The Canal (22 page)

Alan couldn't possibly tell anyone what he'd
actually seen. There was no way to even begin that sentence. Oh,
hey guys, get this -- a terrifying creature with a hemorrhoid for a
face just kidnapped my only child. Wild, right?

Meanwhile, not a single drop of rain seemed
to find Bleecker's person. His hair was still fluffy and light. The
man could have brought with him the sound of courting birds, or the
gentle burble of a mountain brook, and Alan wouldn't have been
surprised.

Alan felt the eyes dissecting him. Eyes like
needles. It was like staring down a pair of scissors.

"Explain," Bleecker said simply,
obviously.

Alan moved his mouth, but there weren't any
words.

Womack stepped in. "They nabbed Alan's kid.
The sonofabitch is in the canal. We need guys all along the
river!"

Bleecker quickly turned to his entourage and
made a lasso motion, the fingernails of his hand sparkling like
small torches. The patrolmen started fanning efficiently across the
yard.

"Maybe you sit this one out, D'Angelo."

"--A terrifying creature with a hemorrhoid
for a face just kidnapped my only child."

Bleecker thought about that. "I know it seems
bad, Alan. You've had a rough go. Let cooler heads prevail here.
We'll get your kid and nail this asshole." Bleecker folded his
arms, warping rain directly into Alan's face.

"You don't understand," said Alan.

Bleecker sighed. He looked upward, wearily,
as if to count every single gob of water. Such was his burden. "I
do understand, Alan," he said finally, words coming from his unwet
face, through undrenched lips. There probably wasn't even any spit
in his mouth. Fluid was too much of a small time game. Bleecker was
all about the meat, the real business.

"Life, children -- they're a miracle,
D'Angelo. At the end of the day that stuff's water into wine.
Life's what matters. Life's what lasts. Guys like us, we understand
that. And we understand it's worth fighting for. So I know what you
must be feeling."

In spite of himself, Alan laughed.
Pathetically, to be sure. But let Bleecker see that thing in the
canal, let him see his son in its clutches and still talk about
miracles and life and...and what the hell was Bleecker's point,
anyway? Alan hadn't understood a single word. He shaded his eyes
with his hand as if to block the sun. He didn't want to look at
Bleecker anymore. He couldn't look at Bleecker anymore.

He peeked just long enough to see the
Lieutenant frowning to the bottom of his very poreless chin. "I'm
beginning to sense that you're not the man I thought you were,"
said Bleecker, with a contempt usually saved for only the lowest
forms of life, your spiders and your serpents.

Something in Bleecker then perceptibly
shifted, rearranged. Alan sensed that he was somehow being deleted
from the man's field of vision, rendered invisible, a ghost.
"You're done," said Bleecker. "We'll get your kid back, but we're
gonna do it without you, D'Ang--, D'--" He couldn't say Alan's
name. He'd already forgotten it. "You," he said finally. "You,
you're finished."

Bleecker didn't wait for an answer. He spun
on his heels and started purposefully back toward the house. Alan
watched him leave. Alan, out on the edge, out in space.

But Alan didn't care. And he definitely
wasn't finished. Because he already knew what had to be done. It
was obvious, actually -- the answer had been there this entire
time. Only now, Alan was ready to believe. Because when it came to
the canal, there had only ever been one place to go. There had only
ever been one person to talk to.

The Wizard of Weak. The Master of Mud. The
King of the Canal.

Joseph Lombardi.

>> CHAPTER FIFTEEN <<

Nobody home. Joe moved his lips as if he were
actually saying the words. He watched Alan through the rain-blurred
window -- Alan was a shadow on the sidewalk, pacing in between
hoops of streetlight. Roaring at him.

Nobody home. It was true. Joe Lombardi wasn't
there. Joe Lombardi, the real Joe Lombardi, he had never made it
out of the canal. Only his silhouette had. A withered percentage. A
coward.

Joe fitted the blinds back into place. He
crossed the darkened room and returned to his post at the kitchen
table. Tobacco flakes and rolling papers awaited. Not to worry
about Alan. Alan would leave...

Joe's home, even when he had shared it with
Rose, was never much. And it was even less much now. Zilch much,
negative much -- barely a notch better than a mineshaft or a
quicksand patch. The cigarettes didn't help. He'd been smoking them
at the rate of a machine gun. Chewed butts littered the floor --
his carpet was a morning veld issuing steam, there were small fires
in places. If his lungs hadn't crapped out earlier in a burp of
ash, the stubs would have risen hip high by now. Above him the
ceiling was lost under a layer of smog with gray, lumpy skin. Light
bulbs shimmered from within like ghostly will-o'-the wisps.

And from the street, Alan barked, "Old
man!"

Joe felt scorched. Incinerated. Nothing but
crematorium crumbs, remains too incidental to make the urn, getting
swept behind the oven instead. And it wasn't just because of the
Enterprise. And it wasn't just its slime, its fetid mouth, the
fangs, endless and sharp and bleeding and blood and the tongue. No,
there were worse things than that, worse things than monsters -- it
had told him a secret; it had explained a thing.

It seemed to Joe that the more you knew, the
keener your capacity to suffer became. For instance, would drowning
be so bad if you didn't understand it? If you didn't know about
breathing and water, or about the combined histories of panic and
terror? It'd probably seem more remarkable than tragic -- have a
swim, explore, doze.

Knowing at least explained some things. He
now knew why Rose had reappeared. He knew what it was she'd come to
see, what it was she'd wanted to get closer to. Not that it helped.
Not that it didn't make anything less horrible.

Outside, Alan had given up on shouting, while
inside, Joe's attempt at rolling another cigarette was going
poorly. There was a misunderstanding between his brain and fingers
-- Joe was rolling a smoke, they were playing piano. The cigarette
eventually squiggled from his hands, landing in a stack of other
half-formed failures, its tobacco vein exposed. Meanwhile his hands
played on. A very avant-garde, jazz type tune.

The bleat of a car horn came next. The horn
was Alan -- no tapping, just a continuous flatline. He also added
the siren. Voices were issuing from the surrounding homes -- the
neighbors, a chorus of asshole go away.

Joe had come to the conclusion that he must
never leave his apartment. He didn't care about food or fresh air
or anything else. In here, the weather was fine. Walls were what
you needed, walls at all times, anything to prevent you from
mingling with the outdoor elements. Outside was where the bad news
was. And Joe couldn't afford to be exposed to the realities of what
he now knew.

The horn stopped. There was arguing, Alan
against the block. Then a kind of negotiation. An explanation. The
street settled into a moment of calm...and then Joe heard the
building's door come unlocked with an electronic rattle. One of the
other tenants must have agreed to buzz Alan in. Someone tidy, no
doubt -- all those clean types, those washing kinds, they all stuck
together.

Still, Alan would never get inside Joe's
apartment. Because you didn't just need walls -- you also needed
locks. Lots of them. And ever since yesterday when Joe had rambled
home, when he'd been crying -- yes, a grown man, imagine -- and his
fingers were crawling all over, and he was tasting blood like he'd
been punched but he couldn't remember, didn't remember leaving the
top floor exactly, and he was fearing the open air and all the
diverging streets and what might come from them. Ever since then,
if Joe wasn't rolling cigarettes he was checking the locks. The
routine: slide home the chain, throw the deadbolt, latch the knob,
test, repeat, and test again. Check once more, just to be sure...be
careful not to have them all open at the same time, because
something could get in then, some bit of foreign atmosphere, some
dangerous piece of information.

So the door was locked. But Joe got up to
check and be sure, then decided to stay there, holding the deadbolt
fast and pressing the chain in its slot. In the stairway Alan's
ascent was noisy, Joe could hear him rumbling around the banisters,
knocking into walls. When he was right outside he yelled Joe's
name. He kicked the door. "Joe!"

The door bucked in its socket. Alan started
yelling about a second body under the bridge. But Joe tried not to
listen. He wasn't a part of this anymore -- ultimately it was just
too painful. That's what you got for venturing beyond locked doors.
Pain. Because where was pleasure? Elusive, it came and went on
whims, some frustrating cherub you'd absolutely throttle if given
half a chance. But where was pain? Oh man -- pain's sitting on your
face. Pain's in your back pocket, it's sharing your cab. You don't
have to ask twice; in fact you don't even have to ask. Yank your
own hair, stick a pencil in your eye -- see how easy it is to
hurt?

"Nobody home," said Joe. "I'm not here." And
he was being honest, not a prank in his heart.

Then Alan said something about a kid. Joe
didn't recall Alan having a son. And even if Joe had known, he'd
never wanted to meet it and the invitation had never been extended,
or maybe it had, back in the beginning when Alan had first been
assigned. Alan repeated the part about his son. But then things
took an unfortunate turn. He mentioned the sewer. He mentioned some
creature with turpentine skin that dripped yellow rot. Regrettably,
Joe knew more about this than Alan did. Like how the creature's
throat was seriously bottomless, how it went for miles and that you
could see each of these miles in turn until they disappeared,
presumably hidden by the curvature of the Earth.

Alan said it took his son into the sewer and
that if Joe didn't open the door, Alan was desperate, and he was
liable to act desperately, and Joe wouldn't like what was going to
happen, just open the fucking door. His words started coming
mismatched and irregular like he'd cobbled them together from
unrelated sentences, like those kidnapper's notes that are cut out
from a million different magazines. "I (shocked) need (serious)
your (tenor) help (ragged)." Help had a sob attached to it that
echoed down the stairs.

Poor Henry, thought Joe. Poor me. Something
inevitable was coming, and it was depressing -- he was making a
decision...

History sure loved circles. Big, lazy loops.
The old years all got second chances -- the new was just the old in
different clothes. Take Joe and Rose. Add one casualty, one
firstborn son. Give it 20 years and repeat. And don't forget the
canal. Once was never enough for that river. Now it had taken a
second child. History and the canal both loved an encore.

There was no helping Joe -- he was already
cursed, already lost. But Alan's son wasn't. Alan wasn't...

Joe's gaze limped regretfully toward the
sink, to the cabinet above it. This could only go one place. Joe
and his secrets. Rose and her presents. Don't open 'till
Christmas.

In better days, that cupboard was where Rose
had kept a supply of candy -- licorice, chocolate, lollipops,
cellophane-shiny bags of gumballs -- anything that came loaded with
narcotic amounts of sugar, all of which she doled out
indiscriminately to their son. Henry had adored her for it.

No candy in there anymore though. Just a
crowbar.

Alan was starting on the door again. Joe
didn't have the key to the cupboard lock. Instead he found a butter
knife and began working on the latch, to where it was screwed into
the wood. He got the leverage he needed, the knife bent, but the
screws pulled free.

Inside, the cabinet held the faint dishonor
of a gym locker. He dragged out the crowbar and stared. He had put
it there years ago, sick at the time. Deep down he'd known. He'd
always known. Every circle had to come back around some day.

Back at the door he undid the chain, the
bolt, the latch. Alan was there, dangerously, with his gun and
looking like a dunked dog, water trickling off his coat.

Oh no, he hadn't jumped in had he...no, of
course not. The rain. Just the rain...

Joe had never considered it before, but Henry
would have been about Alan's age by now. He wondered if they would
have been very much alike...

"I'm sorry," said Joe. "I didn't hear you
knock."

*

Alan parked at the end of the street. They
couldn't see the canal -- the headlights skipped over the channel
and exposed the far shore instead, mostly construction yard
remainders.

Alan's hands tightened on the steering wheel.
"And what will I do if she won't help?" Joe and him, they'd
actually shared a cigarette on the way over -- it had been eerie
and seemed staged, Alan coughed all throughout and Joe did too but
more harshly, and when he took his hand away there was blood on it,
warm and alive.

"Bring her here," said Joe, hands tightening
on the crowbar. "Anyway you can. Just remember what I said. Get
through to her. Make her understand that, that I'm--" Joe did a
thing where he rubbed his lips together. "That I'm going to kill
it."

Joe thought he heard Alan snicker, or maybe
he had snickered himself, it was all very unbelievable sounding,
until he realized it was just the hee-haw of the windshield
wipers.

"And what about Eugene?" asked Alan.

Joe did the thing with his lips again. "We
can only hope."

Joe had been doing his best to evade Alan's
questions. The less Alan knew the better. "Don't think about it,"
Joe would say. Or, "Watch the road. I heard you the first time. No,
that's not true. Let's say I have an understanding, it's an old
score. Sure, she's my wife. I can't do this without her. I'm not
answering that. And I'm not answering that either. Trust me, you
don't want to be involved..."