at play. It seemed pointless not to let him have it. As I came into the room, I stared at Avalon, at once overwhelmed and disturbed by her presence here. She'd changed her clothes; she wore a long green tee and black over-the-knee socks. She held a tumbler filled with a pink drink, which she sipped through a straw. A tiny paper umbrella sheltered it from the room's dust. She appeared comfortable.

  "I've been expected?" I asked.

  "I figured you'd be the one showin'," said the Old Man. "So'd Avalon."

  "Glad I didn't disappoint you."

  "If you'd disappointed us, you wouldn't be in much condition to complain, now would you?" His voice crackled as his good will burned freely. "You look like you've been through the wringer, O'Malley. What happened to your ears, son? Somebody take a likin' to 'em and bite 'em off?"

  "I lost them," I said. "But I hear perfectly well."

  "Hangin' around your sister and her friends too much, if you ask me. Well, if you don't need 'em, I sure don't." He looked at me, his eyes atwinkle. "My boy's dead, isn't he?"

  "He is," I said. Closing his eyes, he turned toward Avalon, slapping his knees.

  "You won that one, goddamnit," he said to her. "We'll settle the score later, of course."

  "Better believe we will," she said.

  "I've always been a bettin' man," he said. "Long as I make sure all the horses're wearin' my colors."

  "You're all right, then?" I asked Avalon-but I didn't mean it as a question, and she, evidently, meant to give no reply. She toyed with the umbrella shielding her drink, looking into the patterns in the ice as if she might discern the future. My look she avoided, as if by our eyes meeting one of us might turn to stone.

  "She's fine and dandy," said the Old Man, standing and stretching his arms over his head. "Aren't you, hon?"

  "Sure am," she murmured.

  Imagining no possible use I might have for my hands in the foreseeable future, for gestures either of love or of death, I slipped them into my pockets as if, unseen, I might forget that they were mine, and thus feel no regrets for so not using them. "Would anyone like to tell me what's going on?" I asked.

  "You're one helpful man, O'Malley," he laughed. "Damnation. Easy to see why my boy always liked to keep you around."

  "I'm very happy. Now would you please-"

  "Oh, lighten up, O'Malley. Hell, take a goddamn compliment for what it is. Strong men never know how to take compliments, usually. Course I never had any trouble-"

  Glancing at the TVC's monitor, he laughed loudly.

  "Here goes," he said. "Watch this. There's always some asshole has to give it a try. Look at this now."

  A game show was on. In the foreground of the show's gaudy set, an oversized, transparent cylinder stood; into it, from the sides and back, ran several clear pipes. The host opened the door leading into the cylinder, enabling the finalist-a middle-aged man wearing a light green jumpsuit-to step in.

  "He's supposed to grab as much money as he can in one minute," said the Old Man. "Now watch."

  The man, driven hyperactive by good fortune, leapt around in the tube as if attempting to fly off with it. Bells rang; rolls of quarters shot through the pipe as if they were missiles. The first one he grabbed for snapped his fingers; they hung, dangling from his hand. For a brief second, an air of puzzlement came over him, as if he realized something hadn't been explained when he signed the release. Another roll ricocheted off his right knee, shattering it. He slumped against the tube's curving wall; one nipped him between the eyes, felling him. Rolls fired through at higher velocity, targeting him over and over. The host bared his teeth; the camera cut away, panning over the raucous audience. The camera returned to the now-opaque cylinder.

  "I got a helluva lot to thank you for, O'Malley," laughed the Old Man, shaking his head, shutting off the monitor with his remote. "You know that?"

  "No," I said, "Why?" I took a seat in a large chair close by. My ribs ached when I breathed; the support bandage I'd pulled on while yet in Mister Dryden's office alleviated only the sharpest pains.

  "Drink?" he asked, ambling over to his cabinet, extracting a flagon of intricate form. It was shaped in the guise of E, portraying his late, heavy period, so that the bottle might hold twice as much. Kissing the decanter in restrained supplication, he unscrewed the head from the torso
and poured two tumblers full.

  "May as well," I said.

  "Ice?" I demurred; if I was going to drink, it should be done to effect. The Old Man grinned. "My old Daddy always told me you could push an Irishman into a vat of whiskey and he'd drink his way out before he drowned. "

  "I wouldn't know," I said, taking the glass. I gulped; Jack Daniels, and it tasted no more terrible than it ever did. "I was born in New York."

  "Thanks again, O'Malley," he said, extending his hand so that I might clasp it. When I did, he gripped tightly, holding as if to see when I would give. I didn't; he let go.

  "What is this?" I asked. Once again I looked toward Avalon, as if I might yet draw her glance and thus gain, if not strength, then at least release. She raised her head, inadvertently, I believe, but even so she kept her guard. Her face, pulled tight, showed nothing; her eyes appeared as cold stones.

  "Sometimes you have to take things subtle, O'Malley. It's not easy to just run out and do what you want to do. That causes a lot of talk later on that nobody needs to hear. That was the problem with the boy. Everybody knew how he'd gotten to feel about me. Sometimes a sickness takes hold of a person and until you can get a cure to 'em you just got to take certain steps if you want to make sure nobody else catches it."

  "So you'd have cured him by killing him?"

  "Hold on there," he said, lifting his hands as if to protect himself from the splatter of thrown mud. "Did I lay my fingers on him? You ought to know, I'd think. I know for a fact he was aimin' after me. Right?"

  "He was."

  "Uh-huh. Now doesn't it make sense that if somebody's out to get you it becomes kinda necessary to get them first? That's a pretty clear rule of thumb, O'Malley. That's where bein' subtle comes in. Some of the ones that wanta get me are kinda subtle themselves in an obvious kinda way. Course, most everybody goes after me thinks they're so damn smart for doin' it they never see when they do somethin' stupid, and believe me, they always do somethin' stupid. Now, I didn't get this far bein' stupid myself, don't you know. Once they get rollin' I can always reach out and hook 'em."