Slices (6 page)

It
honestly hadn’t occurred to me — can you believe it? That
after decades in this town, I still had one bit of naivety left?
Never occurred to me that anyone would ever think to remake
Pray
for Dawn.
I should have known it — there are no ideas left, and this city
dines on nothing but its own flesh.

But
even if I had known, it would never in a million years have crossed
my mind to imagine that you would be cast in my most famous role.
Frankly? It’s insulting.

I’ve
been trying to imagine, what could they be thinking? I’ve been
looking through all the trades, staring at every picture of you I
could find, trying to see it. What were they thinking when they
looked at this man and thought, yes, he could be the next Franz
August? Pardon me. I have to sit down. I can’t let myself get
this worked up, not with so little time left.

The
thing of it is, you see, I could
almost
see it. The jawline was close but not perfect, there was a certain
set to the cheekbones, you have a particular dark smile that’s
close to mine. I could almost understand. I spent days, not sleeping,
trying to figure it out.

Then
I finally slept, and woke up to a moment of absolute clarity. I woke
up, looked at your pictures, and had the same thought I always had
when looking through a new script:

There’ll
have to be some changes.

Calm
down. Calm down. There’s nothing you can do. It’s already
done. I already told you, I know the best plastic surgeon in this
tired old city. He’s already done his work.

You
have to consider it from my perspective. Either you’d fail or
you’d succeed. Either your remake would be a disaster or,
somehow, surpass the original. Either my film would be tainted by
association, or overshadowed. One way or another, forgotten.

And
when people remembered my most famous character, it would be your
face they remembered, not mine. So much for my immortality.

I
had to do something. Surely you appreciate that. My surgeon friend
was harder to convince. I don’t think I could have talked him
into it. That is, not without the Devil’s Breath.

I’ll
admit, I am a little concerned. About the quality of his work under
the influence of such a drug. But I supervised. I watched every step
and believe me, this man is an artist, just as much an artist as I
am, as much as you have the potential to be. I have every faith in
him.

So
we’re nearly there, you and I. We’re halfway done.

I’m
sorry — where was I? Oh, yes. There was just one detail, one
last little thing.

The
one thing I see in the mirror that hasn’t betrayed me. These
eyes of mine. Just the same. The windows of the soul, they say. My
eyes are the brilliant sharp blue of a frozen sky.
Variety
said that.

Yours,
I regret to say, are not. Dull and flat and almost gray.

Colored
contacts might work, I thought? No. Cheap. Tacky. Unconvincing.

But
there is a way. I didn’t think there was, but there is.

There’s
a Doctor Murakami from Yokohama. His flight will be arriving just one
hour from now. He’s been doing amazing work, really
revolutionary, using stem cells to promote retinal neuron growth cone
migration. He’s a leading expert on intercellular signaling and
nerve cell targeting, and his animal trials have been highly
promising. He’s never done this to a human before, so just
think, Mister Meyer, you’ll be part of history. Whether it
works or not.

There
is a chance that it won’t work, of course. There are hundreds
of thousands of nerves to reconnect, but what’s art worth
without risk?

He
had his conditions, of course. He’s an ethical man. He refused
to use the eyes of a living donor, you see. So. There’s that.
The poison I’ve taken is supposed to be, well, relatively
painless. So there’s a small comfort. To me, I mean, I don’t
expect it to concern you.

And
in your case — there’s absolutely no way Doctor Murakami
would replace a patient’s perfectly healthy eyes.

Have
you ever seen my classics, Mister Meyer? Have you seen
White
Voodoo?
With my character, the Loa King, and his army of followers, their
black faces painted with pale skulls, mine painted with a jet-black
skull. They might call it racist if they made the film today, but I
still think that’s one of the most striking images we ever
produced. It still haunts me, sometimes.

Have
you seen it? The ending, where the Loa King uses his zombie drugs to
make the hunter put out his own eyes with his Bowie knife?

I
don’t just collect posters, you see. Props, as well. This blow
gun, this knife. You can keep them, if you like. You can keep the
whole house. The paperwork is done and it’s all over but the
screaming.

You’re
going to be the new Angel of Fear, Mister Meyer. When you open my
eyes days from now and look at my face in the mirror, you’ll
thank me. You will, trust me. I just wish I could have seen it all
finished, but —

Good
night, sweet prince. We won’t meet again. Keep screaming.
Breathe deep.

And
— cut.

“It’s
not like we never killed anybody before.” Craig said it again,
still staring out the window of the stolen car. He wouldn’t
stop saying it.

Gary’s
grip tightened on the steering wheel. He didn’t even nod. He’d
agreed before, said, “You’re right” or “It’s
no big deal,” something like that, but this time he just ground
his teeth and kept driving.

By
now, he realized that Craig was just talking to himself, just making
noise to be comforting. Gary didn’t find it the least
comforting, not one goddamn bit. By now, everything was on his last
few nerves — like his paper coffee cup from the last rest stop,
still rattling around at his feet, where he was afraid it would get
stuck under the gas pedal or the brakes at the least convenient
moment; and the fly that had made its way into the car and hadn’t
found its way out, drifting over the back seat in lazy droning
circles; and Craig’s constant bitching, of course.

And
then there were all the rattles and complaints of an unfamiliar car.
Including the noise from the back. The sound he wasn’t
listening to yet, wouldn’t listen to, but there it was on the
edge of his awareness all the same.

His
eyes kept flickering over to the bare mirror. He kept his rabbit’s
foot hanging from the rear-view mirror in a car, always, even when
people gave him shit about it, and he always insisted that he wasn’t
superstitious, or anything, it was just his thing, you know? His
shtick.

But
now he’d left it behind, forgotten it in his hurry to get rid
of the last car. There was nothing on this mirror at all, and that
unsettled him more than he wanted to admit. As if his luck would run
out now. When in fact, it had plainly run out hours ago.

“It’s
not like we never killed anybody before.”

Shut
up, Craig,
Gary didn’t say.

A
flash of red. His eyes dropped to the dashboard for a moment. Might
have been the
oil
light. Or
service
engine soon.

He
glanced back at the road — nothing ahead but a straight empty
black ribbon of highway — and then he stared at the dashboard
again, like he was trying to read his future in the dials and gauges.
No more lights, not at the moment.
Answer
unclear, ask again later,
he thought.

“What’s
the matter?” Craig asked.

“Nothing.”

“Okay,
but — is that the engine?”

“What?”

“Listen.”

This
time, Gary heard it. Heard it for real.

“I
don’t think it’s the engine,” he said. “Sounds
like it’s coming from the back.”

“Something
loose back there? You think?”

“I
guess.”

“We’ll
have to steal a better car next time, huh?” He giggled, and it
was a sound like something had come loose inside him. “Better
car next time.”

“Sure,
Craig. We will.”

Car
falling apart, Craig coming to the end of his goddamn rope, man lying
dead in a ditch miles back and miles to go before they slept. And no
damn rabbit’s foot in the car.

Day
couldn’t get much worse.

They
hadn’t slept at all, night before. Calling around trying to
call in any favors they could and coming up empty.

Seemed
like fun at first. Their boss, Mr. Calhoun, he was a good guy. He
never treated them like they were just drivers, just couriers. He let
them hang out with him and his friends, drink some beers, shoot the
shit. Regular guy.

So
Gary and Craig were in over their heads before they knew it. Hanging
out with big time boys from out of town, drinking and bragging and
placing bets.

Gary
thought this one was a sure thing, an absolutely sure thing. When he
found out that Mr. Hiroshi, the boss’ guest from out of town,
had a big bet on Johnny Grant, the boxer, he’d just laughed.

This
was Johnny’s big comeback match, but he’d had it. He was
way past it, and everyone knew it. Everyone, that is, except Mr.
Hiroshi.

Unsmiling,
he’d made a bet with Gary. A big bet. He’d talked Craig
into going in on it with him. At those long odds, they thought it was
stupid not to take the bet.

Johnny
won. Craig screamed and railed that it was fixed, that the other guy
went down, but it didn’t matter.

Here
they were, three days, two convenience store robberies and one liquor
store robbery later, on the road to Vegas with every single dollar
they’d been able to lay hands on. Mr. Hiroshi had flown home,
and Mr. Calhoun hadn’t said they
had
to get the money to him in person, but he had strongly
suggested
it, which was almost the same thing. He’d strongly suggested it
would be a lot safer, in fact.

That
was then, this is now:

Gary
often forgot that there was anything to the world but coastlines and
cities. He spent all his days sheltered in the shadows of
skyscrapers, in wet, lush, green, rational places, like Vancouver or
Seattle.

This
was high desert. Nothing recognizable. Rolling scrubland and sickly,
pale green things that might have been trees, their bodies and
branches snaking out in senseless looping waves.

The
only sign of habitation, besides the road, was the tumbledown
wood-and-barbed-wire fence stretching out to either side, punctuated
every mile or so by incomprehensible red-and-white plastic markers.
Now and then he’d see some kind of building off in the
distance, some barn or something like one, that someone had lashed
together long ago and let the sun and wind beat down, and Gary would
think,
Jesus,
someone tried to make it out here, someone tried to make something
that would last,
and
he didn’t know whether to be impressed or just shake his head.

“It’s
getting worse,” Craig said, and for a moment Gary thought he
meant the landscape.

Then
he asked, “What is?”

“That
banging.” There it was. “That’s worse. I
think that’s — oh, fuck, I know what that is.”

Gary
didn’t say anything.

Craig
turned and stared. “There’s somebody back there.”

Gary’s
eyes widened. “In the
trunk?”

Craig
nodded frantically.

“Bullshit.
You’re just — ”

“No,
no, listen. You weren’t there, right? Driving for Fat Larry,
that one time, taking that dumb sonofabitch who talked to the press
down to the waterfront. Larry had him taped up in the trunk and he
thrashed around and kicked and that was me driving, I was there, and
it sounded
just
like that, I swear to God.”

Gary
still didn’t say anything.

Craig
said, “That’s what he was trying to tell us. When he said
not to take the car. That guy. The guy I — ”

“The
one you shot.”

Craig
turned back to face the road. “It’s not like — ”

“We
never killed anybody before,” Gary said quietly. “I
know.”

Four
hours ago, they’d been in Gary’s own car, listening to
the crackle and hum of the police band radio. They had already hit
their convenience stores and their liquor store in record time and
were already on the highway, getting the fuck out of Dodge. They’d
been starting to think they were in the clear when they finally heard
the dispatcher telling all officers to be on the lookout for a red
Mazda, license plate BRS-307. Gary’s plate. Gary’s
goddamn car.

“Shit.
Now what? Now what do we do?” Gary said, and he didn’t
know why he said it. He had never asked Craig to make a decision, not
once in his life.

“We’ve
gotta get rid of this car,” Craig said.

“Shit,”
Gary said again. “I loved this car. My mom gave me this fucking
car.”

Craig
drummed his fingers on the dashboard. Then he pointed. “Rest
stop up ahead. We can ditch this car, get another one.”

Gary
hesitated, not wanting to let Craig make the call, but his mind was
blank. He didn’t have any better ideas. So he took the next
exit, pulled into the rest stop.

Something
felt wrong there. The air was too still, the wind too quiet. Gary’s
skin felt electric and too tight.

Craig
felt it, too, or he looked like he did. He started to get out and
then hesitated, half-standing, and then stood the rest of the way up.
A sudden burst of static flared from the cop radio and startled him,
and he leaned back in and snapped it off.

Gary
grabbed the battered brown suitcase that held all the money they had
in the world. Everything else he planned to come back for, but there
was no way he was leaving this in the car.

They
walked, fake tight smiles on their faces, to the rest area’s
one small building. Two restrooms with a walkway between, drinking
fountains, vending machines, a state map with a red dot that said
“You are here.” A rack of brochures for local tourist
traps.