“Peelers!” Frank O’Lynn hissed, and froze to the spot.
Louis scanned left and right for a route to escape, but it was too late. The peelers had crossed with frightening speed and surrounded them in a horseshoe. Frank O’Lynn backed himself to the wall. Louis did likewise.
“Got you at last,” the peeler said. “There’s no escape now.”
Louis felt Frank O’Lynn grab his paw. “Close your eyes,” he whispered.
Louis wanted to argue that there was no goddamn point, but did as he was told. Immediately, he heard a Pop! Then the heavenly smell of roasted peanuts. Then almost as immediately it was gone and his snout was inundated with horseshit. For some reason re-materialization was instantaneous. He opened his eyes to the blues bar, exactly where they had left it at the table near the back wall. The room had been turned upside down, almost unrecognizable. Backless chairs were sprawled across the floor. Topless tables upturned. Glasses smashed and broken. Even the piano looked as though someone had taken a sledgehammer to it, splintered and toothless. There was certainly no plee-zant sense of happiness anymore.
“There they are!” he heard someone shout.
As he had feared, several peelers were waiting in ambush near the staircase. Two of them now rushed over the broken tables and chairs, baring their teeth, and with less than a few yards to go leaped at them with snatching claws. Louis flinched, scrunching his eyes, shielding his free paw in front of his face. His scream got stuck halfway up his throat, silenced by another sudden Pop! Again he caught a waft of roasted peanuts, and then just as swiftly, to his disgust, more goddamn horseshit.
“Welcome back,” he heard.
Louis lowered his paw and opened his eyes. He was back in Conduit Number 1, his back to the wall with peelers closing in. “Why aren’t we invisible?” he said to Frank O’Lynn. “Why did we rematerialize so soon?”
“Because the original ether-channel is still exerting its effect over us. To be sure, until it closes it treats every Pop we make as a continuation of the first. But I had to try.” The Partridge then spoke to the peeler in command. “You had orders to wait until we were at the rendezvous.”
“They’ve been changed.”
“By who?”
“By the very top.”
Louis looked at the guinea pig, then at the peeler, then back at the guinea pig. “You… you’re a double agent?”
Frank O’Lynn scoffed, scratching a fleabite on the back of his paw. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
Louis felt the first prick of indignation, an itch that started in his chest and worked its way through the rest of his body, including his voice. “No wonder everybody thinks guinea pigs look like rats,” he growled.
Frank O’Lynn sighed and his shoulders seemed to sag with an invisible weight. “To be sure, I had no choice. They made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.”
“You betrayed the Freedom Fighters. Your own friends.”
Two rats grabbed Louis by the shoulder. “You’re coming with us,” the peeler in command said. Then he pointed to Frank O’Lynn. “I’ll be back for you in a minute. You’re going to take us to the others.”
Louis tried to shrug the peelers off. “You know what?” he said to Frank O’Lynn. “You’re a goddamn coward. You know the right thing to do and yet you don’t do it.”
Frank O’Lynn shrugged, still scratching the back of his paw. “Takes one to know one.”
Louis tried to wiggle loose, but the peelers tightened their grip. “You’re damn right,” he said. “That’s why I know the worst thing for a coward is to be found out; and you’ve been uncovered in all your ugly nakedness you good-for-noth’n son-of-a-bitch.” He felt himself being picked up and dragged away, but he kept up his struggle. “You’ve sold yourself out. For what, false friends and promises? It’ll only bring you misery. But you like that, don’t you Frank? You’re a goddamn frog in boiling water. Misery’s the only thing you know.”
When Frank O’Lynn and the remaining peelers fell out of sight, Louis stopped struggling and gave himself to his fate. There was no fight left in him anymore. What was the point? His captors dragged him through one of the tributary tunnels to a holding cell identical to the gray-room in which he had woken up. He let the peelers strap him to the leather layback in front of the Mirror of Truth without a word, wishing he had never woken up in this godforsaken hellhole. They didn’t take long, but before he locked the door, the peeler in command said, “Don’t look so glum. The Boss has taken a special interest in you. He’s going to personally oversee your punishment.”
Then he was gone, his laughter fading down the tunnel, and Louis was left to stare at his pathetic reflection. He then did something he hadn’t done for an eternity.
He began to cry.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
No Escape
LOUIS didn’t know how long he had been staring at his crying reflection. He hadn’t dared fallen asleep, although that was exactly what he needed. He didn’t dare risk another nightmare; that would have tipped him over the edge, and he wasn’t prepared to fall into the abyss of insanity just yet. He was teetering, though, and it wouldn’t take much to push him over. He wondered what was stopping him from jumping anyway. Become like all the other newbies strapped in front of their Mirror of Truth, wailing and gnashing his teeth for eternity.
Hope, he figured. That was probably it. He hadn’t yet given up on being saved.
Was that the difference between sanity and insanity? The sane still cling to hope while the insane let it go?
Louis then heard the sound of a muffled discussion outside. Someone was talking to the peelers posted at his door, which he couldn’t see in the mirror so he twisted his neck as far as he could. The knob turned and Smiggins entered, punching numbers into his calculator. Close behind him came Flash Freddy with his suitcase. “Thank God you guys are here,” Louis said. “Get me out of these goddamn shackles will you?”
Smiggins and Flash Freddy went straight to the end of the layback, standing between it and the Mirror of Truth. They had expressions like a couple of undertakers burying someone they were glad to be rid of. “Sorry, no can do,” Smiggins said.
“What? You’re my goddamn PA.” Louis strained against the restraints. “You’ll do what you’re goddamn told.”
“Things have changed, Mr. DeVille. You’re in no position to tell anybody what to do.”
Louis turned to Flash Freddy. “Help me out here. I can explain.”
Flash Freddy remained as he was, solemn and grave. His eyes were hooded. “Smiggins is in charge. As your legal council, I advise you to seriously consider what he has to say to you.”
Louis stopped fighting the straps and let himself sink into the layback. “And that would be?”
Smiggins punched some more numbers and sniggered. “An offer you can’t refuse.”
Louis rolled his eyes. “By whose authority?” Flash Freddy and Smiggins glanced at one another. They shared a look that said, Should we tell him now or later? Nothing was said for several seconds. “Come on. I’m all ears.”
Flash Freddy said, “Smiggins is his own authority. He’s in charge of LeMont International Enterprises.”
Louis stared at the rat with the calculator, suddenly blank. The void, he knew, would soon be filled with fear. “You… You’re The Boss?”
Smiggins sniggered, and said, “I’m not The Boss, just the caretaker. I do the books.”
“Then… what…?”
“The Boss has been missing for thousands of years. It’s a secret only Flash Freddy and myself know. Now you do too.”
“But… I don’t understand…”
Smiggins sniggered and swished his tail from side to side. “All we have left is the system The Boss established. We’ve kept it running until we could find a suitable candidate to fill the vacancy. Nobody seemed to have the right credentials. Until you came along.” He added with a snigger, “By all accounts, your address at the AGM brought the house down.”
Louis
moved from the rat, to the lizard, then back to the rat again. Their expressions hadn’t changed. They were deadly serious. “Let me get this straight. You’re offering me a promotion? The next CEO of LeMont, The Boss?”
Smiggins punched some numbers into his calculator. “Actually, it’s a demotion,” he said. “All major corporations work that way. You know that as well as anybody.”
Louis recalled an argument with Lady Di one evening over dinner. He didn’t remember what he had done wrong, but she was furious. You know, Louis, in every other profession the cream rises to the top. Not in business. There scum rises. And you, Louis are…
Smiggins’ sniggering severed the memory. “Although the system runs pretty well without someone at the helm, it’s pretty much run its course. We need someone with a vision to take LeMont into the future. You’re just the weasel we’ve been looking for.”
It beggared belief, but Louis wasn’t going to be suckered in that easily. “What’s the catch?”
This time the corners of the rat’s mouth tweaked into something of a smile. The undertaker was back. “You’ll be under house arrest for eternity,” he said, and Louis felt his eyes bulge as he swallowed the words, then choked on them. “We’ll build you another Tower, but you’ll never be able to leave the penthouse. Flash Freddy and I will be the only contact you have with the outside world.” Smiggins paused, letting him think it over. “It’s as good a deal as you’re likely to get. Considering your affiliation with the Freedom Fighters.”
Louis took his time to chew it over. Like a cow, Louis my boy. Digest it nice and slowly. Nonetheless, it was still difficult to swallow, like eating a bowl of horseshit. He had to take it though. There was no other choice, was there? Sure, he would live in absolute luxury for eternity, but at what cost? Was it better to give in and jump over the edge into the abyss of insanity now, or toss over a rope and abseil into it? Make a steady immersion into madness?
“I can’t betray my friends,” he said.
Smiggins glanced up from his calculator. Flash Freddy’s eyes hooded into ever thinning slits. “What friends? The ones that betrayed you?”
Smiggins motioned for the lawyer to leave it be and told him to unfasten the restraints. “I want to show you something before you make up your mind,” he said, and Louis hid his smile. He had managed to buy himself some time.
In less than a minute, he was off the layback and making his way through the tributary tunnel to Conduit Number 1, glad to be free again, even if it were under the escort of half a dozen peelers. He had no intention of making a dash for it, or Popping, or Zipping, or trying to goddamn fly. There was no point. He would see what they had to show him and then make his decision. He had virtually made up his mind in any case.
Smiggins and Flash Freddy said nothing until they arrived at one of the chambers. The same Chamber of Life, Louis recognized, in which he had helped to crucify the newbie when he first arrived. Through the door he could hear muted moaning and groaning: “Why hast thou forsaken me? Why hast thou forsaken me?” Not too far to his right, the pure whiteness of the Fires of Oblivion reflected off the gray conduit walls. He removed his gaze from it, not wanting to think about the prophecy any more than he had to. That’s in the past now, Louis my boy. All in the past.
Smiggins told the peelers to wait outside, then took Flash Freddy and Louis onto the observation ledge. When Louis looked down onto the first row of crucifixes, his jaw dropped. The Grand Pooh-Bah was nailed to a cross next to The Master, his wheelchair tipped onto its side beneath him. Next to her was Salma Gundi. They didn’t see Louis at first because they were watching five peelers hoist a cross on which they had just nailed a guinea pig. He was thrashing his head from side to side and squealing at the top of his voice. The Irish accent was unmistakable: They had the wrong guy: He wasn’t supposed to be here: It was all a mistake.
“Don’t put him next to me,” Santosa said. “He’s got fleas!”
Smiggins sniggered, punching some numbers into his calculator. “As you see, Mr. DeVille, no good deed goes unpunished.”
Frank O’Lynn heard the rat’s voice filter down into the chamber. He looked up, spotted Louis, and screamed, “It’s his fault! He betrayed us all!”
Santosa, Tiffany and Salma Gundi turned their faces up. “Why’d you do it, Louis?” Santosa said. Louis closed his hanging jaw, not knowing what to say. “What happened to Operation White Rabbit? We were partners. I was going to give you fifty percent of Ties & Scarves. The legal documents were already drawn.”
Louis turned to the cross next to Santosa. Tiffany met his gaze with big accusing eyes, saying nothing.
“See that vacant cross next to the guinea pig?” Smiggins said, and when he put his claw on his shoulder, Louis was suddenly struck with a wave of revulsion so strong he almost retched. “It’s got your name on it. Unless…” and he let it hang in the air for a moment.
Louis dropped his chin onto his chest and closed his eyes, trying to block out the incessant moaning and quash the nausea inside him. “I don’t know what to do anymore.”
“Come now. You have a career for eternity, what everyone wants. I can organize membership at the Country Club if you like, and you won’t even have to go on the waiting list. You won’t be able to use it, of course, but at least you’ll have it,” he said. Louis wavered, and Smiggins sensed the confusion inside him. “Do you really want to throw it all away? For what? A prophecy? A twisted sense of loyalty? You were fooled, Louis.” He pointed at the fat toad on the cross beneath. “Miles N. Boon and his Freedom Fighters took you for a ride. You owe them nothing.”
Louis suddenly looked up. “Santosa is Miles N. Boon? I thought…” His shoulders sagged. What did it matter? Everything he had been told was a lie.
“You were made to think whatever they wanted you to think. It’s not your fault. You trusted them. They were all in it together.”
“Doesn’t anybody tell the goddamn truth around here?”
Smiggins sniggered and patted his shoulder. “Does anybody really know what the truth is? It’s all relative anyway.”
Louis turned to Flash Freddy and said as a joke, “And I suppose you’re the goddamn White Rabbit?” The lizard and rat both laughed. Louis shook his head and drew a deep breath, glancing one last time at the chamber of crucifixes. “Okay. I’ll do it. I’ll be The Boss.”
“You’ve made the right decision,” Smiggins said, and ushered him and Flash Freddy toward the exit. “You won’t regret it.”
Louis stepped through the door and into the conduit. “On one condition though. You have to let them go. You can’t let them suffer like that, no matter what they did.”
Smiggins swished his tail and locked the door behind him. “Everybody suffers, Louis. There’s no escaping it. Better to get on with what you need to do and stop worrying about it.”
Louis stopped in his tracks. When he was a kid, so his mother told him, he used to sleepwalk almost every single night. Most times he would wander through to the lounge room where she was ironing or watching TV, or both, and just stand there staring up at her with sleep-drugged eyes. The lights were on, but nobody was home, she used to say. It never bothered her. She would simply take him by the hand and lead him back to his bedroom. Most of the time he would climb back into bed by himself. The next morning, of course, he would have absolutely no recollection of what had happened. Not even a dream.
One night, however, he apparently scared the living daylights out of her. She almost called the doctor to rush over and do something about her little boy. Louis had wandered into the lounge room wielding a large kitchen knife and demanding to know where he was. He, of course, was his father, and he wanted to kill him. Thankfully, it was poker night with his work buddies, as almost every night was. He never heard about this incident, and Louis was only told once, when she poured a vase of cold water over his head to wake him up. “Why’d you do that?” he had said, shivering. As far as he knew, he had been sleeping. He thought he was still in bed.
<
br /> “You were going crazy, Louis,” she told him. “You were sleepwalking. I couldn’t get the knife off you.”
Louis looked at the knife, not remembering how or when or where he had got it. He was gripping the handle so hard his knuckles were white. Then he dropped it and ran back to his bedroom, slamming the door. It wasn’t the fact that he wanted to kill his old man (the good-for-nothing son-of-a-bitch deserved whatever came to him), what sent him into the grand old house in Loony Ville was that he could walk and talk and do things and not even know he was doing it. It was something that had bothered him for the rest of his life, but now he stared at the rats and Flash Freddy with sudden understanding – he had woken up in the gray room in front of the Mirror of Truth, and yet he hadn’t woken up at all. He was still sleepwalking. Still going through the motions without realizing it.
“Everybody suffers,” Smiggins had said. The words were a vase of cold water tipped over his sleep-drugged head. “There’s no escaping it.”
Smiggins and Flash Freddy, he saw, were staring at him. The peelers just looked at one another. They had no idea whether to laugh or tackle him to the ground. “What’s so funny?” Smiggins asked.
Louis wiped a tear from his cheek with the back of his paw. He felt so goddamn joyous, like he had just drunk a bottle of happy juice or something. “There is a way out of all this. There really is,” he said. Suddenly, his mouth seemed to open of its own accord, effortlessly, as if he no longer had any control over what he was saying. “Grnklpmrph nlw frpztk. Zwlkbdlvrpmh.”
Smiggins eyes flew open and dropped his calculator. It broke into three pieces next to his feet. Flash Freddy caught his briefcase just before it slipped out of his grasp. “What did you just say?” Smiggins said.
“You heard me,” Louis said, though he had absolutely no goddamn idea why he had quoted the first line of the prophecy. The peelers waiting by the wall seemed to tremble, and in a sudden flash of clarity he knew his opportunity had come. Make hay while the sun shines, Louis. It was his grandfather’s voice this time, and without waiting another second, while his captors were still reeling, he darted for the archway at the end of the tunnel.
DeVille's Contract Page 28
