Need (11 page)

And Able Bonder handed Willie his knives. Showed him how to hold them, how to sight and aim.
A natural
, Abel Bonder called him. Then the man went out for a walk and didn’t come back alive. The knives were orphaned.

By rights they should have been Willie’s, that’s what the deceased would have wished, but Mr. Stein took them in lieu
of rent. Just because he was the man he was. A blinded jackdaw who hoarded every souvenir he could lay hands on, the bearded lady’s shavings, flakes and scabs from the lizardskin boy, he plain couldn’t bear to be parted. So he garnished Abel Bonder’s blades, and locked them in his safe, and soon the season ended.

Marvin Dobbs and Abigail Alicia transferred to Florida, Oceana took a job at Nathan’s. Then nobody drank from the Spanish brandy, the courtyard didn’t light up, the red rose didn’t turn to flame. Left alone, Willie sat at a window smeared and blurred with suntan oil, looking down at the abandoned rides, the rows of steel-shuttered sideshows. Thinking of Abel Bonder, and of Abel Bonder’s knives, the knives that should have been his. Till his Aunt Rosario came to fetch him, and Coney Island ended.

He’d hardly been back since. Just driven past on his way to Brighton Beach, hurtling through the war zones. But this night he parked, and burrowed into the few alleys that were still active. Murals of Madonna and Snoop Doggy Dogg were surrounded by boarded windows, the scrunch of broken glass underfoot, and the sign on the chained door of Stein’s Amazements read
TWO-HEADED MAN CLOSED FOR RENOVATION
.

Mr. Stein himself sat drinking peppermint schnapps in the bar next door, still dressed as Buffalo Bill except for the cavalry boots. His feet, grotesquely swollen, were now housed in bedroom slippers with the toes cut out, and stray drops of schnapps clung to the goatee, the waxed moustaches.

The view down the bar onto the Boardwalk was framed like an oversize TV screen. As Willie watched, an unending stream of musclemen in bodysuits drifted past, and old shuffling Jews with
yarmulkes
, and girls in their summer skins, Italian men in Bermuda shorts and socks, Russian women in tents, Kate
Root in white tights and corsets, Ivana dyke-naked, duck hunters with green eyepatches.

Mr. Stein kept his shades turned towards the light, his mouth half-open in a leering blind man’s smile, but at the sound of money, twin twenties slapped on the bar behind him, he swivelled his head. “Who goes there?” he asked, startled, when Willie came close. One long tress of silver hair had worked lose from under his Stetson, dangled across his cheek like an unravelled vine. “Don’t hurt me,” cried Mr. Stein.

T
he din, this unending bedlam, how was she supposed to function? Between the birds racketing in the Zoo, and
Little Brown Jug
booming overhead, Ferdousine’s feet numb-fumbling on the hardwood floor, and that moron in the street with his megaphone announcing the Last Days,
And I heard a great voice out of the temple saying to the seven angels, Go your ways, and pour out the vials of the wrath of God upon the earth
, how could she keep her mind on Billie and Bo?

Worse, the TV was on the blink. A 14-inch Zenith, black-and-white, she’d had it forever, and now it was letting her down. Every time that Billie raised her voice, she turned to snow. And she was raising her voice a lot. Which was only human; her whole future was on the line. Considering all she’d been through, the incest and the drug addiction and the porn films, not to mention getting arrested for Curtis’ murder, it was inspiring how far she’d come already. But were her troubles really done? Would Bo ever get over Hope? Or would there always be this shadow?

Finding him lounging in Hope’s bra and panties was not a good sign, you couldn’t pretend it was. “Hand the scumbag his hat,” Kate said, and that boy with the shiny red car walked in.

He came half-strutting, half-gliding, in soot-black, torero pants by Yohji Yamamoto and a shot-silk amethyst shirt, carrying
a leather case that he set on the counter next to Pearl where she perched staring at the blizzard on the screen.

“I heard you know knives,” he said.

“Anna Crow,” said Kate. “I’ll slaughter that slut.”

Without the camouflage of his car, the boyfriend looked exactly that, a boy, a sneaking schoolboy. Wilfredo Diliberto, he said his name was, but she could call him Wilfred. His voice, which was soft, almost whispery, lagged a hint behind the beat. This gave it a slyness, a slither of insinuation, as if everything he said concealed a subtext and most of his words meant their opposites. “I never was around knives before, they always seemed so dangerous,” he said. “But maybe you could teach me. Show me a thing, or two.”

“Nota chance.”

“A few easy moves, that’s all.”

His stare as he spoke was sideways, a slanted look of teasing. But when he stood close Kate could see the pulses jump in his throat, at his temple, and she saw him crouched in an attic, looking at dirty pictures, it was just disgusting.

The taste in the back of her throat then was Ollie’s O-Boy Eats—chili corndogs, flapjacks, spoilt milk—and she covered her mouth with
Soap Digest
.

“I could pay,” said Wilfred.

“Don’t,” said Kate. “Please don’t.”

When Billie soul-kissed Bo, her nose job crinkled and twitched like a hungry rabbit. The trouble with lips like hers, in one shot you looked like a goddess of love, and the next like The Little Engine That Could. “At least let me show you my equipment,” said Wilfred. “That couldn’t hurt; how could it hurt? To sneak a peek at a blade?”

The leather case on the counter was distressed wine-red morocco, bruised and scuffed at the corners, and the knives inside when he exposed them to light were blotched with rust,
their points dulled. But the lush sweep of their curve was lovely still. Lying couched in crushed purple velvet, they looked like church.

Harvey McBurnettes.

What could she do? Not a thing. Just pretend she hadn’t noticed, turn away. Climb upon a stool, and busy herself with a bird. “Of course they need shining up, a little spit and polish,” the boy was saying. “A touch of TLC, and they’ll be born again.”

“Get out of my zoo,” said Kate.

It came out forcibly but not strident, by no means a shriek. Merely an instruction as she returned to floor level, and pressed one hand against his chest, palm flat, fingers up, a Stop sign. One sustained backwards thrust then, and Kate had shunted him through the door, out into the street.

Without his box of knives he looked lost, a lost child. “You’ll be sorry,” he said.

She already was. When she came back to the counter
Days of Our Lives
had ended she didn’t know where, leaving her adrift, without bearings. Some days she would have consoled herself with
Guiding Light
or
As the World Turns
, which came on next, but she had no heart for either one. She couldn’t settle to a thing, not the soaps or the birds’ evening feed, not even a Camel. All she wanted was out of here. But that would have given the boy too much honour. To cut and run in panic, a headless chicken, that would not be becoming.

She was stuck then, immured with a flock of birds, a nest of serpents and their accumulated shit, what Ferdousine called the
fruit of their feculent visitations
. Their din and their stink, and the heat, this ceaseless swelter. As a rule she barely noticed it, took it as a given. Today she felt it throttle her.

Limp as last week’s lettuce
, that had been Fred Root’s saying. But he had been speaking of English summer, sizzling at
seventy. The day he took her to the cricket, a Saturday league game behind Bellamy’s Brewery. The two of them sitting in uncut grass that smelled of brown ale and barley wine, drinking sweet milky tea out of a thermos, him with his Gold Flakes, her with her Space Blasters, and the brewery sign across the field,
Bellamy’s Beer Cures What Ales You
. “Hot as Hades,” Fred Root said, a word she had not heard before. Looking past his nodding head she saw the crimson ball rise high, turn into a red-winged bird.

Sick fancies.

She needed a day away, that was all. Or even an afternoon at Van Cortlandt Park in a deck chair, keeping score. Or she could have used a trip upstate to those thirty-five acres near Glens Falls, the acres she’d never got around yet to visiting, though she’d owned them fifteen years, must be. Since way back in the Ansonia era, at any rate, when Prince Claessen had come to her and she hadn’t known if she should call him Your Highness or simply Sire. She’d got herself all flustered, till it turned out that Prince was not a title, only his father’s conceit, and the man himself trained racehorses.

Which was certainly a switch. Kate was forever plagued by horse players seeking winners. All voyants were, they couldn’t have paid their rent otherwise. But a trainer, that was a twist. And a trainer in luck, what’s more. Jaipur Johnnie had already won the Wood Memorial for him, and the Travers up at Saratoga, and was favoured in the Great Suburban. Horse of the Year seemed a near certainty, and then millions in breeding fees. Plus the man had a dazzling wife, a partner he’d trust with his life, a family who adored him. His existence seemed so blessed, it terrified him. So he came to Kate, to have her search for a flaw.

One look at him, of course, and she’d found it. She saw his wife run off with his brother, Jaipur Johnnie break a leg, his
partner busted for embezzlement, his family turn to jackals, and Prince himself dead, a suicide, his pistol in his mouth. But she didn’t tell him that, not in so many words; it wouldn’t have been good for business. She merely advised him to watch his step around guns, and have a nice day. But the man was not so simple, he smelled a rat. Started asking questions and wouldn’t stop. The more she stalled, the deeper he probed. When his session was finished, he booked another, and another. Soon he couldn’t move without her.
What guns?
he kept on asking.
Pistols
, she told him at last, and he paid her bill, went home. Added a brief codicil to his will, then walked into Jaipur Johnnie’s stall and let himself be kicked to death. Anything to cheat the trigger. Leaving Kate the thirty-five acres near Glens Falls, plus a gelding named Baloney Breath.
For services rendered
, the codicil said.

Take it in the spirit intended, Ferdousine had told her. But she’d never been clear what spirit that might be, so the farm and nag had gone unused. Baloney Breath, at last hearing, was still alive and kicking. Kate thought of him with distant distaste.

Not today, though. On this afternoon she’d have tramped the length of the New York State Thruway for one good ooze of slop between her toes, a single whiff of horseshit hot and strong. And that was a danger signal. When a woman her age, who didn’t know grass from green shag, started pining for Mother Nature, it might be time to speed the friendly bullet.
Ladies of equinoctal years
, Ferdousine called them. You never could trust these old boilers.

Besides, how could she take a powder? When she knew that the Zoo was history without her, would fall apart the moment she wasn’t around? After all, be honest, who else was equipped to preserve it? Crouch? Maguire? Ferdousine himself? Well, who, then? The burden was hers, and hers alone.

Pity about Maguire, but what use to pretend? The first moment she had laid eyes on him, she thought that he might come in handy; the second, she knew he never would.
Nincompoop
was a fine word,
jobbernowl
another. Still he seemed to belong in this place somehow. He went with the colour scheme, all ninety-nine shades of it. Once in, it had seemed unthinkable to boot him out. And then, in certain lights, he seemed familiar. Something about his posture, the set of his head maybe. But no, she couldn’t define it, she was probably dead wrong. Most likely he was simply one more stray off the streets. Another ball and chain.

Terribilis est locus iste
 …

Some creature was moving behind the ferns. It couldn’t be a bird, the eyes weren’t bright enough, it had to be a customer. A rare sighting in these dog days, the heat mostly held them at bay. The hottest July on record, so Ferdousine said, with the worst fires and the most heart attacks. But this character seemed to thrive on it. A stout party in beard and baggies, guts cascading out of a Lollapalooza sweatshirt, he carried a can of King Cobra, breathed its fumes all over the zebra-tailed lizard and the Mojave rattlesnake. “A hundred three in the shade, they’re dropping like flies out there,” he said, and poked a fat finger through the bars of a sleeping garter snake,
thamnophis cyrtopsis
. “Is this one poisonous?”

“Deadly,” said Kate, and blew a smoke ring. “He rubs his venom on his cage, one touch and you’re fishbait.”

Terribilis est locus iste hie domus Dei
 …

Left alone, she turned back to the TV. A bleeding man in a white bedrobe was pushing a nurse into an empty elevator shaft, his rubber gloves were around her throat, she was screaming but no sound came out.
General Hospital
, Kate thought. Was it really that late?
Hie domus Dei et porta coeli
.

On the counter next to Pearl, who was snoring standing up, the red morocco box stood open, the rusted knives glowed dimly in their crushed velvet beds. She knew they were no use to her. No good could come of them, she should sling them straight into the garbage. But it was beyond her power. She could no more resist them than a nest full of chocolate truffles. With nobody to see, not a soul to know or tell. Her fingers curled like talons. Hovered over one blade, then another, then settled on a third. Prised it free, handle first, and weighed it in the palm of her hand. Felt its balance, the harmony of its parts. Pressed its dulled point into the ball of her thumb, it was as blunt as a rubber nipple. Dangled it and let it swing, a pendulum, a censer.

Its grey gleam in the Zoo’s darkness was fat and cynical as any whipsnake’s eye. At the butt of the haft the last owner had scratched his initials. They were grown blurred and faint with age, Kate had to strain to make them out.
AB
, she read at last. Abel Bonder. Then her hand had slipped, and she was bleeding, and Pearl would not stop squawking.