The Gone-Away World (59 page)

I could seek an introduction, but since I've given the impression that I already know Dick Washburn, that might confuse people and lead to the same unfortunate awakenings as option one. Fortunately, I am devious. The problem of how to say hi to a powerful, confident executive you have never met but whom you are supposed to know is a very difficult one. I have considered from all angles and decided that there is almost no way to do it which doesn't make you look smaller than he does. Having this problem both sucks and blows. Thus, I have arranged for it to be Dick Washburn's problem.

This is the room, from above. It is irregular but roughly oval. It is lined with tables and chairs for receiving. Later tonight it will be cool and dark, and smell of cigars and spilled mojitos. The carpet will hold the marks of a hundred pairs of elegant shoes, and the lead crystal glasses will carry traces of designer lipstick and executive DNA. The writing desk, pressed into service by the entrance to the breakfast room, will still have perfume on it, because the woman with the penetrating laugh is leaning all the way forward to adjust her interlocutor's tie and (her mother taught her this when she was seventeen) she sprays scent into her cleavage before she goes out. Right now, though, the room is bustling and alive. If you speeded it up, you would see twisting patterns like clouds and pressure lines, and at the very centre of the biggest one is Richard Washburn, Esquire. His presence defines the play of forces in the room; the flutter of his wings causes tremors by the bar and tidal waves at the chaise longue in front of the patio doors. On most nights Richard Washburn is the eye of the storm. But today he is not alone. There is something wrong, a perturbation in the smooth carriage of his life. Another weather centre, a zone of high pressure, small but very hot, is moving across the shag-pile floor. Perhaps it's a tornado. Perhaps it's the beginning of a hurricane. Will it bounce off him, or swallow him up? Most likely it will swell his power, increase his domain, but it just might be a danger to him. Whatever, he cannot ignore it. Which is why he is, even now, moving through the throng towards me. He sticks out his hand and prepares to say hi in a big, dominant way.

And then Dick Washburn's eyes widen. I can feel the change too; I know roughly what's happened before I turn round. If my presence here is like a tropical storm closing in on Dick's island paradise of warm weather and regular rainfall, this is like the arrival of Moses at the Red Sea. The flow of wind and water slows, then stops altogether. A momentous thing has happened. And behind me there is a strange, familiar noise. It is the sound of shoes with little metal cleats tapping on the wood boards of the hallway.

“Hi, Humbert,” Dickwash says a bit squeakily. “So glad you could come.” I wonder if Humbert Pestle has ever shown up to one of these soirées before. I wonder why he is here now. Maybe Dickwash is up for promotion. Maybe Humbert's about to eat him alive.

“Richard,” Humbert Pestle says jovially, “I wouldn't have missed it for worlds. But I'm taking you away from your guest.” Not guests, plural, just me. Humbert Pestle sticks out a muscular hand. The other one (the possible prosthetic) is tucked, genial old-fart style, into his trouser pocket. This makes him uneven and a bit rumpled, but his clothes are so perfect (no doubt Royce Allen cut and stitched every bit himself, from the purest milk-washed brontosaurus foreskin) that he just looks terribly relaxed. Which he is.

“I'm Pestle, call me Humbert—”

I recognise the line from his briefing at Harrisburg, and give him the next bit: “Pestle like mortar . . .”

He stares for a moment then says, “Mortar like in a wall—”

“And ain't
that
ever a regrettable name?”

Now I have Humbert Pestle's full attention, and the power of his gaze, when he switches it on, is like a weight on my chest. There is absolute quiet, except for someone, somewhere in the room, who chooses this moment to finish a sentence with the words “ludicrous cocksucker!” and then goes very quiet and hides behind an urn. I'd feel sympathetic, but I'm busy exuding bonhomie and harmless, cheeky, up-and-coming pencilneckhood.

Dick Washburn changes colour a few times, and looks as if he may faint. I remember belatedly that Humbert Pestle is an
Übermann,
a major player. He probably doesn't hear his own material parroted back at him, ever. Probably the last guy who did that is now a janitor, with only one eye, and speaks in a series of burps because Pestle-call-me-Humbert tore out his larynx.
Breathe.
Check the exits. Too much mouth too soon, and now it's over. But Humbert Pestle lets out a huge bark of laughter and claps me on the back. “You're damn right,” he says. “You are absolutely right.” His craggy eyes peer at me, sparkling.

“I need a drink, young Richard, so why don't you show me to the bar? And then I need a proper introduction to this gentleman because he reminds me of a kid I used to know—with an awful name.” Still chuckling, he leads the pencilneck away as if this were his house and his party, and when he reaches the bar, with its tiled surround, his shoes make that weird little
tink, tonk,
which I take to mean Daniel Prang's signature footware has shed its cleat, as Royce Allen told me it would.

“Balls of steel, man,” says Tom Link.

“Epic,” agrees Roy Massaman. They make that annoying sun-god worship gesture you used to see in movies about California, hands up in the air, bowing at the belly. I look away, hoping to see something I can pretend to find interesting and thus leave them behind. I am looking clear across into the garden, where Dick Washburn's swimming pool is lit with dark pink underwater lights. I have never seen that before. Granted, I haven't seen a private pool in twenty years either, but somehow I just assumed it was a natural law: pool lighting is plain, or blueish. The pool has deep purple shadows and looks like a venue for insane flirting and trysting rather than actual swimming. Doing your laps in it would be a bit prim, sort of like wearing an anorak to a toga party. The garden doors are—for the moment—closed, but there's enough steam coming off the water that it's apparently at a pretty good heat, and there are those elongated metal mushrooms with gas burners in them making it warm out there, so sooner or later, when the drink is flowing, the daring and the beautiful will presumably strip down and jump in. And at the very edge of the pool, on the far side from the house, is the ghostly figure of Dr. Andromas, sitting cross-legged on the diving board.

Just discovering him like that, in plain sight, scares the shit out of me. There's nothing supernatural about his being here. He has come in over the wall. Presumably he has followed me here. And he's on my side (or I'm on his, perhaps) but still, Dr. Andromas is just
wrong.
He is the most unnatural man I have ever met. Also, if he chooses to come in here and advertise our previous acquaintance, my best-laid plans will look a bit like chopped liver. No one else has noticed him yet (I can tell because there is no screaming) but the moment Sippy Roehunter decides it's time to show the board members what she's got, or Dan deLine gets a hankering to bare his musculature for the benefit of the Jorgmund Ladies' Lacrosse Team, it will be hard for anyone to ignore a top-hatted H. G. Wells–looking lunatic sitting in the lotus position on the edge of Dick Washburn's giant pink sex pool. I will him to disappear. It doesn't work. I grind my teeth. This doesn't help either.

“You okay?” Tom Link is concerned.

“I'm fine. New bite plate. Leaves me a bit rocky in the evenings.” Cosmetic dentistry excuse, all men together. Link nods. Damn those orthodontic torturers and their perfect smiles. Andromas appears to be fishing for imaginary fish. Or maybe real ones, who knows? But he's using an imaginary rod.

Wallop. Something hits me between the shoulder blades. It's about the size of a human hand, but it seems to be made of rock, and it is powered by some kind of pneumatic press. It doesn't hurt, but it shocks me, and my muscles all freeze up.

“Hey there, stranger! Let's talk turkey!” Humbert Pestle. I hope he really does want to talk turkey. If we're going to roister now, if he's got some line-up of corporate houris we need to check out while drinking some faux-frontiersman drink he got to like back in the day, he's going to kill me. He's about twice my weight and he spends way too much time in the executive gym. On the other hand, if he's going to fall into the mystery of
who is this bright young executive and why haven't I seen his file,
I may be able to find out where he and Dick Washburn fit into the screw-up which has become my life, and maybe what he intends for Gonzo, my idiot brother, progenitor, pal and would-be murderer.

“Let's walk the parapet,” Humbert Pestle says, and then glances at Dick Washburn. “You do have a parapet, don't you?”

“Only the terrace,” says Dick. And he points out to the pool, and Dr. Andromas. Everyone looks.

“Now that is a pool, Richard,” says Humbert Pestle after a moment. “Pink as hell.” I open one eye (apparently I had shut both at some point) and find that Andromas has gone. Of course. “Can we have the terrace a moment, Richard?” And Dick Washburn says of course, and it turns out there's a magic button which makes the glass opaque. Very space age. Humbert Pestle makes a noise which might be “I haveta git me some o' those fer mah own place” or it might be “Boys and their toys” and then points me out onto the terrace. We walk out. It's cool, but warmer than I expected because the steam from the pool is hanging over the terrace.

“You made me laugh back there,” murmurs Humbert Pestle gently, “and that is a rare, rare thing. Now maybe that's because I rule too much with a rod of iron or maybe it's just I have a low sense of humour and so do you. But I don't know your face, young sir, and so I have to ask you where you heard me say that before we get to the meat.”

Direct, of course. Naturally he is direct. Look at him. He's got a big cigar in his free hand and shoulders like a door. This is a man who believes in frontal assault. All right then. Answer the question, but dodge the truth.

“At a briefing, few months back.”

“What briefing?”

“On the Lubitsch thing.”

“Oh,” says Humbert Pestle, nodding. “That briefing. Yeah. I figured.” And I realise that I have made a very large mistake. I realise this because I am not a total idiot, despite how it might occasionally appear, and because Humbert Pestle hits me like water from a fire hose. I fly backwards. I don't know where he hit me. It doesn't matter. If it's broken, I will find out. If it's not, I can worry about it later. I roll. He's fast, though. He catches me just as I'm coming up. I slip the punch, but the kick gets me and I go into the air again.

There are fights, and there are fights. The first kind is dialogue: boxing matches, sparring, even rhinos' mating fights. It's all dialogue. Am I better? Am I faster? The second kind—and it's not that the first kind can't go this way if someone doesn't like the way a point is expressed—the second kind is about erasure. It is the urge behind the gun with which Gonzo shot me, and behind the Go Away Bomb. It is the desire that the enemy not be a consideration any more, ever, that the world no longer contain them. Humbert Pestle is fighting this kind of fight right now, and he will kill me very thoroughly if I don't stop him. The thing is, I don't know how.

Pestle fires off a few jabs at me with his good hand. He has the other one wrapped around his body now, tucked behind his back. Warning: that means he has a weapon. He came prepared. He intends to surprise me with it. Or alternatively he wants me to believe that, to pay undue attention to the missing hand. It's easy to get knocked unconscious because the other guy is waving a broken bottle, and the sharp edges are hypnotic with the promise of laceration, and then the other hand is just a blur of one, two, three, good night. So, I don't get distracted. I don't assume.
Move. Evade.
The enemy attacks in arcs and straight lines. Your body has joints. Use them. I rock, bend, twist. My arms stop moving like windmills and start to make themselves useful. I do not try to block directly. Ronnie Cheung might be able to do that. Gonzo might. I can't. I guide the heavy hand past me, step so that the attacks are in the wrong place.
Move. Step. Brush. Twist.
Yes. He cannot touch me. I remember this. One opponent is not hard. He has limited options. And he's still hiding that hand.

But Humbert Pestle is watching. He is watching with a kind of anticipation. And as I get the better of his one-armed attack, he starts to pay more attention. He watches my feet. I chop and change my evasions, looking for the best one: Nine Palace Shuffle; Five Element Foot; Walk Like Elvis.
Walk Like Elvis.
He breathes out faster, as if he's hungry.
Walk Like Elvis.
His face twists in a little sneer, or maybe a smile. Humbert Pestle meets my eyes and now he is definitely grinning. He is not smiling at me. We are not friends. We are un-friends. He is smiling at my Walk Like Elvis as if it is the last kitten in a litter he was intending to drown. He
recognises
it. And like a nightmare, he gets bigger and badder just as I'm on top.

His left hand comes around out from behind his back, and it's not a prosthetic at all. It's just that it's made almost entirely of knotted bone. It's like a club. Ronnie Cheung's hands were big and solid. They were as strong as you could possibly need, and obviously they maintained some utility as tools for eating and carrying stuff. More important, Ronnie had made a choice about how far down the road of becoming a human killing machine he was prepared to go, and allowing his training to warp his body to the point where he was in some measure
only
suited to that task was exactly where he drew the line. Ronnie was all in favour of necessary violence, but he was as a consequence particularly venomous about the other kind.
I do not train ninjas,
he told Riley Tench, and it was a statement of his creed. But you heard stories. One of those stories concerned the Iron Skin Meditation.