Ring Game (34 page)

“Jesus, Drew, you ever listen to me? This is gonna be
huge
!”

“Right. You got a story, then I’m your man.”

“We’re gonna have a story, Drew, remember?”

“Uh, this is the thing with that cult, right?” It was coming back now.

“That’s right. The Amaranthine Church.”

“The vampire thing, right?”

“That’s right. What the hell is wrong with you? Did we not discuss this in detail right there in your office?”

“I talk to a lot of clients, Hy. I got stuff coming at me every which way. I got a kid that draws pictures of the future.”

“You want a picture of the future, Drew? I got two of them. One, you’re sitting on a pile of cash. Two, you got your head up your butt. Which one you want on your wall?”

“Okay, okay. Look, you want to run through it again for me, Hy? I mean, just the high points.”

Hyatt turned off the phone and set it on the coffee table. He looked through the archway into the kitchen. Carmen stood at the stove wearing a red apron over her white bra and blue panties, stirring something in a big saucepan. He said, “Shit!” Carmen did not look up. Hyatt raised his voice and slammed his fist on the table. “Shit!”

That time Carmen turned her head toward him, smiled, then went back to stirring. Hyatt flopped back into the sofa. He didn’t understand how she could be so utterly incurious. Anybody else would have asked him what was wrong, and who he’d been talking to, but Carmen showed no interest whatsoever. All she seemed to care about lately was this stupid wedding. At least it was keeping her busy. But it would have been nice if she worried about Hy Hilton now and then.

That son-of-a-bitch Drew. All the time and effort to prep the guy, to bring him on board, and he spaces. Good thing he called.

Hy rocked forward and stood up. A whiff of butyric acid followed him. There were little pockets of it throughout the apartment, like aromatic mines, waiting to be triggered. The garage was still unapproachable. He walked into the kitchen and looked over Carmen’s shoulder into the saucepan.

“Spaghetti sauce?”

“Sophie gave me the recipe. It’s ready. You hungry?”

“Starving. Drew Chance is coming to the wedding.”

“Who?”

“Drew Chance. The guy on
Hard Camera
.”

“Oh. Did he RSVP?”

“I doubt it. You know, the presents alone are going to make this whole thing worthwhile.”

“Sophie’s gonna be pissed, he doesn’t RSVP.”

Hyatt shrugged. “You want to know something funny? Did you know that in Minnesota you can get married by a dog?”

Carmen set the spoon on the edge of the pan. “Forget about it, Hy. I’m not getting married by a dog, I don’t care how it will look on TV.”

Hyatt laughed. “No, I’m just saying it’s the
law
. If two people say their vows in public, and if they
think
they just got married, then they’re married. Doesn’t matter if the minister is licensed or anything. Doesn’t matter what they say. It still counts! They’re married! The minister doesn’t even have to be human!”

“Tell me we’re not gonna be married by a dog.”

“No. I just thought it was interesting. I mean, everybody makes such a big deal about weddings, and in the end it comes down to ‘bow-wow-wow,’ you’re married.”

“You’re a weird guy.”

“Yeah, I know that.”

“You want to set the table?”

“Hey, we’re not married yet!” Hyatt looked around the kitchen. “What kind of pasta are we having?”

Carmen stopped stirring. “Oh,” she said.

“You’re kidding, right? You forgot the spaghetti?”

“Do we have some?”

“Jesus, Carm, you scare me sometimes.”

Carmen nodded. “Me, too.”

The man behind the counter at Bigg Bodies sat with his thick arms crossed over his bulging chest, staring bleakly at his right foot, which was wrapped in a thick cocoon of white gauze and resting atop a stool. He did not look up when Chuckles limped in and leaned his elbows on the counter.

Chuckles said, “You drop a plate?”

The man turned his head slowly and stared. He reminded Chuckles of Chip. Squinty little redneck eyes. “Something I can do for you?”

Chuckles leaned across the counter, offering his hand. “Name’s Chuckles. You the owner?”

“I’m the manager. If you’re selling something, we’re not interested.”

Chuckles kept his hand out. “I’m not selling. I’m buying.”

The man with the foot seemed disappointed, but he took the proffered hand and pumped it once. “Beaut Miller. What are you buying?”

“I’m looking to join a gym.”

“Yeah? Well, you found one. We got it all. I’d give you the tour, but—” he gestured toward his bandaged foot.

“’s cool.” Chuckles looked out across the room. “I see what you got.” Only a few guys were working out. He did not see Florian.

“We’re running a special promotion, this week only. Join for six months, you get one month free. One forty-nine ninety-nine.”

“What if I can’t decide till next week?”

Beaut shrugged. “I could extend the offer.”

“You got any lady members?”

“Sure. Mostly they come in evenings.”

“Got one named Florian?”

“Florian?”

“Yeah. Good looking woman. Got a kick like a mule.”

Beaut laughed. “I got a Flow-REEN, only she just
smells
like a mule.”

“Say what?”

“Actually, our Flowrean smells more like dead fish. That the bitch you looking for?”

Many thousands of Pilgrims had come to the Amaranthine Church of the One seeking to lengthen their pitifully brief lifespans. The majority, confronted with the rigors and costs of the Amaranthine way, chose to remain mortal. They came for the free clinic, and they left. Fewer than a thousand had gone on to attend an Extraction Event and, of those, only forty-four had completed the first five of the seven steps required to achieve true physical immortality. The sixth and seventh steps were held to be among the greatest secrets of the Amaranth. Thus far, only Rupe and Polly had achieved them.

The forty-two people now seated in the meeting room were all fifth-steppers and had reached a state known as “proto-immortality.” Rupert Chandra, seated on a swivel chair in the precise center of the small octagonal room, felt his chest swell with pride. He hoped that he could contain his emotions—but he also felt that these were his people, and that he could be himself.

“Thank you all for coming,” he said, placing one hand over his heart. He pushed off with one foot, spinning slowly, watching the sea of friendly faces swirl around him. “I never expected so many of you—” He stopped the spinning chair. “—Would come to say good-bye.” He smiled and blinked; a tear spilled from his left eye. “But of course, this isn’t goodbye. Polly and I will return from Stonecrop. What is four weeks? A moment. A blip. A fragment of eternity.” He shook his head. “As you all know, the ACO has been our life, our dream. To have led you all into this unending future has been a great privilege and an even greater joy, but leadership has its price. The things we have to do to bring new Pilgrims into the fold, the Anti-Aging Clinics … you have seen me perform age reversals. We do these things to overcome the natural doubts of the Pilgrim, but there is a price. My cells suffer, draining energy from my system. Electron microscopic analysis has shown that my telomeres actually grow shorter during an age reversal. And Polly, my Eternal Companion, as much a part of me as this hand you see in front of my face, is drained as well. The age reversal demonstrations are necessary, but they are not healthy, and we have suffered; and that is why we are taking this sabbatical and leaving the church in your hands.” Rupe paused. “I asked you all here not only to say good-bye, but to make you a promise. In four weeks, Polly and I will be back, younger and stronger than ever. We will return with new energy, new spirit, and new ideas. We will have moved far beyond the Rupe and Polly you see standing here before you. We will be better than ever.”

Falsehood and deception, betrayal and treachery. The words spilling from Rupert Chandra’s mouth went straight to Chip’s soul, staining it with the putrefying reek of the Death Program. In the old days such deceit would have been rewarded with a shower of stones, or fire, or a simple defenestration. But modern-day politics were more complex, more strategic. There were too many laws. The direct approach didn’t work anymore, not since the Jews and the Japs had taken over the government.

Rupe was talking about step four again—Give More—telling them they had to give and give and give to reap the rewards of eternity. But Chip knew where that giving was going. It was going to the Doctors of Deception, to the architects of the Death Program. Not to building the future, but to concealing the past.

The door opened and Chuckles slipped into the meeting room, late again, and winked at Chip. Chip the Security Chief nodded to the Head of Security, carefully expressionless. Another symptom of decadence. Chip permitted himself a grim smile. Once he became Director of Strategic Operations as Hyatt had promised, the first thing he’d do, he’d fire Chuckles’s black ass.

A coward is incapable of exhibiting love; it is the prerogative of the brave.

—Mahatma Gandhi

D
EBROWSKI ROLLED ONTO HER
side and fingered a Gauloise from the pack on the bedstand. “Let me see if I’m understanding this.” She fitted the cigarette to her lips. “You want me to go to this wedding with you.” She snapped a farmer’s match to life with her thumbnail.

“That’s right,” said Crow.

Debrowski sucked flame into the cigarette, blew smoke at the ceiling. “Only we go in separate cars.”

“I’ll have to meet you there,” Crow admitted.

“And we don’t even go home together.”

Crow closed his eyes. Sunlight angled in from the window opposite the bed. He could feel it on his feet. “You make it sound worse than it is.”

“Months I’m gone, I come back and this is our big date? We hop into the sack, then arrange to meet at an American Legion Post?”

“It’s not like I planned it that way.”

“What kind of wedding present is it, you give the bride’s father—not
even
her father—you give him a free limo rental? Something you won in a card game? Jesus, Crow, sometimes you amaze me.”

Crow opened his eyes a millimeter and watched her smoke.

“I don’t see why you have to be the one to drive it,” she said.

“I told you why.”

“I wish you hadn’t agreed to it.”

“I wouldn’t’ve if I’d known you were coming home.”

“Yeah, well I’m home now.”

“Tell me about it.”

Debrowski raised her eyebrows and fired twin jets of smoke through her nostrils. “I am telling you.”

Crow grinned. Debrowski took another drag and tried to hold a scowl, but her face broke up and she started laughing, then coughing. Crow waited for the hacking to subside.

“You ought to quit those,” he said with all the self-righteous confidence of one who had quit—again—just a few months ago.

Debrowski shrugged and swung her legs off the mattress. She walked to the window and looked out. Sunlight silhouetted her body. “You’ve got a nice view here.”

“I sure do,” said Crow. He especially liked the bright line where the sun grazed her hip, and the shadows that fell across the backs of her thighs.

“You can see the sky. Downstairs, I can’t see anything.”

“You know what I don’t get?”

“What?”

“How come you don’t have any tattoos?”

“I like to keep my options open.”

“When we met, I was sure you’d have a lightning bolt or something on your butt.”

“You disappointed?” She turned to face him.

Crow smiled. “Not really. Look, I’m sorry about this wedding thing. You don’t have to go, you know.”

“Not go? Not go to little Carmen’s wedding? I wouldn’t miss it. The only question is, who am I going to go
with
?”

Debrowski balanced a slab of paté de foie gras on a slice of baguette and bit into it. The heady aroma of chopped black truffles filled her sinuses, raised goose bumps on her bare belly. They were sitting on Crow’s porch, looking down at First Avenue. Debrowski had on a pair of Crow’s jeans and her motorcycle jacket and nothing else.

“What have you been doing with yourself? I mean, besides playing cards and pumping iron.”

Crow followed her example with the paté. “I went fishing with Sam,” he said. “And I did that thing for Axel.” He tasted the pate, chewed slowly. “This is really good.”

“It had better be. It costs about five dollars a bite. We’re lucky the customs officer didn’t crack it open to look for contraband.”

“What else you bring back?”

Debrowski looked in her bag from the duty free and pulled out six more tinned pates.

“More pate? That’s all? No cheeses?”

“What were you expecting? What did you bring when you flew back?”

“Nothing,” Crow admitted.

“You know, for an unemployed muscle car-driving poker-player, you’ve got some pretty high standards.” Debrowski glared.

Crow helped himself to more pate. “I thought you missed me,” he said.

“I did miss you.” She reached over and rubbed her knuckles lightly on his scalp. “I was afraid you’d changed.”

“I have changed. I’m stronger, and I have less money.”

“Me, too. Maybe it’s not a bad trade-off. But you know what the other half of it is? I was afraid you’d changed, and I was afraid you hadn’t. You know what I mean?”

“No.”

“I was hoping you’d found something to be passionate about, Crow.”

“I’m passionate about you.”

“Remember when you used to talk about opening a fishing camp?”

“I don’t know anything about fishing.”

“That’s not the point. The point is, you had something going in your head. I mean, is this where you want to be in ten years? Sitting here eating foie gras and waiting for the next card game?”

Crow looked thoughtful. “The paté is not bad,” he said.

“I’m sorry,” Debrowski said.

Crow looked over but her face was in shadow. He waited until they reached the next streetlight to reply. “Sorry about what?”

“I’ve been sniping at you ever since I got back.” She looked tired. A few more steps and her face returned to shadow.