Imajica

  III

  She didn’t think she slept, but it was as difficult to distinguish between sleep and wakefulness as it had been in Quaisoir’s bed. The visions she’d seen in the darkness of her own belly were as insistent as some prophetic dream and stayed with her, the music of the rain a perfect accompaniment to the memory. It was only when the clouds moved on, taking their deluge south, and the sun appeared between the sodden curtains, that sleep overcame her.

  When she woke, it was to the sound of Gentle’s key in the lock. It was night, or close to it, and he switched on the light in the adjacent room. She sat up and was about to call to him when she thought better of it and, instead, watched through the partially open door. She saw his face for only an instant, but the glimpse was enough to make her want him to come in to her with kisses. He didn’t. Instead, he paced back and forth next door, massaging his hands as though they ached, working first at the fingers, then at the palms.

  Finally, she couldn’t be patient any longer and got up, sleepily murmuring his name. He didn’t hear her at first, and she had to speak again before he realized it was being called. Only then did he turn and put on a smile for her.

  “Still awake?” he said fondly. “You shouldn’t have stayed up.”

  “Are you all right?”

  “Yes. Yes, of course.” He put his hands to his face. “This is a hard business, you know. I didn’t expect it to be so difficult.”

  “Do you want to tell me about it?”

  “Some other time,” he said, approaching the door. She took his hands in hers. “What’s this?” he said.

  She was still holding the egg, but not for long. He had it from her palm with the ease of a pickpocket. She wanted to snatch it back, but she fought the instinct and let him study his prize.

  “Pretty,” he said. Then, less lightly: “Where did it come from?”

  Why did she hesitate to answer? Because he looked so weary, and she didn’t want to burden him with new mysteries when he had a surfeit of his own? It was that in part; but there was another part that was altogether less clear to her. Something to do with the fact that in her vision she’d seen him far more broken that he was at present, wounded and wretched, and somehow that condition had to remain her secret, at least for a time.

  He put the egg to his nose and sniffed it. “I smell you,” he said.

  “No. . . .”

  “Yes, I do. Where have you been keeping it?” He put his empty hand between her legs. “In here?”

  The thought was not so preposterous. Indeed she might slip it into that pocket, when she had it back, and enjoy its weight.

  “No?” he said. “Well, I’m sure it wishes you would. I think half the world would like to creep up there if it could.” He pressed his hand against her. “But it’s mine, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Nobody goes in there but me.”

  “No.”

  She answered mechanically, her thoughts as much on reclaiming the egg as on his proprietorial talk.

  “Have you got anything we can get high on?” he said.

  “I had some dope. . . .”

  “Where is it?”

  “I think I smoked the last of it. I’m not sure. Do you want me to look?”

  “Yes, please.”

  She reached up for the egg, but before her fingers could take hold of it he put it to his lips.

  “I want to keep it,” he said. “Sniff it for a while. You don’t mind, do you?”

  “I’d like it back.”

  “You’ll have it back,” he said, with a faint air of condescension, as though her possessiveness was childish. “But I need a keepsake, something to remind me of you.”

  “I’ll give you some of my underwear,” she said.

  “It’s not quite the same.”

  He laid the egg against his tongue and turned it, coating it in his spittle. She watched him, and he watched her back. He knew damn well she wanted her toy, but she wasn’t going to stoop to begging him for it.

  “You mentioned dope,” he said.

  She went back into the bedroom, put on the lamp beside the bed, and searched through the top drawer of her dresser where she’d last stashed her marijuana.

  “Where did you go today?” he asked her.

  “I went to Oscar’s house.”

  “Oscar?”

  “Godolphin.”

  “And how’s Oscar? Alive and kicking?”

  “I can’t find the dope. I must have smoked it all.”

  “You were telling me about Oscar.”

  “He’s locked himself up in his house.”

  “Where does he live? Maybe I should call on him. Reassure him.”

  “He won’t see you. He won’t see anybody. He thinks the world’s coming to an end.”

  “And what do you think?”

  She shrugged. She was quietly raging at him, but she wasn’t exactly sure why. He’d taken the egg for a while, but that wasn’t a capital crime. If the stone afforded him a little protection, why should she be covetous of it? She was being petty, and she wished she could be other, but without the heat of sex shimmering between them he seemed crass. It was not a flaw she expected to find in him. Lord knows she’d accused him of countless deficiencies in her time, but a lack of finesse had never been one of them. If anything, he’d been too much the polished operator, discreet and suave.

  “You were telling me about the end of the world,” he said.

  “Was I?”

  “Did Oscar frighten you?”

  “No. But I saw something that did.”

  She told him, briefly, about the bowl and its prophecies. He listened without comment, then said, “The Fifth’s teetering. We both know that. But it won’t touch us.”

  She’d heard the same sentiments from Oscar, or near enough. Both these men, wanting to offer her a haven from the storm. She should have been flattered. Gentle looked at his watch.

  “I’ve got to go out again,” he said. “You’ll be safe here, won’t you?”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  “You should sleep. Make yourself strong. There’s going to be some dark times before it gets light again, and we’re going to find some of that darkness in each other. It’s perfectly natural. We’re not angels, after all.” He chuckled. “At least, you may be, but I’m not.”

  So saying, he pocketed the egg.

  “Go back to bed,” he said. “I’ll be back in the morning. And don’t worry, nothing’s going to come near you but me. I swear. I’m with you, Judith, all the time. And that’s not love talking.”

  With that, he smiled at her and headed off, leaving her to wonder what indeed had been talking, if it wasn’t love.

  Eleven

  I

  AND WHO THE FUCK are you?” the filthy, bearded face demanded of the stranger who’d had the misfortune to stumble into its bleary sight.

  The man he was questioning, whom he had by the neck, shook his head. Blood had run from a crown of cuts and scrapes along his brow, where he’d earlier beaten his skull against a stone wall to try and silence the din of voices that echoed between his temples. It hadn’t worked. There were still too many names and faces in there to be sorted out. The only way he could answer his interrogator was with that shaking of his head. Who was he? He didn’t know.

  “Well, get the fuck out of here,” the man said.

  There was a bottle of cheap wine in his hand, and its stench, mingled with a deeper rot, on his breath. He pushed his victim against the concrete wall of this underpass and closed upon him.

  “You can’t sleep where you fuckin’ want. If you want to lie down, you fuckin’ ask me first. I say who sleeps here. Isn’t that right?”

  He swung his bloodshot eyes in the direction of the tribe who’d clambered from their beds of trash and newspapers to watch their leader have his sport. There’d be blood, for certain. There always was when Tolland got riled, and for some reason he was more riled by this trespasser than by others who’d laid down their
homeless heads without his permission.

  “Isn’t that right?” he said again. “Irish? Tell him! Isn’t that right?”

  The man he’d addressed muttered something incoherent. The woman beside him, with a head of hair bleached to near extinction but black at the roots, came within striking distance of Tolland—something only a very few dared to do.

  “That’s right, Tolly,” she said. “That’s right.” She looked at the victim without pity. “D’you think he’s a Jew-boy? He’s got a Jew-boy’s nose.”

  Tolland took down a throatful of wine. “Are you a fuckin’ yid?” he said.

  Someone in the crowd said they should strip him and see. The woman, who went by a number of names but whom Tolland called Carol when he fucked her, made to do just that, but he aimed a blow at her and she retreated.

  “You get your fuckin’ hands off him,” Tolland said. “He’ll tell us, won’t you, matey? You’ll tell us. Are you a fuckin’ yid or not?”

  He took hold of the man by the lapel of his jacket.

  “I’m waitin’,” he said.

  The victim dug for a word, and found: “. . . Gentle . . .”

  “Gentile?” Tolland said. “Yeah? You a Gentile? Well, I don’t give a fuck what you are! I don’t want you here.”

  The other nodded and tried to detach Tolland’s fingers, but his captor hadn’t finished. He slammed the man against the wall, so hard the breath went out of him.

  “Irish? Take the fuckin’ bottle.”

  The Irishman claimed the bottle from Tolland’s hands and stepped back to let him do his worst.

  “Don’t kill him,” the woman said.

  “What the fuck do you care?” Tolland spat and delivered two, three, four punches to the Gentile’s solar plexus, followed by a knee jab to his groin. Pinned against the wall by his neck, the man could do little to defend himself, but even that little he failed to do, accepting the punishment even though tears of pain ran from his eyes. He stared through them with a look of bewilderment on his face, small exclamations of pain coming with every blow.

  “He’s a head case, Tolly,” the Irishman said. “Look at him! He’s a friggin’ head case.”

  Tolland didn’t glance the Irishman’s way, or slow his beating, but delivered a new fusillade of punches. The Gentile’s body now hung limply from the pinion of his hand, the face above it blanker by the blow.

  “You hear me, Tolly?” the Irishman said. “He’s a nutter. He’s not feeling it.”

  “You keep the fuck out of this.”

  “Why don’t you leave him alone?”

  “He’s on my fuckin’ patch,” Tolland said.

  He dragged the Gentile away from the wall and swung him around. The small crowd backed off to give their leader room to play. With Irish silenced, there were no objections raised from any quarter. Tolland was left to beat the Gentile to the ground. Then he followed through with a barrage of kicks. His victim put his hands around his head and curled up to protect himself as best as he could, whimpering. But Tolland wasn’t about to let the man’s face go unbroken. He reached down and dragged the hands away, raising his boot to bring it down. Before he could do so, however, Tolland’s bottle hit the floor, spattering wine as it smashed. He turned on Irish.

  “What the fuck d’you that for?”

  “You shouldn’t beat up head cases,” the man replied, by his tone already regretting the breakage.

  “You goin’ to stop me?”

  “All I’m sayin’—”

  “Are you goin’ to try and fuckin’ stop me?”

  “He’s not right in the head, Tolly.”

  “So I’ll kick some sense into him,” Tolland replied.

  He dropped his victim’s arms, turning all his crazed attention on the dissenter.

  “Or do you want to do it?” he said.

  Irish shook his head.

  “Go on,” said Tolland. “You do it for me.” He stepped over the Gentile in the Irishman’s direction. “Go on . . .” he said again. “Go on. . . .”

  Irish began to retreat, Tolland bearing down on him. The Gentile had meanwhile turned himself over and was starting to crawl away, blood running from his nose and from the wounds reopened on his brow. Nobody moved to help him. When Tolland was roused, as now, his fury knew no bounds. Anyone who stepped in his way—whether man, woman, or child—was forfeit. He broke bones and heads without a second thought; had ground a broken bottle into a man’s eye once, not twenty yards from this spot, for the crime of looking at him too long. There wasn’t a cardboard city north or south of the river where he wasn’t known, and prayers said in the hope that he’d not come visiting.

  Before he could grab hold of Irish the man threw up his hands in defeat.

  “All right, Tolly, all right,” he said. “It was my mistake. I swear, I’m sorry.”

  “You broke my fuckin’ bottle.”

  “I’ll fetch you another. I will. I’ll do it now.”

  Irish had known Tolland longer than anyone else in this circle and was familiar with the rules of placation: copious apology, witnessed by as many of Tolland’s tribe as possible. It wasn’t foolproof, but today it worked.

  “Will I be fetchin’ you a bottle now?” Irish said.

  “Get me two, you fuckin’ scab.”

  “That’s what I am, Tolly. I’m a scab.”

  “And one for Carol,” Tolland said.

  “I’ll do that.”

  Tolland leveled a grimy finger at Irish. “And don’t you ever try crossin’ me again, or I’ll have your fuckin’ balls.”

  With this promise made, Tolland turned back to his victim. Seeing that the Gentile had already crawled some distance from him, he let out an incoherent roar of fury, and those of the crowd who were standing within a yard or two of the path between him and his target retreated. Tolland didn’t hurry, but watched as the wounded Gentile laboriously got to his feet and began to make a staggering escape through the chaos of boxes and strewn bedding.

  Up ahead, a youth of sixteen or so was kneeling on the ground, covering the concrete slabs underfoot with designs in colored chalk, blowing the pastel dust off his handiwork as he went. Engrossed in his art he’d ignored the beating that had claimed the attention of the others, but now he heard Tolland’s voice echoing through the underpass, calling his name.

  “Monday, you fuckhead! Get hold of him!”

  The youth looked up. His hair was cropped to a dark fuzz, his skin pockmarked, his ears sticking out like handles. His gaze was clear, however, despite the track marks that disfigured his arms, and it took him only a second to realize his dilemma. If he brought down the bleeding man, he’d condemn him. If he didn’t, he’d condemn himself. To gain a little time he feigned bafflement, cupping his hand behind his ear as if he’d missed Tolland’s instruction.

  “Stop him!” came the brute’s command.

  Monday started to get to his feet, murmuring, “Get the fuck out of here,” to the escapee as he did so.

  But the idiot had stumbled to a halt, his eyes fixed on the picture Monday had been making. It was filched from a newspaper photo of a starlet, wide-eyed, posing with a koala in her arms. Monday had rendered the woman with loving accuracy, but the koala had become a patchwork beast, with a single burning eye in its brooding head.

  “Didn’t you hear me?” Monday said.

  The man ignored him.

  “It’s your funeral,” he said, rising now as Tolland approached, pushing the man from the edge of his picture. “Go on,” he said, “or he’ll bust it up! Get away!” He pushed hard, but the man remained fixated. “You’re gettin’ blood on it, dickhead!”

  Tolland yelled for Irish, and the man hurried to his side, eager to make good.

  “What, Tolly?”

  “Collar that fuckin’ kid.”

  Irish was obedient and headed straight for Monday, taking hold of the boy. Tolland, meanwhile, had caught up with the Gentile, who hadn’t moved from his place on the edge of the colored paving.

/>   “Don’t let him bleed on it!” Monday begged.

  Tolland threw the youth a glance, then stepped onto the picture, scraping his boots over the carefully worked face. Monday raised a moan of protest as he watched the bright chalk colors reduced to a gray-brown dust.

  “Don’t, man, don’t,” he pleaded.

  But his complaints only riled the vandal further. Seeing Monday’s tobacco tin of chalks within reach of his boot, Tolland went to scatter them, but Monday, dragging himself out of Irish’s grip, flung himself down to preserve them. Tolland’s kick landed in the boy’s flank, and he was sent sprawling, rolled in chalk dust. Tolland’s heel booted the tin and its contents, then he came after its protector a second time. Monday curled up, anticipating the blow. But it never landed. The Gentile’s voice came between Tolland and his intention.

  “Don’t do that,” he said.

  Nobody had custody of him, and he could have made another attempt to escape while Tolland went after Monday, but he was still at the edge of the picture, his gaze no longer on it but on its spoiler.

  “What the fuck did you say?” Tolland’s mouth opened like a toothed wound in his matted beard.

  “I said: Don’t . . . do . . . that.”

  Whatever pleasure Tolland had derived from this hunt was over now, and there wasn’t one among the spectators who didn’t know it. The sport that would have ended with an ear bitten off or a few broken ribs had become something else entirely, and several of the crowd, having no stomach for what they knew was coming, retired from their places at the ringside. Even the hardiest of them backed away a few paces, their drugged, drunken, or simply addled minds dimly aware that something far worse than bloodletting was imminent.

  Tolland turned on the Gentile, reaching into his jacket as he did so. A knife emerged, its nine-inch blade marked with nicks and scratches. At the sight of it, even Irish retreated. He’d seen Tolland’s blade at work only once before, but it was enough.