“What the hell are you thinking?” he said to himself, and shook it off. The newbie would have to defend for himself, like everybody else in this god-forsaken place. What could he do against a ravenous horde? The simple fact was, nothing. That’s if he actually wanted to do anything, which he wasn’t sure he did. Compassion, like benevolence, was a stranger on his block, something to be treated with wariness and kept on the other side of the street. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Wasn’t that how the saying went? It was better to continue down the tunnel and not get involved. He would only get in the way of things.
Yet it didn’t feel right. While the suit and ties continued to stream past in the opposite direction, Louis discovered another emotion whelming up from whatever depths he had been suppressing it: helplessness. Something he thought he had goddamn dealt with long time ago. Helplessness belonged to the boy the bullies had pinned to the ground and crammed dog turds in his underpants, then told all the girls in the playground he crapped his pants and stank of horseshit. Helplessness belonged to the lad that had come home from school one day to find his mommy’s pretty face covered in fresh bruises and his daddy at the kitchen table shouting at him to get to his room. Helplessness had nothing to do with the man who had started his own business from scratch and built into a multi-national company. Nothing at goddamn all. Except now that feeling was knocking at his door like a long-lost lovechild he thought he had arranged to have aborted years ago. Something he was going to have to deal with whether he liked it or not.
He stopped and glanced over his tail. The bright white light of the Fires of Oblivion was no longer visible, just the steady traffic of navy-gray suits heading away from him. “Shouldn’t we do something to help the newbie?” he asked.
“Not so loud,” Frank O’Lynn whispered, looking from side to side. “Do I have to remind you that we’re running from the law?” A ferret and a rat hurried past, not interested in anything other than getting to the archway before all the fun was over. “To be sure, the newbie’s fate has already been determined by the choices he’s made. Call it karma. Call it reaping what you sow,” and Louis thought: I call it getting what you deserve. Or at least I used to. Now I’m not so sure. “Whatever. There’s nothing we can do to change the path he’s chosen to walk. Just as nobody can change our path.”
A roar of a thousand voices echoed down the tunnel, cutting him short.
“I just feel kind of sorry for the guy,” Louis said, glancing once more behind him. Two weasels stepping out of the nearest chamber began to run toward the cheering crowd. “I never thought I’d ever admit to something like that, let alone say it out loud, but that’s the way I feel.”
Frank O’Lynn looked at him the way a father would look at a son who just told him he thought he might be gay, but wasn’t sure. The look said: we better get you some help straight away, before it’s too late. “To be sure, Louis, if you really want to help the newbie, and everyone else, then you have to come with me. Your job is to spread the word of salvation through the White Rabbit and…”
Another roar from the archway cut over the top of his voice. As if whipped into action, Frank O’Lynn hurried off in the opposite direction. The way ahead was now free of navy-gray suits, with only the occasional stragglers running toward them fearful of missing the action. Louis caught up with him. “And what?” he said. “What else am I supposed to do?”
Frank O’Lynn pretended he was in too much of a hurry to answer, that it wasn’t safe to hang around. To be sure, it was better to get to the safe house before somebody recognized them.
Louis broke into a trot, thinking he already knew what he was supposed to do. A shudder of pins and needles rushed down his spine. He wants me to pave the way for others to follow. He wants me to be a goddamn sacrifice.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Louis Seeks Refuge
ALMOST ten hours later they arrived at the archway at the other end of the tunnel. Like before, there was a backlog of navy-gray suits waiting to pass through. Louis reckoned the line to be several hundred yards long; not that he could see the front of it – there were too many goddamn bodies in the way – rather, he took a guess based on the sound of Santosa’s voice berating the official whose job it was to check the validity of everybody’s union membership. As on the previous occasion, the fat toad was ranting and raving that he would have him crucified if he didn’t let him pass, that he was the Grand Pooh-Bah of Workplace Safety and Wages, that he had powerful friends and it wouldn’t be wise to stand in his way. Nothing he said, however, had any effect. The official couldn’t even be bribed.
“I demand you let me through!” Santosa shouted. “I’m late for the AGM.”
Frank O’Lynn stood patiently by as an excited cocktail of sniggering and spitefulness passed down the line. Louis hugged his chest, chilled as much from the effects of rematerializing as what he could hear from others around him. A jackal just ahead sniffled and wiped his snout with the back of his paw, then said, “He deserves what’s coming to him.”
His pal, a ferret with a walking stick, nodded in agreement: “Officials get right up my nose. They’re the bane of my After Life.”
Despite Santosa embarking on yet another tirade, the official still wasn’t budging, citing protocol as his defense. Santosa’s voice lifted over the murmuring, now giving the official one last chance to let him through. A bad feeling came over Louis.
Frank O’Lynn shook his head and said, “They never learn, do they?”
Louis had to agree, though he was thinking more of Santosa and his gang of scammers than the beleaguered official. It was goddamn déjà vu.
In next to no time, the shouting stopped and the cracking of whips echoed down the tunnel. Flash Freddy was at work again, Louis figured, and somewhere under the hail of lashes he could just make out the squeals of the terrified official. As he listened, Louis was struck with a sudden sense of dread: these apparently sporadic attacks on officialdom just hadn’t happened once or twice, but hundreds, if not thousands of times.
Then silence fell, and slowly but surely the line began to move again. Though he was in no way reduced to the tattered scarecrow-like figure of the previous official, Louis saw when he had reached the front of the line, the rat behind the foldout table had the stunned expression of someone who had just been mugged by his own wife. Staring blankly at nothing in particular, pinstriped tie askew, buttons torn from a crumpled jacket, he barely cared for the line of suits trickling past. “Is it me, or is every official in this city a rat?” Louis whispered.
“To be sure, all officialdom and all peelers,” Frank O’Lynn whispered back, scratching his cheek. The jackal and ferret Louis had overheard earlier were now approaching the makeshift checkpoint. “The Boss trusts no one else. Rats seem to have a natural disposition for protocol and corporate security.”
“Is The Boss a rat, too?”
Frank O’Lynn glanced around to make sure Louis hadn’t been overheard. The ferret and lizard behind were discussing the acquisition of a commercial lease on Boulevard 1. “It’s best not to speculate about it,” The Partridge whispered. “Nobody knows what The Boss looks like. No one has ever seen him. He never leaves his penthouse.”
Louis immediately snuffed out the image of the alpha-omega logo that drifted across his mind. “What about my PA, Smiggins? Is he on The Boss’s pay list, too?”
“To be sure, it’s better to assume all rats are. Smiggins has probably been spying on you from the very start. The Boss likes to know everything about everyone; knowledge is power, you know that as much as anybody.”
Louis shifted awkwardly, adjusting the knot of his tie and wondering just how much information Smiggins had passed on. It was safe to assume that everything he had said in his presence had been sent to The Tower to be filtered and analyzed. He then froze at a sudden memory. “The Boss knows I’ve seen the White Rabbit,” he whispered. “I was in the Limo with Smiggins and the others. I blurted it out. I let everyone know what I saw
.” He swallowed what felt like a lump of cold rock. “The peelers weren’t following you, Partridge, they were trailing me from the very start. They knew I’d lead them to your headquarters eventually. It was just a matter of time.”
Up ahead, the stunned official waved the jackal and ferret through without so much as a glance at their union cards. Frank O’Lynn’s expression was now stern. “Now’s not the time,” he whispered. “Do you have the union card from the honeymoon suite?”
Louis nodded and reached into his inner pocket. As he removed Aldo Fiddler’s ID, the note with THERE IS NO ESCAPE fell to the ground. “How do you know I found the card?” he whispered. “I haven’t told anyone.”
Frank O’Lynn ignored him, staring at the note. Then snatching it up before anybody else could see it, he put it inside his own pocket for safekeeping. The official was now gesturing for them to approach. “Just show the ID and say nothing.” Frank O’Lynn was now whispering so softly Louis could hardly hear a goddamn word. “No doubt the peelers have alerted all checkpoints to be on the lookout for us.”
Despite his apprehension, Louis had no choice but to step forward and show his card. To his relief, the official was still in too much of a state of shock to read it; but just when he thought they were through, Louis’ gaze fell upon several police sketches on the table. One in particular grabbed his attention, a WANTED picture of a weasel and guinea pig with the names Aldo Fiddler and Frank O’Lynn printed beneath; and no matter how incriminating his actions might be construed, he couldn’t take his eyes off them. What should he do? Should he run? Should he sneak back to the end of the line? The rat only had to glance down and make the connection and they were done for.
Then, before he cracked and made a sprint for the archway, he felt Frank O’Lynn take his paw and drag him out of the tunnel. Only when they stepped onto the ledge did he allow himself to relax. They had been lucky. Now all they had to do was get to the safe house, somewhere down there in that mega-sprawl at the bottom of the cliff. It was best not to think about it though; even here fifty miles away, he could feel The Tower trying to connect with its mind-hold. The damn thing just didn’t give up. “Did you see those pictures?” he whispered.
Frank O’Lynn nodded, somewhat calm considering how close they had been to getting nailed to a cross. “To be sure, Santosa and his friends did us a favor.”
“A favor? I’m a wanted criminal! Every rat in the city is on the lookout for me.”
“For Aldo Fiddler. Not Louis DeVille.”
Louis paused to reconsider the situation. Maybe it wasn’t as dire as he had imagined. “What about you? I saw your name.”
“Frank O’Lynn is just an alias. I’ve had so many I barely remember what my real name is.” He had that dreamy look again. “It’s amazing what you get used to in this place.” Then he came back from wherever his mind had been and went to the steps. “Come. We’re not out of danger yet.”
Louis followed Frank O’Lynn down the snaking steps to where a series of Limos were waiting at the bottom. Thankfully, none had its hood up or the number plate TOAD 10. Frank O’Lynn then led him down Boulevard 1, but Louis waited until the mini-market at the second intersection before pressing him about the union card he had found in the honeymoon suite.
“Our guy on the inside planted it,” Frank O’Lynn said.
“Salma Gundi? He’s a Freedom Fighter, too?”
Scratching behind his ear, Frank O’Lynn scanned the street, making sure none of the pedestrians were within audible range. A Limo sped toward The Tower, its tinted windows fully wound. “You didn’t notice him at the blues bar?” he said with a wry grin. “And he goes by the alias, Miss Elaine, by the way.”
Louis tried to recall the scene inside the bar before the peelers came storming down the stairs. The singer and pianist were on stage. Five or six patrons sat alone at candle lit tables, a jackal, some ferrets, another weasel; none of them monitor lizards. Then he remembered who was wiping glasses behind the bar. The goddamn jack-of-all-trades had disappeared through a trapdoor when the peelers raided, probably into a secret tunnel. “How could you be so sure I’d find it?” he asked.
“What, the union card? It was with the remote, wasn’t it?”
Got me there, he mused. Good ol’ Lady Di had always said men were as predictable as death and taxes (TV and tits, that’s all you men think about). The varieties of the male experience were really quite narrow when you thought about it.
Up ahead, a rat and ferret exited onto the sidewalk from a betting agency. Taking no chances, Frank O’Lynn turned off the boulevard and hurried down a narrow side street. A freshly sprayed WRFF adorned the corner wall. “Miss Elaine has mastered time control,” he said, answering the dilemma that had been on Louis’ mind. “That’s why he seems to be everywhere at once. I don’t know exactly how he does it, although I once overheard him mention that time has a habit of zipping by. I guess he Zips like we Pop. Something like that anyway. To be sure, I’ve never done it. It’s infinitely more dangerous than Popping. If you don’t know what you’re doing, you can get stuck in time, caught for eternity in no man’s land between two whens.”
Frank O’Lynn then shrugged, as if the whole thing was beyond his limited comprehension, offering no further explanation. He then turned into a narrow lane, the kind of alleyway Louis would never have walked down in Manhattan, not even with a dozen armed guards. Several hundred yards at the end, where it intersected with a larger street, Louis caught the flash of a Limo driving past. Not long after, they rounded the corner and headed in the same direction. Two streets past the next boulevard, they turned toward The Tower and stopped in front of a non-descript eight-story apartment building. “Let’s just hope The Master is in,” Frank O’Lynn said.
“Master of what?”
“The Tradition.”
Frank O’Lynn scanned the area to make sure they weren’t being followed, then buzzed the button on the intercom marked “Basement”. A timid voice replied almost at once. Louis’ first thought was that a little girl had answered, The Master’s daughter maybe, but then remembered that there were no children in this mega-city. “It never rains,” she said.
Frank O’Lynn pressed his lips to the intercom. “Only rocks and boulders.”
“Nothing grows,” The Master then said.
“Only petrified trees.”
She briefly paused, as if nervous. “The sun never shines.”
Frank O’Lynn glanced up, then said, “It’s blocked by the sky-vault.”
The Master’s voice now wavered. “Nothing flies.”
Still scanning the street, Frank O’Lynn whispered back, “Only rabbits with wings.”
Louis then heard a buzz and a click as the front security door was unlocked. With one final glance down the street, Frank O’Lynn ushered him into the communal entrance, then down the stairwell to the basement. As they approached the apartment, Louis could sense the presence of someone watching him through the eyehole. Frank O’Lynn then raised his paw: Knock. Knock. Knock. Pause. Knock. Knock. Pause. Knock.
A bolt slid back, then a key twisted, and then a chain unlatched. When the door finally opened, Louis recoiled with shock.
“Come in,” The Master said. “I’ve been expecting you.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
The Prophet
LOUIS was aware that his jaw had fallen open while he stared at The Master. He hadn’t recognized the voice over the intercom because he had never heard her speak until now. Her big brown eyes he had definitely had the pleasure of encountering before. Her long-sleeve, navy-gray dress buttoned high at the neck, along with its rigidly ironed creases and the hemline that kissed her sneakers, he had also seen. He remembered the attraction he had felt the first time he laid eyes on her (petit, dutiful, just my kind of gal), and he had to admit he still had a bit of a thing for her, despite his recent misgivings. But this changed everything, didn’t it?
“Tiffany?” he said. “What…? I mean… Goddamn it, you’re suppos
ed to be…”
She glanced behind him up the stairs. “Not out here,” she said. “Come inside before someone sees us.”
Louis stepped past her diminutive frame as Frank O’Lynn whispered something in her ear. Seemingly pleased with the information, she bolted and chained the door. Although the stench of horseshit was far better than out on the street, the apartment was not exactly what Louis had been expecting. He had reckoned Tiffany to be the type of woman who lived in a sparse, one-bedroom spinster’s apartment (Minimalistic, dear, Lady Di said from the depths of wherever dead people were buried in the memory, the word you’re looking for is minimalistic), where the walls and floor were spotlessly clean, where every kitchen appliance stood side-by-side in regimental order on the sideboard (switched off at the mains when not in use, of course), and where the pantry, though not bare, was thrifty with organically grown, bowel-sensible fodder.
Well, he was half right, he mused, absorbing the décor of the living room. Everything was as clean and spotless as he had suspected, but one thing he hadn’t figured on was the incredible amount of collectables on display. There was so much stuff it made his head spin. The lack of windows probably made it look worse than what it was, but there was goddamn junk everywhere, cluttering every shelf, tabletop, corner, nook and cranny. A detailed inventory of the room would take years to complete, an insurance agent’s worst goddamn nightmare. There were porcelain ducks on the wall to his left, frozen in flight. Boxes piled to the ceiling in the far corner, filled with god-knows-what. Tightly packed animal figurines on the piano, like refugees cramming the deck of a boat. Even circular doilies splayed across the coffee table, one of which was still attached to a couple of crochet needles, half-complete and dumped on the cover of a tatty celebrity magazine. But the corduroy sofa covered with clear plastic sheeting was the goddamn pièce de résistance.
DeVille's Contract Page 19
