

BLUSH

by

DAVID MATHEW

Copyright. David Mathew

They say it takes courage to run away, but I don't remember there being much courage in my own escape. Sometimes you run away because it's the only thing left to do. That's not courage: that's desperation...and that's how it was with me.

What follows is an account of how I became unshackled. Before I get to myself I must repeat some earlier stories, involving people I hadn't met then – people who would become the most important in my life. If it's true that everyone waits for someone, I was waiting for the three of them – my keys, my catalysts: Floyd, Herbie and Thorne.

# I. The Triangle Voyeur

## Chapter 1

1.

When the escapologist met the rat-trap salesman, they were standing in line, waiting to sell their blood. The salesman breathed a question into the escapologist's ear.

Floyd twisted from the waist up; over his left shoulder he said, 'Pardon me?'

'Just wondered how you're doing,' the stranger next in line replied.

'Fine?' Now that Floyd worked in clubs like Dantes-off-Broadway, his face was better known. 'What about you?' His round black face smiled genially. The teeth were lambent, the laughter lines deep; a skittish nervous quality played about the eyes – maybe one that only another paranoid Manhattanite would notice.

'Think I know you, don't I?' the man continued.

Heads did not turn to see the two men speaking, but everyone in the waiting room listened. Floyd sensed the combined attention; it felt oppressive. He couldn't say: No, you don't know me. Too standoffish, too aloof; he didn't want this guy to think he was a snotty prima donna. Then again, he couldn't say yes either. You've probably seen me in a club; I'm on a long-term contract at Dantes at the moment. Too presumptuous; bigheaded. What if the stranger's opening line was always 'Think I know you, don't I?' Floyd didn't want to give the man any ideas at all.

'Not sure. We met?'

'I know you,' the other man tried to confirm, though his tone suggested he had yet to convince himself of the fact.

In the seconds that followed, Floyd watched the man's tortured attempts at recollection. To his shame Floyd felt a blissful charge of supremacy; felt somehow less accused as the man's face flexed in the anticipation of discovery.

'You're that guy gets outta boxes and trunks! Am I right or what?'

Feeling scared and flattered Floyd nodded his head. Floyd studied the man who had recognized him. 'You're right. I'm Floyd.'

The man snapped his fingers, eyes widened. 'Floyd Acclune!'

'That's right.'

'I'll be!' The man shook his head as if this meeting bordered on the religious. A watery chuckle seeped out from between his lips.

He was taller than Floyd, slightly thinner. From the ground up, it was brown, expensive but neglected shoes; a light grey suit with white shirt and no tie; a coat. His white face was thin and had been prickled pink in several places by the howling chill outside. His nose, a quarter circle; his greying eyebrows bushy. Two or three days' worth of stubble dusted the loose skin of his jaw. Eyes brown, one larger than the other. Because of his recedence, he kept his grey hair short; lagoons of skin shone on his hairline, sweetly fragrant with hair-restoration ointment. He was about thirty-seven.

Holding out his hand he said, 'Spencer. Spencer Thorne. Pleased to make your acquaintance, Floyd Acclune.'

2.

Analiese woke from an evening nap.

She had dreamed of her birthplace – Valparaiso, Indiana – and images from the dream swarmed around the apartment for a few seconds. She rode in the back of a car, staring out the window at a clear blue sky; a boy her own age shared the back seat, while a man in a dark suit – Mr X – sped them from Illinois to Indiana along Interstate 48. Signs announced restaurants a mile from the next exit; toll booths gobbled up Mr X's change; and Analiese felt as though the spaciousness would pull her into a void... Pictures of color-drained cornfields, with stalks both lanky and top-heavy, only shriveled and disappeared when Analiese shook her head roughly. She hated Indiana.

Wearing expensive pajamas, the legs gently swishing, Analiese wandered around the apartment. Every couple of minutes she whispered with feigned jollity: 'Come on, Floyd!' Meaning: Open the door. Be here. Alternately wringing her hands together and then inspecting the state of her nails, Analiese willed her husband a safe journey home. If Floyd had gone anywhere other than the blood bank tonight, she might not have felt so apprehensive, but for Analiese the blood bank was a room of horrors. What could have happened to make him so late coming back?

Floyd did not dread the blood bank as Analiese did, and for that reason – that stubborn refusal to comply with her expectations – she sometimes despised him. Tonight had been the same old drill. Voice infuriatingly levelled, Floyd had explained about the increasing need for blood supplies. He went on in a similar vein until Analiese started to feel guilty. 'What if someone needs it tonight?' he demanded, his voice remaining calm. Because Analiese couldn't control Floyd's decision, the only option available was to despise him for it. Now, she simply wanted him home. He had left the apartment in the heavy silence of an abandoned argument.

Analiese did not want TV. Too wired to read, she wrung her hands some more; she waited on the sofa, her legs and two-toned feet tucked under. Her next hour included a pot of tea, a shower, a magazine, a phone call (to Marianne, her best friend), and a sandwich. Then a panic attack. A few tears, two songs from a swing CD she'd bought that morning, and finally a stiff gin and tonic.

It was ten o'clock when Analiese, in the marital bedroom, heard the skittering rattle of a key in the front door. She sat up on top of the sheets, with the TV lobbing shadows against the walls and against her face. The sound was on zero: Analiese hadn't wanted to listen to anything bar her own thoughts. She had not made a phone call since calling Marianne, but neither had anyone rung her. Compulsively, like a murderess returning to the scene of her crime, Analiese had checked – every ten minutes of so – she'd correctly positioned the phone's receiver back onto the cradle. The thought of the police or a hospital trying to call her, and getting a busy signal, was atrocious.

Analiese had treated herself to a second gin-and-tonic, somewhat stiffer than the first... and then a third; and then a fourth, incrementally stronger, because each one she could taste less than the one before it. A combination of nerves and the fact she'd napped a few hours earlier meant she couldn't sleep. Not that she particularly wanted to sleep: in a spirit of incandescent chagrin, she rehearsed what she'd say to Floyd the next time she saw him. At the sound of his key in the lock, she got to her feet, trampled over the wreckage of today's abandoned clothing, and switched off the TV. There followed a mercifully brief falsetto whine; the picture rolled, folded itself up and disappeared. Analiese was left alone with the darkness, a good ten strides from the door.

For some reason the darkness terrified her; her scalp prickled, a sensation only cancelled out by the sound of Floyd closing the door and moving about in the apartment. He did not call for her; he knew he was late. She'd be worried and angry. He probably wouldn't guess drunk as well, so they each had a surprise for the other.

Analiese opened the bedroom door. She wanted Floyd to shout her name, check she was okay: she could ignore the apostrophe and make him worry.

Floyd was not in the lounge; he'd already moved through into the kitchen. Outrageous! Analiese stood on the bedroom threshold, rehearsing her lines as her eyes adjusted to the lounge's sudden glare. Not only had Floyd failed to address her; he had also failed to arrive at her bedside with apologies, tears, proclamations of love.

Analiese strode to the kitchen. Afforded this rare and piquant pleasure of being able to demand And where the hell have you been? Analiese began the sentence loudly.

That treat was snatched away from her; her lungs grasped back her breath.

The man in the kitchen was not Floyd.

3.

Floyd lay on a narrow bed, a needle in his arm.

This part – the donation – Floyd always considered oddly calming; this evening, even more so than usual. He had left the crazy man behind.

Spencer Thorne...

Floyd's blood-iron test was fine and he rested on one of the six beds in the room that passed for the surgery. This was Floyd's time to think. Lying back, squeezing the rubber tube to make the blood flow more freely into the pack, he anticipated the rewarding cup of tea, the cookie, and of course the eighteen dollars.

Thorne wouldn't attempt to keep the conversation going here – but what about outside, in the cold rain and the remarkable wind? Floyd made up his mind he would get through that snack at the end as quickly as possible.

Twenty minutes later he was waiting for the elevator. Twenty-five, and he stood in the lobby, trying to prepare himself for the winter weather. After buttoning his coat, he tied his scarf tighter and pulled on his driving gloves. He felt woozy.

Re-entering the chill didn't help; nor had his preparations been to any effect. New York winters will neither be denied nor pacified by ridiculous layers of clothing. Wind punched Floyd in the face. Teasingly the door behind him closed on smoothed electronic hinges, letting out last gasps of warmth. Before Floyd saw his breath coolly blossom, he saw a dancing flurry of loose snowflakes, torn from the roof of a car parked close by.

Floyd wished it was his car, but as he did every month, he'd gone on foot to the blood bank. Descending the stone steps, his eyes stinging, cheeks raw, he pocketed his hands. The air was sopping – a halfway point between drizzle and snow. Floyd's stride was long and heedless of sidewalk ice, and every pedestrian Floyd saw hurried in a similar fashion, heads down against the chill, mouths blowing on numb fingers. 72nd Street drivers took little care; in addition to the noise of everyday traffic was the endless shush of tires on wet roads. Floyd frowned; the rooms in his head (so he liked to think) were full of little people shouting their lungs out! The radar...

Tuned as Floyd was (to a frequency called Paranoia) it took only a few seconds before he realized there was a problem. There being no colder it could get, Floyd's body informed him of danger in the opposite way: a hot flush, a blush, little stars of perspiration on his neck. His body felt so hot his coat seemed dangerous: the lagging around a rattling boiler threatening to explode. Steam rose from a grille by a hydrant, and made Floyd feel even hotter. Basements breathed out mist and scents.

A few meters behind Floyd's back, a car followed – the one parked by the blood bank. Floyd did not look over his shoulder; but he knew the vehicle was there, crawling along like an uncertain predator.

Floyd refused to turn. His radar blips came as fast as telephone numbers on automatic redial. The car hummed closer. Floyd wished he hadn't begun his walk at such a long-legged breakneck pace. Without actually running, this was as fast as Floyd got; and running might be a mistake. Puffing out steam, he curbed his velocity. Out the corner of his eye, then with a slow twist of the head, Floyd saw the car pull alongside.

A Pontiac. Out-dated; a little battered; burnished gold. The driver within leaned over, keeping the steering wheel steady. It occurred to Floyd he might actually know the driver. The window wound down in rolling jerks.

Woozier than before, Floyd stopped and strained his eyes to see the face framed above the door. The face smiled; this did not make Floyd feel stronger or more assured.

'Need a ride?'

Floyd's eyebrows pinched together. Uncertainly he said, 'Hi, Spencer.'

'Cold night to be walking, man. Hop in.'

'No, I'm good.' Floyd pointed. 'I'm not far.'

'Don't be stupid. Let a fan give you a ride. I'd consider it an honor.'

This was one of Floyd's nightmares; ironically Floyd wished he'd had more time to speak with Thorne at the bank. If all had gone well, perhaps he could have bored the man senseless about escapology, and Thorne wouldn't be offering his services now. At the very least Floyd might know something about Thorne's temperament.

Trying to avoid attention once more, Floyd hoped his smile didn't stretch too far. 'It'll take me five minutes to walk it. I need the exercise. But thanks.' He raised a gloved hand to wave goodbye and leaned into his first stride.

'Don't insult me.' Thorne's voice had changed. Maybe only a true paranoid would have noted the distinction. It made Floyd want to get away even faster.

In his head Floyd went through a checklist. He'd been courteous, unalarmed (apparently unalarmed), and he'd stuck to his guns. Of course, he'd also lied and on several counts. Need the exercise he did not. Floyd was at his physical peak, his skin as taut and defined as contoured body armour. Neither tall nor stocky, he was muscular and fit. That said, even he could not have made it to his apartment block in five minutes – not with rollerblades on his feet – and he could not accept the ride without his chauffeur questioning the fact he'd lied.

Floyd walked. Once again, the car trailed.

'Wossa madder?' Thorne cackled. 'Ride no good for ya?' Thorne's accent thickened up like gravy; his anger the coagulant. 'My car no good for ya?'

It wasn't possible Floyd could have felt more at risk than he did now; but his body at such times knew something worse than fear. Fear developed into physical pain – or spawned physical pain, because the fear didn't go anywhere. But the pain did; Floyd's pain had wanderlust. It started in the gut; moved inchingly, leaving its ashes of crispy twinges, as it followed the gunpowder in his chest. Floyd's pain slugged along, making Floyd wince frequently; past the lungs, then a dog's-leg to the kidney; a double-take trackback to ride the roller coaster of his intestines; and a splash – wheee! – in the stomach's pool of acids and goo. Pain colonized him.

Floyd had to do what pain wanted. He stopped walking. Floyd's eyes scanned desperately for a cop, or somebody Floyd thought trustworthy. Several meters away an old white man sat on the kerb with mittened hands wrapped round something covered in brown paper; even seated, the man swayed. Floyd faced the car; he lashed a smile to his face, thinking: If he drives me anywhere but home, I'll jump out.

'A ride might be good.'

'That's more like it.'

There was no gentle joy in the words, and Floyd felt the helplessness of having been manipulated; of having had his opinions subtly altered. Thorne was a man used to getting his own way, and more: the ease with which Thorne lost his anger suggested the anger had been acted. Floyd didn't know what he preferred: the idea of Thorne being obsessed or the idea of him being calculating and precise.

In one respect Floyd thought himself lucky: Thorne hadn't been violent as yet. What was the best he could wish for? He thought of Analiese. If he got in the car, as Thorne invited him to do, Floyd knew it could be a kidnap. Then again, the chance remained that Thorne intended to drop Floyd off at the apartment and nothing else. More than ever, though, Floyd didn't want Thorne to know where he lived.

He got into the car.

4.

'Who are you?'

The man in the kitchen turned to face Analiese's question.

'Hi there.' A smile. 'Name's Spencer. Spencer Thorne.'

When people ask Who are you? in situations like this, what they really mean is What are you doing here? Analiese didn't want a name; she wanted an explanation.

'You must be Analiese. Sorry if I scared you.'

'I am, and you didn't... What the hell are you doing in my kitchen?'

'About to make a cup of tea. I hope you don't...'

Analiese shook her head. 'How did you get in?' She stood on the threshold; Thorne took a step toward her. Analiese flinched and Thorne stopped in his tracks; he held up his hands.

'I should explain. I met Floyd at the blood bank.'

'Where is he?' – a sliver of something hard and sharp in her voice.

Thorne looked embarrassed. 'I'm afraid I revealed him but he's coming soon.' From his pocket Thorne pulled out a small leather keyring, a few keys attached. 'Floyd said go in, make myself at home. He'll be here when he's finished signing autographs.'

Struggling for comprehension, Analiese had already formed an opinion. Floyd would never have given his keys to a stranger. Floyd? So the question was, how could Analiese get this man out of her apartment, and how she could discover the truth about what had happened to her husband?

'Look. I can see how this appears.' Thorne offered a winning though oddly childish smile. 'just gotta say – this is gonna get weirder in a second. Bear with me.'

Analiese didn't see why she should; but would Thorne try to talk his way out of a situation if his intentions were violent? She doubted it. She tried to think as Floyd thought, but all she could do was summon up his smiling round face.

Thorne spoke. 'You've got a brother called Dollar, right?' he asked.

Analiese frowned, caught off guard. When she said 'What's it to you?' she really wanted to ask how Thorne knew this. He answered her unvoiced question.

'I know him.'

'Dollar?' Analiese contemplated a dash for the telephone. Coincidentally (I suppose) Thorne was also thinking of the telephone: or more specifically, of how he'd taken it off the hook when he entered the apartment.

Sadly nodding Thorne said, 'I'm not proud of it. But we did time together...'

He's a criminal, thought Analiese.

'... few years back. I was in for fraud but I'm straight now. I sell traps.'

'Traps?'

'Mainly rodents, but guy once wanted some jaws to catch a bear. In Wyoming.'

'You're a travelling trap salesman,' said Analiese.

'Yeah.' If Thorne sensed her skepticism he didn't show it. 'Met Dollar in the pen; we get along good. Soon he's telling his life story and all. Says he got two sisters...'

Analiese interrupted. 'What does he look like?'

'Dollar? Six-two, thin.' Thorne showed no sign of being annoyed. 'Ask me anything if I need to prove I know him. We ain't got to the good bit yet.'

'And what would the good bit be?' For the first time Analiese was acutely aware of standing in front of a stranger in her pajamas. The fear she felt divided; one half of it turned into a feeling of vulnerability and cheapness. She resisted the temptation to pull her jacket collars together to cover the brown V pointing down between her small breasts. Staying as she was, however, that skin was exposed. Analiese felt cold.

'It's like this,' Thorne went on; he sounded as though he'd learnt a script. 'I'm talking to Dollar one day and he tells me all about you and yours. "Floyd Acclune? The escapologist?" See, I seen your hubby one time – in Newark.'

'Why?'

'Why did I see him? Travelling salesman needs entertainment much as anyone else. Just read his name in the Local Attractions pages, thought I'd give it a try.'

Analiese recalled the only show Floyd had ever done in Newark. 'Can you remember the name of the place?'

'The club? No way. If you wanna check up on me though, I can tell you it was a five minute cab ride from the Pocomo Inn, where I's staying.'

'You remember the names of motels and not clubs?'

Thorne smirked. 'What can I say? Motels are my life, Analiese. You don't mind if I call you Analiese do you? I stay in motels all over the country, though mainly in the north. I'm from Brooklyn.'

'Is there really so much demand for traps these days?'

'You'd be surprised.' Thorne nodded. 'We currently got a rodent epidemic the likes which we ain't seen before. I know what you're thinking: I never see any of the bastards. Pardon my French. Well, rats these days are smart. They wised up. And in my experience your everyday rodent ain't gonna be fooled by no chunk of cheese. Forget that... They know they're despised, see. They're a paradox. They prey and they also are prey. Rats eat each other; eat anything smaller than themselves. Try to eat a cat if it gets too close; sure as hell they'll take a bite outta me if I get careless: always hungry... I think it's just they don't know how to kill a man: it's not they ain't thought of it. So in learning to adapt, they've learnt how to hide. Better than ever. Some people don't even know they got 'em. But they're growin' somewhere. Simple.'

'I see. Shall we go through, out of the kitchen?'

'Would you mind if I just made myself that tea? It really is very cold out there.'

Analiese took a step into the blizzard light. 'Where are my manners? Go through; I'll make you tea.'

'Very good of you.' Thorne shuffled past his hostess and reentered the lounge.

This separation stopped both Thorne's and Analiese's lies dead; they reverted to honesty. Analiese went about making tea. Her expressionless face belied the network of fast-moving thoughts within her head – she was like a dead TV screen, behind which the components crackled. Analiese did not ask her uninvited guest how he liked his tea. She automatically made it as if for Floyd...

Meanwhile Thorne calmly stepped to the phone; he thought for a moment and then placed the receiver back on the cradle. He would have to take the chance.

It certainly wouldn't be Floyd calling.

5.

Thorne sat down and looked at the rack of CDs.

When Analiese brought the tea things in on a tray, she wished Thorne had asked for something stronger. She could use another gin. She tried to imagine what sort of drinker Thorne was - bourbon man? red wine? Maybe he joined the elbows at some of the bars downtown, vodka and milk sold to the hopeless. Analiese bumped into the answer – or so it felt – as she put the tray on the coffee table. Spencer Thorne (like Floyd) did not drink: not ever. Like Floyd, Thorne would be upset if Analiese poured herself a hit. Likewise if she lit up one of the cigarettes from the packet in the laundry room that Floyd didn't know she had not thrown away when he'd asked her to.

'Thanks.' Then Thorne resumed his simple tale of coincidences: Thorne learning that Floyd was Dollar's brother-in-law, and Thorne saying to Dollar he'd seen Floyd perform. Dollar asked Thorne, who was getting out earlier, if he would pass on a message to Floyd, but especially to Analiese.

'What sort of message?'

'Well I don't wanna get too into family business here, but it seems though...'

'We've disowned him. Yes.' Analiese nodded. 'If you were Dollar's confidante I'm sure I don't need to tell you about the turmoil he threw into our family the first time he was thrown in the clink, let alone all the times since. My brother is a kleptomaniac, but he's not even one with a good personality anymore. I don't want anything to do with him.'

'Sorry. But he wants something to do with you.'

'What would that be?'

'The way he tells it,' said Thorne, 'for a long time it was just your sister and your parents writing to Dollar in the slam.'

Analiese nodded. 'We were never close, Sam and I.' It sounded – she thought – like an apology. Did Thorne blame her for something?

'And then it was just your sister.'

'Yeah. After the first time, even Mom and Dad chose not to forgive. It's one of the few strong things they've done.' That sounded cruel; she hadn't meant it to be cruel. 'I'm not sure why I'm telling you this.'

'You approve of their dismissal?'

Analiese shrugged. 'He brought it on himself. How far do you push your parents?'

'So you approve?' Thorne asked again.

'What is this? My therapy?'

'Just curious.'

'Well I don't like to talk about it.'

In the gap between their sentences Analiese studied her emotions. Finally Thorne broke the silence. 'I have a question,' he said. 'It's a good one. Are you ready?'

Analiese sipped her drink.

Thorne said, 'You've all but disowned him now...'

This came as a surprise. 'Carrelle's stopped writing?'

'He's on his own, which is why I'm here, Analiese. But my question is this: What if you've all given up on him...' a pause '...and he's innocent?'

The suggestion did not require much thought. 'Innocent what time?' Analiese asked rhetorically. 'I don't even know how many times he's been in jail.'

'What about one time?'

'Hardly relevant is it? He did it all the other times.' Surprise fluttered through the layers of her skin – surprise she hadn't considered the possibility before. 'Dollar's in New York, isn't he?' she said coldly.

Thorne shook his head. 'I'm coming to that.'

'Come to it now. Where's my brother and what are you doing here?' She was horrified and appeased by the concerned outrage that flashed across Thorne's face. 'New York's no place to trust strangers,' she added quickly.

'When was the last time you saw your brother?'

'Ten years?'

'Bit long to bear a grudge, isn't it?'

'It's not a grudge. It's apathy.'

Thorne shook his head. 'That's a sad reflection on the condition of American families, if you don't mind me saying so.'

'It's reality. Floyd's the same with his.' Analiese wished she hadn't said that: what she revealed about herself was one thing, but she knew how touchy Floyd could be about his past. She hoped Thorne wouldn't choose to pick that particular scab further.

He did not; what he said shocked anyway. 'I know.'

'You know what?'

'About Floyd's family. And yours, Analiese.'

She searched quickly for meaning, for understanding. Thankfully it came.

'From Dollar, of course,' she said with some relief.

'Partly. I've got other sources.'

'Are you a reporter?'

'I've told you what I do.'

'Sell rat-traps.'

'What I do is irrelevant here,' Thorne insisted.

'Now where's my husband?' Analiese demanded.

'I told you. I left him at the blood bank.'

'Signing autographs?'

'That's right.'

'He's not that famous, Spencer. Where is he?'

Thorne found this amusing. 'Ain't my story holding water?' he said in a lightly whiny voice.

'This is some sort of joke, isn't it?'

'No. I couldn't be more serious, Analiese.'

Standing up, Analiese placed her teacup on the low coffee table, on top of a copy of Vogue. 'What are you being serious about?' she demanded.

'An experiment. A conspiracy.'

Analiese could only shake her head. 'I think you'd better leave now. I'm going to call the hospitals.'

'You don't need to,' said Thorne, coolly as before.

'Please tell me where he is.' Analiese didn't like it Thorne had made no effort to move when she'd asked him to leave.

'Will you write to your brother again?'

'Yeah, okay. So where's Floyd?'

'Do you know where he is, to write to him?'

'No I don't. Where is he?'

'New Orleans.'

Analiese smiled briefly. 'The first joint again. Like returning home.'

'Not sure he'd see it that way.'

'Now you can tell me about Floyd, or I'm going to call the cops.'

It was Thorne's turn to smile. 'I can see why Floyd married you: you're gutsy. Don't worry, he's safe. He's at my apartment. Downtown.'

'And what's he doing there?' Analiese asked.

## Chapter 2

1.

Conversations in cars have a tendency toward the truth.

It's something to do with not having to look at each other. Just as telling lies on the telephone is simple, talking to someone without having to search his face for signs of disbelief is no sweat.

Eavesdrop with me now. Jump into the back seat.

Thorne pulls the car away from the sidewalk. You can hear him as he breathes through his nose; you can hear the swampy squelch of the gum he chews. As you look at the side of his head, you can see his temple muscle flex with every movement of his jaw. Watch his fingers; in their leather gloves, they stroke the wheel. Watch his eyes in the rearview mirror: it's almost as though he can see you. They are piercing; and there is something strange about one of them. I know. I've met Spencer Thorne.

I employ Spencer Thorne. Where else did you think I got this information?

2.

Floyd clenched his fists. He was going home, or so he tried to convince himself: to the apartment, a bite to eat; Analiese, in whose arms he would lie until the shaking subsided. Tomorrow he'd look back on this evening, and contemplate cab rides to the blood bank from now on.

As soon as he'd got in the car, Floyd had told Thorne his address; he had then begun the small talk that would get himself out of this mess. Being amiable to Thorne was still (in fact, more than ever) a priority; Floyd clung to the hope that Thorne was a zealous, over-attentive fan. But Floyd's radar screamed. So fast did the blips sound that Floyd couldn't recall the time before he'd met the stranger. Nausea rode the waves of his agony, and the two men fell silent.

Floyd had assumed he'd be immune to further shock, but he'd been deluding himself. He felt unwell, and for a very good reason. Doubts in his head had solidified.

Thorne had stopped going the correct way to the apartment.

One wrong left turn. How innocent could the mistake be? Hadn't Floyd been clear with the address? Now he was to be driven somewhere else, how surprised was Floyd? Not very. 'So where are we really going?' Floyd asked; 'now you've got me in your car.'

Thorne's answer was immediate. 'Harlem.' An answer Floyd hadn't expected; one that filled Floyd with a tingling sort of dread.

'What's in Harlem?'

'Your childhood home.'

'I don't wanna go there.' Floyd knew how ridiculous it sounded, giving requests to a kidnapper, but the instinct to stay away from that place was so strong he couldn't let it pass (nor would it pass) without comment of some sort.

Thorne's tone was reasonable, but what he said was, 'I don't give a fuck what you want.'

'I could jump.'

'Yeah, you could,' Spencer said after a few seconds. 'Wouldn't do you no good. Just get hurt. Then you'll still be coming with me, anyway, so you ain't gained nothing. Way it is now, Floyd, you're gonna come with me; do me a favor; I'm gonna do you a favor; and that's it. You don't get hurt, you just get educated.'

'About what?' Floyd asked.

'You'll see.'

Thorne concentrated on the road. Floyd turned to face him: the profile lit, then darkened, by lamps and the spaces between them, as though Thorne sat in front of a TV in the darkness. Light slithering, clinging; changing the shape and sharpness of his cheekbone; pooling grey into the concave of his cheek.

Floyd faced forward. The car ahead of them shot up a tail of filthy slush, some of which landed limply on Thorne's windshield. Floyd's breath when he sighed was a spherical cloud; it dissolved.

'What have you got against Harlem, Floyd? Doesn't your aunt live in the apartment you were born in? You gave it to her, didn't you?'

'That's right.'

'Don't you wanna see your aunt?'

Floyd didn't want to inquire how Thorne knew about her. Soon deciding silence was worse, however, Floyd said, 'You know, Thorne, you seem to know a lot about me, but I don't know anything about you. Why don't you tell me a little about yourself.'

'Sure. What do you wanna know?'

'Your real name?'

Thorne laughed. 'If I was gonna choose a fake name, I could do a lot better than Spencer Thorne, believe me.'

'Who said anything about choosing?' Floyd asked. 'Don't seem you got much of a job here, just following the boss's orders and taking me to Harlem.'

'Man's gotta work, Floyd. Could be out at the dock every morning, ten bucks an hour. This ain't so bad.'

'Well, could I at least call my wife; let her know I'm okay?'

'We're nearly there,' said Thorne.

Though the weather was bad, they'd made good progress north. Floyd had read some of the signs as the car whirled past them. 101st Street. 110th. Floyd had found a new, albeit slim, comfort to cuddle up to.

A reunion. One his Aunt Sophie had, for reasons known only to herself, paid Thorne to engineer. What if someone had written to NBC's Old Friends in order to get them back together? Surely not; whatever tricks that show used to reunite parties, it didn't use people like Thorne. People who pretended to know you and then offered you a ride. Floyd could've said no; where would the show have been then?

'Did my Aunt Sophie pay you to find me?' Floyd tried to recall if he'd ever given Sophie his East Side address.

'Nope.'

'But someone paid you to find me and take me to her.'

'Closer.'

The truth hit Floyd in the stomach: Sophie had died. Now Floyd was to return to the bosom of his family. For a reading of the will? At this hour? Surely Floyd wasn't entitled to anything of Aunt Sophie's, unless she'd seen fit to name him as her beneficiary, before her kids, as a way of thanking him for giving her the apartment.

'Have I done something wrong?'

Thorne didn't answer the question.

'Have I? 'Cause if I have – or they think I have –the least I can be allowed is a chance to defend myself.'

'This ain't about blaming you for nothing.'

Floyd watched the neighbourhood. He didn't look at his old streets; he watched them, as he would watch the news: with a sense of dislocation. He couldn't believe this was real; for Floyd it was like watching the crowd when he put on a performance.

They drove on in silence. Apprehension made Floyd perspire. As the car drew nearer the 207th Street Bridge, all Floyd could think of was Sophie: her face in two profiles, then full on, like mug shots above the prisoner's fingerprints. They arrived.

The decaying tenement still rotted. Floyd looked at the building in which he'd been born; even uglier than he recalled, it vibrated minutely to the shaking of the car.

'I'm terrified.'

A click; the sound he'd heard in many movies. Floyd turned away from the building. As he'd feared, Thorne had the gun very close; he pointed it at Floyd.

'Are you cool?'

'As cool as I can be with a gun pointed at me.'

'Cool enough. This is the way it's gonna be. First you give me your wallet, your cellphone, and every cent you got in your pockets.'

Floyd frowned. 'You're kidding me. This is just a robbery?'

'I gotta make sure you don't have any i.d. or cash on your person. Just trust me on this one. Hand it over. You'll get it all back soon; I'm not a thief.'

This took a few seconds. Floyd wouldn't antagonize Thorne by saying no or by asking any other questions, so he gave over everything. Thorne himself caused further delay by being thorough. Thorne wanted to make sure Floyd wasn't left with even a nickel. Thorne told Floyd to empty his pockets, then dumped the haul into the glove compartment. 'It'll be safe. Now get out,' said Thorne.

Floyd stood on his street in Harlem, with his hands in his coat pockets and with every breath ghosting in front of his eyes. The smell of the place was as familiar as the noises he heard. Rap stuttered somewhere; a three-way argument seethed.

'Lock your door?' Thorne asked. 'Did you lock the car door?'

'No.' Floyd had made up his mind to get to a phone as quickly as possible: to call his wife; tell her Thorne was on his way. But now he had no coins. Emergency call; 911.

'Then lock it Chrissakes!' Thorne sounded impatient. 'I might have a gun; don't mean I'm happy to be here. Let's get this over with and get the fuck out.'

Floyd opened the car door, pressed down the lock, then closed it again.

'That's better,' Thorne told him. 'Don't want no one to steal it, do we?'

They crossed the broad, cracked sidewalk, and entered the building. The smell of the hallway hadn't changed: b.o., perfume and cooking. Floyd climbed the stairs – the elevator wasn't working – a clump-clump-clump of shoes on the wooden flight.

Third storey.

'Stop here. Now comes the bit about educating you. This is what I want you to do. It's very simple. You go and say hello to Aunt Sophie. I watch you knock on the door and I watch the door open. Then I leave.'

'Will I understand any of this?' Floyd asked.

'Nothing's gonna be explained, no. You're gonna have to be a detective.'

'I see.' Hot and bothered, Floyd felt woozy, and his left arm, from which he'd given blood, had begun to ache. 'Shall I do it?'

The apartment number was 10. As Floyd looked at the number on the heavy door, he was sure it was the same one, set at the same angle. A brown number 10 which used to be gold, screwed into the dark brown wood.

Floyd looked left, at Thorne. Six meters away. Thorne, his hand in his coat pocket, raised up and pointed at Floyd the concealed gun. Floyd wondered how much damage would be made to the coat if Thorne shot through it. He imagined the singed lining; Thorne would have to walk around with the smell of gunfire in his clothes.

He turned away from Thorne. In slow motion he raised his hand and clipped the wood five times with a curled and mollusc-like forefinger.

Thorne backed toward the stairs.

Of course, thought Floyd, his temperature rising. This is where I get shot, but not by Thorne. This is the movies. The crazy is behind the door...

Floyd's thoughts were interrupted: the ridiculous clang of a lock being thrown back. The sound jangled in echoes down the corridor. Floyd told himself to step aside from the door as a second lock was unhooked, the sound this time of a higher pitch. The third lock was the metallic roll of a dead-lock key, halfway down the body of the door.

The door opened as far as the chain would allow. Half a man's face peered suspiciously through the gap; this half was further divided – sliced again – by the chain. The face was hard and old; brown skin pocked, many of the pores pinpricked with black. The bespectacled eye burned hazel, red lines networking the white.

Floyd had never seen this man before.

'Yeah?'

'I'm here to see Sophie.'

'What's that?' The man squinted. Turning his ear to hear Floyd better, the old man presented the plug and wire of an old-fashioned hearing aid.

Floyd spoke up. 'My Aunt Sophie. I've come to pay her a visit? Name's Floyd.'

The man turned his eye to Floyd again; it squinted. The man waited.

Touching his chest with both hands, Floyd said his name again, and feeling somewhat he was over-egging the pudding, added, 'I'm her nephew?'

The old man shook his head. 'Wrong apartment, son. No one here by that name.'

Jesus, thought Floyd; deaf, blind and mad. This guy had hit the jackpot. 'Where are her kids? They'll know me. I'm not here to steal, okay. I was brought here...' Floyd looked to his left. At some point Thorne had ducked away and begun his descent.

The old man shrugged. 'That's as maybe, son. All I'm saying is you come to the wrong apartment 'cause no Sophie and no kids live here. Just me, myself and I. Been that way since my wife passed a couple years back.'

'I used to live here. I was born here.'

'How old are you, son?' the old man asked. 'I can't tell, my eyes ain't so good and I can't see the lines on your face. Without your lines you could be nineteen.'

'I'm thirty-four.'

'Well, listen now Floyd-thirty-four. I been living here in this very apartment for the last forty years. If you been born here I think I'd remember. I don't know you and I don't know your aunt. My name is Walt Brydonson. You can check me out at the housing department, wherever that is. Forty years. I seen a lot of things and a lot of changes. But I never seen a birth on my floor. Try the next tenement. I'll see you.'

## Chapter 3

1.

A few words of introduction, finally.

To be honest, the power should feel better than this. I'd assumed I'd really get off on it; but I'm getting more pleasure from the actual writing. My obsession. I wouldn't call what I'm doing with Spencer, Floyd and Analiese my job exactly, but it's certainly because of my job (or by now, my ex-job) that I know them. The kick is, they don't know me; not really. But I'm about to tell you, and I don't even know you.

My name is Adam Malarz, and by the time you read these words I'll probably be dead. They won't let me live. Not even if they don't read this account.

.One matter at a time.

Spencer? Well, Thorne is younger than he looks; I don't know precisely how old. He's a compulsive donor. He sells parts of his body. Blood is only the beginning; at the clinic, or bank, where he met Floyd Acclune he sells his blood as often as they will allow him to. There are limits, after all. There's the aspect of safety.

When our Mayor died recently, the stations started to show the commercials he made during the last few months of his life. Matthew Carreras died at the age of fifty-nine. By the end, his haemoglobin wouldn't carry oxygen properly, like good little haemoglobins should, and his white cells wouldn't fight infection. His platelets didn't arrest his bleeding, and he bled a lot. He made four or five commercials, in which he sat baggy-eyed, thin and helpless looking. Every healthy citizen in America should donate blood. There would be, I quote, financial compensation for everybody's efforts... He didn't want the commercials shown until after he'd croaked. Guess why not. He worried they'd make him seem weak with longing; as though the entire TV-watching public would think he asked for donations specifically to help his own lost cause. Carreras didn't want to look bad; but politically, he was nearly dead anyway. Gone. His ill-health was the only thing keeping him alive, as far as the viewers were concerned.

People gave generously – people like Spencer Thorne – or anyone after an easy buck, really. Thorne sells his blood everywhere. The bank on East 72nd Street does not pay the best rates: seventeen dollars. One place south of Houston Street you get twenty-six-fifty. Maybe the one on 72nd assumes, because of its location, its clientele don't need the dough so badly. Like they're going to get the millionaires out of their Upper East Side apartments on a freezing winter night. But anyway; even with this surge in popularity for blood, there are limits to how many times you're allowed to donate. Thorne's been caught; so he sells his blood all over New York, sometimes giving pseudonyms. Often the gas and the parking fees add up to approximately what he makes from the sale. It's ridiculous. But as I said, he's a compulsive donor.

Three times he's sold bone marrow, which should be donated like once. (God knows how much you get for bone marrow.) Three times he's taken the week off work and gone into hospital for the operation. The second time there was even a complication. A pint of blood is taken from the donor a week before, and is then returned at the time to prevent the donor becoming anaemic. Thorne became anaemic anyway: he'd sold blood the morning before he went into hospital. Too much for his body to take.

He has only one kidney. Sold the left one. More bizarrely, as I can't see it being of any use to anyone, he got rid of one of his testicles (I couldn't say which one)... What Floyd didn't see was that Thorne's right eye is made of glass. His left has twenty-twenty vision, but no way should that bastard be driving. The tooth fairy has half his molars. What do people do with these things? Though experiencing from them no discomfort whatever, Thorne gleefully gave up both adenoids and tonsils. He'd give his right arm to donate something like his stomach, or his brain; he'd do it if the price was right. Get the money, give the goods, die. It wouldn't matter. He takes money because it would look weird if he didn't, but he's not in it for the money.

Thorne gives pieces of himself away because he enjoys it. Spencer Thorne is my best man for the job, and he's insane.

What's my motive? I'm trying to give two people their true lives: Floyd and Analiese. The very least I can do. I was one of the bastards who gave them the lies they believe to be true in the first place. I feel like a war criminal.

Let's go back. Not in time – not yet – but back to Harlem. Floyd wanders around; he might as well be drunk for all the clarity and focus he can muster. Tears in his eyes, chilling his cheeks in frozen tracks. His lips turn an alarming shade of blue; his nose is clogged and heavy. His mind is in turmoil. He runs the evening through, with constant Rewinds and Pauses. Hands in pockets, he walks as fast as he can, direction home.

2.

Floyd left the building and dazedly went in search of a working telephone. Not an easy quest at the best of times, but now, with Floyd's thoughts muddled and gluey, he couldn't even remember where there used to be booths. Time and time again he approached a booth as you might an oasis – fearful of its disappearance – only to find it had been left inoperational, guts hanging out. Or (the best one of all) someone had actually taken the time and effort to saw off the receiver. That's dedication.

Eventually Floyd dialed 911. The line buzzed several times as Floyd tried to orient himself. Where was he? They were bound to ask. They'd think he was a crank caller if he couldn't answer. Harlem? The line buzzed again. He should have walked into the precinct he knew from when he was a kid, if it was still there. Once more the line buzzed. Reality shifted again; Floyd was sure he would reach the precinct's answering machine. Then his call was answered. Floyd's voice rose and fell; he stammered, both because of his nerves and the chill, but he got his message through.

Thorne had already made it to the apartment; he'd let himself in and taken the phone off the hook. You know when he puts the phone back on? You might ask yourself (as I asked him) why he didn't cut the cord as well. To Analiese it would've looked as though her phone was fine but the cops wouldn't have been able to call. Something about not wanting to risk Analiese picking up the phone and getting a dead signal; he didn't want her to panic. What I think, he actually liked the thrill of being trapped.

A car with overweight patrolmen made its way over as Thorne and Analiese had their conversation. Floyd had given the cops Thorne's car make and color, though he could remember nothing of the registration. Not that this oversight means anything. Thorne, the crazy bastard, didn't park it outside. It's been left to rest at least a five minute jog from Floyd's apartment block. It's pretty well hidden; the cops will take their time finding it. When they do they'll find out it's a stolen car, with false out-of-state plates. Because Thorne and Floyd both wore gloves throughout, they'll find not a fingerprint inside. Thorne's preparations were thorough.

On his way out Thorne did not use the elevator. He went into the stairwell and opened the bag he carried; took off his coat. This left him wearing the grey suit. He took off the jacket and laid it on top of the coat. From the bag he pulled a black sweater and a brown leather jacket, in which he dressed swiftly. He pulled out a black scarf. He took out an old brown envelope, in which was an actor's prop: a black and grey moustache, adhesive on the back. Confidently he slapped it on his upper lip. Wrapped the scarf round his neck; stuffed his suit jacket and his coat into the bag and zipped it up.

He walked calmly down the stairs.

The two cops entered the building. By chance a young couple had left the building at the right time to hold the door open. Cop A waited for the elevator while B, the short-straw drawer, girded himself for the physical challenge of the stairway.

I can see the logic of not wanting to give the felon any chance of an undetected escape, but really – splitting up like that is good police work? Cops should have assumed Thorne had a gun even if they hadn't been told this specifically by Floyd.

Cop B met Thorne, in disguise, on the stairs. Thorne obviously didn't match Floyd's description, but instinct must have taken over. Breathlessly Cop B asked:

'Where you just come from?'

'Apartment 12, man.'

'Don't call me man. You live here?'

'Just visiting. Eve Sandling. She's my old school teacher. I was in town...'

'Fuck you,' said the cop. 'I don't want your life story. What's in the bag?'

'Laundry.'

The cop had had enough: enough useless bantering and rest. Without a word he carried on up the stairs. Thorne was free.

3.

It is important, we as a species think, to retain normality as quickly as possible after a shock; as usual Floyd woke up to the sound of the morning DJ, at eight. He'd slept pretty well, considering. Clumsily he disentangled himself from Analiese's clutches, and got up to make tea. This he did every morning. When he brought it to his wife she was awake – sitting up in her pajama jacket, although the trousers had been removed in the midst of the night's thwarted fumblings.

Cold light of day: the time when the events of yesterday should have been easy to appreciate, to analyze. Naked, Floyd got back into bed. They drank their tea and went over what they'd already told each other.

'He told me he was working for somebody. So who?'

'I'm gonna have to write to Dollar, even if that makes me Thorne's puppet...'

'The rat in his trap.'

'... I mean, he's gone to a lot of effort –someone has – to get you to your old apartment. Why the hell would he do that? Pay some out-of-work actor to play genial old Uncle Walt, and God knows what really has happened to Sophie and the kids. If I were you, I'd be concerned about them. I am.'

'Could've moved out years ago. When was the last time we heard from them?'

Analiese didn't answer the question. Not because she didn't want to; she simply couldn't remember. She tried to imagine Sophie's writing on the inside of a Christmas card. 'Don't get angry, Floyd. You got angry last night when I said this, but think about it properly this time, okay? You haven't been there for God knows how many years...'

'I got the right apartment, Analiese.'

'...It was dark; your head was screwed up. A gun in your face.'

'It was the right apartment.'

'Maybe they rearranged the numbers on the doors.'

Floyd waited two beats. 'I got the right apartment. Door could've been painted mauve and be called Number 17 and have its own mailbox outside saying Suzie the Floozie. I still would've known it. You don't forget things like that. It was exactly the same as it was then, anyway.'

'That's odd too, don't you think?' Analiese asked. 'In all those years – door hasn't been changed, number hasn't been changed...'

'The locks are new,' Floyd said.

'Even so. It looks like they've gone to some effort to make sure you don't go to a different apartment...'

'Do you realize you've just defeated your own argument? If Thorne's boss is changing doors and numbers...' He paused. 'Oh, I see what you mean. He could've gotten a brown door and a faded old number 10 and used them to trick me.'

'Right,' said Analiese. 'Are you sure you were on the right floor? In the confusion, maybe Thorne led you to the floor below your old floor, or the one above it.'

'Except I led him,' Floyd replied. 'Let's go there. Today. We gotta sort this out.'

'I agree; and I'm writing to Dollar today, if I can get the address from somewhere. Maybe the library. He's in this. Wouldn't be surprised if he set it all up.'

'What motive?'

'Sibling rivalry? Dollar spends his life stealing just to afford the bare essentials.'

'So how's he paying Thorne?'

Analiese shrugged. 'Maybe the one heist of his life actually went right? I don't know. I'm going to take a shower.'

'Shall I make some pancakes?'

'I'd rather you joined me in the shower,' she answered.

4.

Through the gap and through the thick smudged lenses of his out-of-date spectacles, Walt Brydonson squinted at his two visitors.

'Good morning, Mr Brydonson,' Floyd said after a second. He already felt sick.

Walt's face twitched with brief illumination. 'Now I reckon I know that voice, don't I? You here last night?'

'It was me. I've brought my wife so I know I'm not going insane.'

'No one mentioned insanity. You been given the bum's rush, is all. As you can see, I still live here, all them hours on; and I intend to live here until the angels claim me, son, or until m'pains get too bad for the medicine.'

He paused. 'But as I'm confused as you are about all this, lemme tell you what I'll do. You gimme a number I can call, I'll see if I can do some p.i. work today. Can't say my diary's full for the foreseeable future, so I ask a few people I know.'

Floyd waited until Walt was finished. Then: 'Mr Brydonson, that's good of you, but can I tell you something? I don't know who you're working for, or what the scam is, but I do know my mother gave birth to me in this apartment. I do know you haven't been living here forty years. So I want you to tell your boss you'll have to do better than this. Whatever you're trying to do won't work. Do you understand? It won't work.'

Walt's head shook slowly. Floyd wondered if Walt could hear every word or not. 'You're right, son. You don't need my help. You need a doctor.'

Floyd lost his temper. Taking a step forward, he flung out both arms; pale palms struck the door simultaneously. Floyd saw an instant's fear on Walt's face; the door chain twanged and vibrated. The door slammed. Floyd offered no resistance. He hit it one more time with the heels of his hands, calling loudly, 'It won't work, you hear me!'

Analiese pulled at his arm. Her voice was agitated. 'Let's get out of here, for God's sake. He might call the cops!'

'If he does we can sort this out once and for all.' He hooked his thumb at the door. 'That bastard is not getting away with this.'

Still trying to be rational, Analiese used a voice low but insistent. 'They'll see two people harassing an old man,' she said. 'That what you want? We'll try something else.'

Unfortunately for them, the scene had drawn at least one eavesdropper. From the next apartment along stepped an enormous black man with a chest like a rum-smuggler's barrel. He wore a couple thousand bucks' worth of gold chain round his neck; a medallion, heavy as a horseshoe, settled halfway down his front, on a black t-shirt.

Floyd saw the chain as a sign of confidence and fearlessness. There was certainly no fear between his mutton-chop sideburns, or beneath the tight curls of his wet-look afro. The witness's face was unmoving but powerful.

'What happenin' here?' the man asked.

'It's okay, we're leaving,' said Analiese; she reached for Floyd's arm.

Floyd had a different idea. Addressing this new arrival he said, 'What do you know about the guy lives here?'

'Know you giving him shit. What else I need to know, white boy?'

Floyd's eyebrows pinched together. 'What the fuck did you call me?'

'Call you white boy, white boy. Got a problem with that?'

'I'm blacker than you are.'

'Floyd, I wanna go...'

'You got a white boy heart,' the big man said. 'Smell it from here. Smella money. Now who you think you kid, coming here, dressing down for the occasion I bet? Get outta here! Listen to your lady. Leave my neighbour the fuck alone.'

Floyd pointed a finger. 'I was born here, friend; now I wanna know where Sophie and her kids are.' Floyd was not so furious that he couldn't see the central irony of defending the part of his life he'd always tried to hide from anyone else.

'Old Walt's part of the furniture round here. Been here so long he knows the rats by shoe size. Keeps himself to himself, as a good man should.'

'Jesus Christ,' Floyd said. 'You're in on it as well, aren't you?'

He turned away from the vigilante's fogged expression.

5.

Getting the number for the Louisiana prison was easy enough, but that was where Analiese's troubles began. She made a long-distance call to the correctional facility and she explained who she was, who Dollar was, and that she had to speak to him immediately. What was the nature of her call? Personal. The call, if permitted by the Governor, would be at a time designated by officials, and would be monitored. Would Analiese have any objections to these stipulations? Feeling twisted and tight chested, Analiese answered the stipulations were acceptable, but could the call please be as soon as possible? The Governor was a very busy man. Analiese appreciated that. Would Mrs Acclune like a short message to be passed on to her brother in the meantime? Analiese didn't know what to say to Dollar, and she certainly didn't know what to say to a receptionist. All she could think of was: 'Please tell him I've had a visit from Spencer Thorne.' Analiese asked the woman to repeat the message, then she put down the phone, feeling nauseous.

Forty-five minutes later she got a call. She was scared to pick up the phone; she let it ring nine times though she could have reached it on the second trill.

'Am I speaking with Mrs Acclune?'

'You are.' The debilitating coldness of the man's voice made Analiese stiffen and reply with a similar lack of emotion.

'Well, my name is Wallace Chorning. I work at the Orleans Parish Criminal Sheriff's Office, in the Records Department. Your inquiry has been passed to me, but I'm afraid I can't find any reference to a Sam Penson on our files.'

'That's impossible,' said Analiese. 'He's been there twice. That I know of. He's there right now.'

'Not under the name Sam Penson.'

'Everyone calls him Dollar,' she said. 'Dollar Penson?'

Chorning inhaled through his nose. 'Doubt it,' he replied, 'but I'll be happy to check.' This said in a tone that suggested the opposite was true. The sound of touch-typing. Analiese wondered if Chorning was hitting the keys any harder than he usually would so she'd hear him doing something.

After a few seconds Chorning said, 'I'm sorry. No record of that either. I didn't think there would be. Prisoners are registered by what's on their birth certificate, unless they've had it legally changed.'

Analiese couldn't imagine her brother altering his name. 'Your computer must be wrong,' she decided. She knew the response would be condescending.

'I really don't think so,' Chorning said. 'Besides, I checked the old files in the Records Room. We still got everything on paper? He was never here, ma'am.'

'But of course he was. It's the first place he went...'

Chorning ignored the contradiction. 'Musta been a different correctional facility,' he went on. 'There are several in the state of Louisiana. I could give you some phone numbers, if you'd like that.'

Analiese could think of no way Thorne could be manipulating this call. How could he have persuaded a prison to lie? 'This really is important. Would you mind checking your computer again? Sam Penson.' Again, Analiese spelt the surname.

A few seconds passed. 'No, I'm sorry; he's not listed.'

This time Analiese had not heard any tapping on the keys.

'Would you like those numbers?'

'Yes.' But the digits were merely sounds: as meaningless as a dog's barking. She had no intention of calling another prison. She poured herself a gin.

Floyd arrived home at three-thirty. He closed the door and locked it. Neither he nor Analiese said a word. Analiese watched him as he joined her on the sofa.

'Hard day at the office?'

'Like you wouldn't believe,' Floyd told her.

'Let's see who's got the worst story, shall we?'

'You as well?'

'Even you might need a drink.'

'Have you been drinking already?' Floyd asked.

'I've had three,' she told him.

'What's the news?'

'Not only is my dear brother not there right now, which I might not have been bothered about, he has never been there.'

Floyd nodded. 'Guess what. Walt Brydonson has been living at Number 10 for the last forty years, just like he said. I went to view the library records on CD-Rom.'

6.

Try putting yourself in my position. Day by day I live with the knowledge – I wake to the knowledge –this could be it; this cold and wintery day, with its rain and with the pipes frozen in my tiny rented apartment, could be my last.

Today they might find me.

I'm writing this in a spirit of confession, but I can't say it's making me feel much purer. I feel like a king sometimes – a king wearing a crown that's getting smaller. My regal robes are filthy; maybe a jester will sprinkle something nasty into my wine.

Floyd and Analiese are going to get hurt, but I don't know any other way of doing it. I've got to point fingers. I must tell everything before my location is discovered.

7.

'That's your fourth drink, isn't it?' Floyd said.

Analiese addressed him from the other side of the room. 'That's right; and you know, I might even have a fifth. A sixth. Hard to say. I can't read my future any better than I seem to be able to read my past.' She poured, her back to Floyd.

Floyd struggled through a jungle – he could feel hot steamy breaths in his throat; some low tribal drumming somewhere further back than his ears – until he came to a clearing. Comprehension. 'Are you suggesting you believe what we've been told?'

Analiese sipped; the drink was stronger than her previous three. 'Someone's trying hard to convince us stuff we know about ourselves is wrong. Now I don't know how that someone is achieving this, but it's time we got the police involved again.'

'Do you know what they're gonna say?'

'No. Neither do you.'

Floyd nodded. 'I'll come with you.'

'Stay here – for when the guy comes to change the locks.'

'Oh. I forgot about him.'

'Besides, I wanna see Marianne. See what she makes of all this.'

# II. Perspective Points

## Chapter 1

1.

Let me introduce you to a man from Berlin: Herbert Dechtler. Like me, he is of Polish origin; unlike me, he can speak Polish fluently. Polish, English, Russian, French, Italian, Sign Language and Greek. He has a smattering of Hebrew and knows a quarter of the characters in the Japanese alphabet.

Amazing man. Been just about everywhere he wants to go, except for China. And he'll get there eventually.

Neither travelling nor learning languages is Dechtler's obsession, though he uses both of these activities to aid it. It's not his penchant for Black and Oriental prostitutes when he's here in New York; nor the maintenance of his physique, for that seems to happen effortlessly enough. Though Dechtler is sixty-two, he could pass for late forties. He exercises and eats well – he can afford to – but even so, that body beautiful is remarkable. Hope I look half as good when I'm his age. Or rather, I hope I would have looked half as good when I'd reached his age.

Not much chance of reaching my next birthday. Or by the time you read this, I hadn't had much chance of reaching my last birthday. Or what would have been my last birthday. You get the picture. These tenses are making me tense.

Truth is, I don't look as good as he does now.

Herbert Dechtler's obsession is murder stories. He collects them; he asks the big why questions. Not why do ducks fly south, or why do old men have elongated ears; but why, for example, did Nazi Germany happen? He investigates assassinations. JFK was first; Herbie got a copy of the footage and spliced it so it ran in a constant loop. The projection room in his Berlin apartment is small and packed out with stuff filed with an obsessive sense of order. Hundreds of film canisters; a projector, which whirrs and clicks along to the film like a nightmare soundtrack – an industrial hum-along; shelves of video cassettes, neatly labeled; a matching VCR and TV. There is more information in that one small room than there was in my entire apartment. Information about murder.

Herbie is rich because of his father. Dechtler Senior ran his own import business – bananas – and when he died of broncho-pneumonia he left everything to his son, even though Junior, to his father's oft-voiced disapproval, had shown no interest in the company whatever. On his deathbed, Senior made Junior promise whatever he chose to do with the concern he would not let the years of hard work go down the toilet.

The promise was Herbie's first involvement with the company; he made it with his left fist clutched in his father's two white hands. Three months later came Herbie's last real involvement with the company; also sealed with a handshake, though of a more formal nature, with his own and another man's signatures on three copies of the same piece of paper. For four-and-a-quarter million dollars Herbie had sold the company – to an American conglomerate with offices in Hamburg – but he had not let everything go. He owns shares worth three per cent of holdings, which nets him a twice-yearly pension of fifty grand. Cannily, with foresight, he had a clause written into the contract that states that should the company go under, he is not liable to pay up a single dime.

Try telling me this man is not a genius. He left behind the world of bananas and trade; he was now a bloodhound. Searching for murder stories, he roamed the planet, usually carrying little more than a duffel bag and his VISA card.

The realization he might need to lie to get some of the better tales arrived quickly. People get temperamental about their murder stories as they do about their depressions. Getting tales from murderers wasn't bad, but getting to the murderers was tricky. Prisons have differing views on the subject of visitation rights; some prisons, you can stroll up to the front gate and ask to speak to the governor. You're escorted by an armed orangutan wearing shades to a place where you can be romantically frisked in the company of more orangutans, out of the glare of the sun. This is before you've stated your business. Other jails, you wait a month for an appointment. Still others, you wait a month for an appointment with the governor's secretary.

Herbie's usual line was he was writing a book. In fact, it's something we've talked about, but he's not interested. He's a listener; wants to learn. I've even offered to type the book up for him, though now I haven't the time. He said to me once: you do it; you write it; but I didn't think it appropriate for a member of the Mayor's circle to be known as some expert on death. Not simply because it might get me into trouble for throwing New York politics into disrepute – as if that were possible. No; I didn't want my superiors to know I had an investigative mind of any sort, in case they suspected I might get close to what went on. I wanted everyone to believe that I thought only of my job...

Herbie sits in a small room with a list of questions, a dictaphone tape recorder, and a convict. If he had it his way there would be no one else present; but at the very least there's an armed guard present. By no means does Herbie's quest end with killers. When he can, he speaks to the victims' families; to witnesses, the investigating officers, reporters, coroners, pathologists – the peripheral characters in the intimate Greek tragedy of homicide.

I first met Herbie eleven months ago, and I immediately thought he was mad.

2.

I've become an expert at the art of spending Christmas alone. 'Tis the season to be jolly, apparently. I wouldn't agree. God save me from another drunken Christmas Eve in the company of well-meaning strangers! Who wants to know you on the day itself?

My typical Christmas, until two years ago, went as follows:

Work. For as long as I could till the compulsory two days of vacation. I listened to preparations and plans, little secrets ('we've hidden her presents around the apartment; we're writing her a treasure trail'), and scarcely contained excitement. To my credit (for my sins) I have even participated in the euphoria of my colleagues: perhaps I angled for an invitation. I said things like: Me? Sure I'll be okay! See you in the New Year; have a good one! Then I went home to my apartment; watched a black and white movie about Santa visiting urchins with his sack; hit a bottle of brandy as though it killed my mother. Or my sister, for that matter: which it did. Christmas Eve and the Day itself I spent in a nightmare of loneliness, gloom and triple vision; in a duck's loose squawk I sang along to televised carols; I swore at transmissions of slick evangelists from the Bible Belt. Buy crap on my credit card via the shopping channel (each presentation made alongside a sprinkling of seasonal glitter, a bauble or two). Read. Cried.

Two years ago I forewent this nonsense: I started to take vacations: two years ago, Mauritius for a week; last year, Bermuda. This year, as far as everyone knew, it was Honalulu. December 20 my ticket said, and on December 20 I ran away.

Officially I'm still employed by the State of New York. I have not resigned. If I'd made any statement to the effect of wanting to move to a different job, they would have asked why: in a nice way at first. Aren't you happy here? Let's talk about it; don't be hasty, Adam... Then one night someone, somewhere would have waited for me.

I feigned contentment with my job. I worked as a Senior Finance and Income Adviser for a company based at the World Financial Center in Battery Park City, on the West Side of Lower Manhattan. I was well known to many of Manhattan's politicians. They were my clients: I saved them money. I have been to many politicians' houses, for dinner parties, social events. I've slept over in the Mayor's spare bedroom.

Politicians and their entourages make good company. Away from TV cameras, they are as relaxed as anyone at a good party. I can remember my surprise on hearing, for the first time, a politician swear. Of course (here I'm smiling): they're only human.

So yes, I'm still on the payroll, but I'm not going back. This is how I escaped.

I bought a return ticket from Delta Airlines; I confirmed my reservation from the phone in my office. My secret arrangements were less glamorous. Speaking to a gruff man called Darratello I rented this tiny, horrible apartment, using a payphone one lunch hour. By no means does Floyd corner the market on paranoia. Since learning what I've learnt, I've become as bad. Naturally I assumed I was tailed on the morning of December 20, when I was supposed to drive to the airport.

Drive to the airport I did not, though I headed in that direction. I waited until I'd gotten into a reasonably severe traffic jam; then I abandoned my car. I slalomed through stationary traffic to get to the other side of the road. The traffic there, going south, moved faster, and crossing the road like a scalded cat had its problems. I took my chances. My body did not get hit, but my bag did: a headlight clipped it and virtually tore my arm out its socket as it spun me around. I reached the sidewalk gasping.

I didn't wait to recover; I took flight. Ran like a madman, occasionally knocking someone out my way. People cussed. I didn't care. Up roads, down alleyways, I had no idea where I was. When I got to a street where traffic moved well, I put on as calm a face I could and hailed a cab. Knowing my bank accounts would freeze, I had to access a cash machine. 'Drive.' We headed due north; I peered over the bottom of the window frame. There it was: my oasis ATM. 'Stop here.' Out I climbed, the sky above me the color and shine of a trout. I weaved my way through people as the cab received honked rebukes at having doubleparked. Nervously I queued. A very fat lady with sideburns that caught the light like a pig's whiskers had difficulty recalling her number. The machine spat out her card for the second time. She inserted the plastic for the third. I checked my cab still waited. Did I stand too close to the fat lady?

She looked over her left shoulder and said 'Pardon me?' in a tone of inquisitive petulance. 'I'm not trying to read your number, ma'am,' I told her. Silly bitch didn't believe me. Harrumphing, one pig-hoof hand on the mighty ledge of her bosom, she pressed the CANCEL button. She snatched her card from the slot. I shoved mine in as she waddled away. As usual, the machine tried to make friends. Maybe some people find comfort in this, but this morning automated courtesy I could have done without. GOOD DAY TO YOU! HOW ARE YOU! Under my breath I whispered 'Fuck yourself,' and hit the keys too hard when it charmingly invited me to do so.

It took too long. How could access have been cancelled so soon? Perspiration crawled along my neckline. Then the machine cleared its throat, took pity, and asked me how much I wanted. Two. Then zero, zero, zero, zero. ENTER. Twenty large, twenty Gs: what remained of my life's savings, not counting stocks and shares. For long seconds the machine scratched its head or had a nosebleed. I felt like a Las Vegas gambler. The wheels span; I could hear the thuds and whimpers.

Jackpot. Notes slithered out like cars bumper to bumper through a bottleneck. Fifty dollar bills crisp as shirt collars, with traceable numbers. That was a problem for the future. If I'd withdrawn the dough earlier, even in small amounts, I would have raised suspicion. I paused by a trashcan. I glanced at the VISA card and the name didn't look like mine; I would have to be someone else. Sighing loudly, I bent the card in half and dropped it through the trashcan's mouth. I was about to get back in the car, wondering what the cabbie thought. I had another idea. I couldn't be tempted to use plastic again; I'd be traceable. With another sigh I threw away my wallet. I would have repeated the action with my passport, but I'd left it in my important drawer, back in the apartment.

I was a nobody. I gave the Puerto Rican cabbie two of the fifties to bring me here – to Broome Street, in Little Italy. Our eyes locked together as he leaned round in his seat. He had a young sad face, skin the color of weak tea. When he took the bills there was fear there; he didn't understand the tip but he'd seen me stuff cash into my bag. His thick moustache quivered as he opened his mouth. He didn't speak. Neither did I.

My home is in Little Italy. My apartment has a bathroom and a bedroom, if you can call it that: it's barely twice the width of the narrow bed. There's a desk too low for the accompanying chair, at which I write these words, my back hunched. There's a two-ring hotplate; however, I choose not to cook. Getting rid of the smoke is a hassle: if I open the window (no mean feat) I freeze. I eat expensively and unhealthily from burger joints, fried chicken outlets, pizza parlours. Though exercise is of the past – apart from three sets of ten push-ups and three sets of ten sit-ups first thing in the morning – I do not put on weight.

Daily routine is set in stone, and I've only been gone five days. (By the way, Merry Christmas.) I get up when the rest of the building gets up; it's as simple as that. The walls and ceilings are not three feet thick. I hear everything. Thank God these rooms are too small to house whole families. If I had to listen to a clan arguing all day in Italian, I think I'd jump out the window. As far as I can gather, most of the people here are single males. They're quiet, on the whole; some have TVs in their rooms and canned laughter and sports commentary filter through. Most are workers; they rise the same time as each other. Pipes take the sudden strain of so many men clamouring for a shower's hot water, but they don't do it without a protest; they whine and clank.

I get into my shower at this time too. There's no point in not doing so: you can forget about hot water for the rest of the morning if you don't get in quick. I stay under for as long as it stays warm. Towel myself down, have the first of my day's forty cigarettes, and then, set up for the hours ahead and rejuvenated by nicotine, have my morning jerk-off. Though I'm finding less to masturbate about these days.

I can't walk around. When I said I eat from fast-food joints, I didn't mean I go and collect it. I either phone for a delivery and wait in the charmless, dark lobby; or I give this Italian kid a couple bucks to get the stuff for me. The kid's name is Jerry, he's fourteen; fortunately for me, he seems to have no parents. He told me he doesn't live here but he hangs around; does odd jobs. He bangs on doors when everyone's back after work and asks if they need anything. In a thick belt round his waist he's got screwdrivers, three sizes of wrench, a small claw hammer. He fixed a guy's radio the other day. Enterprising kid; a bit like Kwame, who you'll meet before long.

He returns with cigarettes, a pizza and receipts – just so I know he hasn't gypped me for a few dimes. Then he grins, winks, touches the beak of his cap – and he's off to the next tenement, saying 'Ciao!' I asked him where he lived but he wouldn't tell me. You see – get this – he doesn't talk to strangers.

Occasionally I might think Fuck it and go get my own smokes or make a dash for the nearest pasta place; but I know there are spies out everywhere.

The Mayor's spies.

The death of Matthew Carreras, Mayor of New York, last October was a hoax. He is still alive. And as I well know, he's a powerful enemy to have.

3.

December 21.

Astonishing how long a day can seem when you hide from someone and you've got little to do. All day I wrote, sipping brandy. I'll slot this page in at the right point when the time comes. (Assuming the time comes.) I'm drunk. Keep hearing Christmas carols from the street; smelling cooking. Hope this makes sense.

Twenty minutes ago I returned from the phone in the lobby; Jerry had told me someone wanted to wish me good tidings and joy. I took the call.

'Hello?'

Thorne replied, 'Been drinking?'

'Yes. How did it go last night?'

'Consider the Acclunes on their way to a truer understanding about life.'

I could scarcely believe it. 'No problems?'

'You chose the right guy for the job.'

I listened while he spoke for ten minutes. At length I said, 'Anything else?'

'I put the things I took in the mail this morning, but it's Christmas – the U.S. Mail'll be slow. There was nothing exciting.'

'Anything else?'

'What do you want? My Santy Claus impression? Get back to your bottle, Adam, let me know in the usual way if you need anything else.'

'I'll do that. It's been a pleasure.'

'Yes,' Thorne said, 'it has.'

## Chapter 2

1.

Shortly before I met Herbie for the first time, he was working in the north of Poland, in Gdansk. It was New Year's Day, 1998, but Herbie doesn't celebrate public holidays; he works when the work is available.

His presence in Poland was not entirely due to his obsession for murder stories. Herbie wanted to revisit the place of his forefathers: a city in the north-west called Szczecin. He spent three days there; he stayed in the Student Hall. God knows what lie he gave administrators to achieve this cheap accommodation. He got to do what he intended should be chipped into his gravestone.

Szczecin, in Herbie's opinion, is a charmless place. Having come face to face, in Berlin, with a period in which he had little to do, he had decided to visit this town near the German-Polish border – in search of slim pickings. Apart from the pilgrimage, Herbie had intended to investigate the murder, two years old, of a young woman by the name of Natalia Grimwalski.

Natalia had been pumped full of heroin and placed, bent double, in a tea chest. The lid was nailed down. She hadn't struggled: there were no alien skin cells beneath her fingernails; none of her clothing was torn. The tea chest was lowered into a pre-dug hole: on wasteland, behind an abandoned car parts factory. Then two feet's worth of earth, soil and ash had been shovelled on top of her tiny misshaped coffin.

Herbie could find no one to speak to. It was only two years old, it was still a thorn in Szczecin's side. While considering the train journey back to Berlin, he got a sniff of something else. A student at the Hall gave him the information. A woman of twenty-one had been killed in Gdansk six days earlier.

Too great an opportunity to ignore.

Herbie bought a ticket for Gdansk instead.

2.

Agnieszka Pull was murdered in a suburb of Gdansk, called Brzezno: killed on the beach at night. Throat slit; it was quick. She was found with blood all over her fingers and wrists; her footprints in the sand showed the erratic foxtrot her death dance became. She had fallen to her knees, then fallen face first.

The other set of footprints was the only clue the police had to go on. Large boots.

For his initial approach Herbie used the telephone. He took a tram away from the patiently waiting reporters and policemen in Gwiazdowskiego Street, to the centre of Gdansk – the touristy bit, as he would say. Centrum. He walked from the tram stop to the city's main post office; there he looked in the phone book for the Pulls' number. In a booth he slotted in his phone card and prodded the numbers. Somebody answered straight away, which surprised him.

'My name is Detektyw Artur Nieszyn,' he said in his usual bold-as-brass fashion.

'I have nothing more to tell you people,' Agnieszka's father replied.

At this point Herbie almost gave up the chase before it had begun. It was the sadness and fatigue he heard in the man's voice which Herbie found so dispiriting. Herbie had experienced something reasonably rare: a pang of conscience. He asked himself a vital question: Can I do this to these poor people? Followed immediately by another: Am I deliberately trying to hurt them?

Herbie had to answer the second before he could sidle up to the first. Of course he wasn't deliberately hurting anyone. True enough, he might not have their interests solely at heart, but deep down he wanted to solve the mystery and convict a killer.

Justification enough. 'I need to ask a few more questions.'

Pull sighed. 'What do you want to know?'

'This would be better face to face.'

At this Pull adopted a defensive stance. He snorted loudly into Herbie's earpiece. 'I'm not feeling particularly sociable. Why the hell phone if you want me in person?'

'I hoped I'd be respecting your feelings.'

'I don't have any feelings,' Pull replied. 'You can't these days. As soon as you develop some, they send someone to mess them up. The one thing I prized was my family. So I don't care if you're a policeman or the Queen of Sheba, Nieszyn, I'll tell you anyway. It feels like someone has dug a groove in my heart; and I just keep asking myself: How can this be happening to me? I'm a good Catholic man. My family are good Catholic people. For God's sake, why us?'

'That's what I hope to find out,' Herbie said, a knot in his stomach. 'I have to get into Agnieszka's shoes; know as much as I possibly can about her last few days.'

'Klowokowski told me that,' said Pull. 'Everything I told him was everything I know. It should be in your files.' He paused for a half-beat. 'Why are you questioning me now anyway? What happened to Klowokowski? Did he get promotion?'

Herbie bit his tongue. He began to see Pull for the boorish fool he was. 'We're working in tandem. Different division.' He had underestimated Pull's arrogance.

'If you come here and ask me questions I'll answer them.' He sounded wearier than before. 'Or if you want to ask me questions now I'll answer them as well. I'll cooperate in any way I can. But she's gone; no amount of questions will bring her back. We're devastated. So forgive me if I show a lack of social decorum, but there is no way I'm going to invite you here. You'll come or you won't, but don't expect me to open my arms. My arms are closed. If you catch the man who did this, I will thank you. But his true sentence will come from God Almighty.'

'I'd like more detail about Agnieszka's movements last week,' Herbie said.

'What more can I tell you? You have read the reports.'

'Naturally.'

'Then what do you expect me to add? Agnieszka was on holiday in New York, she came back, and... she was murdered.' Pull gulped and struggled for air.

'And you have no idea what Agnieszka got up to in New York?' Herbie asked.

'What the hell is that supposed to mean?'

Not even Herbie's wits were quick enough. 'I didn't mean any offence,' he replied.

The line went dead.

Herbie swore and held the receiver a few seconds, just to make sure Pull had really gone. He wanted to believe some fault in the telecommunications system had cut the call short, but he knew he'd fucked up. He replaced the receiver, swore again, and walked out into the chill of the evening. On beautiful Dluga Street, he stood and counted his options. The most important thing was to discover what (if anything) had happened in New York. Herbie had formed the opinion Agnieszka's murder had not been random.

Being a health-conscious individual, Herbie does not smoke. Nonetheless, his next move was to walk as far as the train station, where – in the tunnels – he found a kiosk still open to sell a packet of Sobieski Light cigarettes. Good a way as any to loosen a man's tongue is by offering him cigarettes and beer.

3.

The building, large and handsome, was called Zak: an old word meaning student, though the place is not exclusively for students. Clean; not too noisy.

Herbie found a bar downstairs; a quarter full, mainly with couples talking. The light wasn't good. Herbie had to peer while he waited for the surly bottle-blonde barmaid to pour him his Hevelius lager. He looked for a man on his own; not even at the bar was there anyone applicable. In fact, the only people at the bar were two men noisily (and drunkenly) arguing politics. He moved his beer closer. 'Couldn't help overhearing,' Herbie said when the two men paused to drink from their heavy glasses. 'So what do you think our new President will make of cases like that girl murdered in Brzezno?'

Nothing like the subtlety of a sledgehammer when dealing with drunks.

The man who answered the question was rotund and hirsute. Tipping his head a few inches to the side (a gesture of obvious suspicion) he said: 'What makes you think our new Government will deal with violent crime any differently from the last one?'

'That's what I'm asking. Do you think our leader will stamp on these people?'

The other – younger, bespectacled, with considerably less hair – spoke next. 'He might be your leader, friend; he certainly isn't mine.' He laughed.

Herbie smiled, not entirely falsely. 'No, he isn't mine either; but there are plenty of people who voted for him between here and Zakopane.'

The first guy asked, 'You come from Zakopane?'

It's way down south, a twelve hour train journey. Herbie could read the guy's confused expression: What's a fella from Pluto doing in this young ones' pub in Gdansk?

'Zakopane born and bred. In fact, that poor girl's murder hasn't quite made it all the way down there. What do you know about it all?'

The younger man wanted to know: 'What brings you all the way to Gdansk?'

Herbie shrugged. 'My daughter's at the University. I've come to see her for her birthday, bless her soul. Twenty-three tomorrow; makes me proud. She'd've made her dear mother proud too, if she'd lived to see the day, God rest her.'

The two men nodded. Herbie had them.

'I'm supposed to meet her here tonight,' he went on, 'though the truth is, I wish she'd arranged somewhere nearer where she lives. After that girl in Brzezno I don't feel safe knowing Ola's out on her own.'

The first man told Herbie not to worry. 'It's not a psychopath on the loose.'

'Then what do you think it is?'

'Revenge.'

'For what?' said Herbie.

'Who knows? Sleeping around? She could've been a heroin supplier for our city's secondary school children and bums. Maybe the deal went bad.'

'Has anything like that been mentioned on the news?'

'No; they wouldn't, would they? They wouldn't put it on the news – not if the cops told them not to. Make her sound like an angel and get the ratings up. Get the public on the side of the law for once...'

Was it possible Agnieszka had gone to New York for criminal purposes? This good Catholic girl, if her father was to be believed – a thief, an assassin, a smuggler?

He had to find out why she went, where she went, and whom she went with.

Herbie took a long swig. No, he thought as bubbles scratched his throat and a fist of air rose from his stomach; first I have to find out if she went there at all.

Next morning Herbie walked for ten minutes from his 250-zloty-a-night room at the Hotel Hevelius to the LOT Polish Airlines building. Nine o' clock when he arrived.

'I have a question about your flight to New York,' Herbie said. He sat in a wide seat. 'I'd like to know if my niece was on a particular flight.'

'I'm afraid we can't give out that information. It's against company policy.'

'Why?'

'A passenger has the right to expect us not to give out details,' she said. 'In case he or she is famous, for one reason or another...'

'What about respecting the rights of a passenger who is already dead?'

'There's a principle at stake, sir,' the woman countered.

'There certainly is: the principle of trying to get to the bottom of a murder mystery on behalf of the poor victim's family, and the principle of you standing in my way. The girl is dead. In case you missed the news, young lady, she was murdered in a particularly horrible fashion, for no apparent reason. I don't expect you to feel guilty or sad, but I do expect you to realize sticking to stupid rules about client confidentiality doesn't help anyone. There's always an exception to the rule, my dear, and quite frankly Agnieszka couldn't give a damn any more if you called her names and said she gave the stewardesses a hard time. All I'm asking is if the young woman got on the flight to New York, and if she got on the flight back. I don't expect you to have to check records or anything like that, because I'm pretty sure you know the answer right now. Just give me yes or no, then I'll leave this office and you'll never have to see me again.'

The sales assistant looked left and right, for encouragement or advice from her colleagues. The woman nearest the fax, although the message had long since come through and the transmission had long since ended, said 'Tell him.'

'Yes. She caught both flights.'

'Thank you.' Standing up he felt a rush of giddy elation, something like a combined sugar, caffeine and alcohol buzz. He was about to leave then he remembered something. 'One more question.' He didn't see how they could refuse him now. 'Has anyone else but the police come in here asking about Agnieszka?'

This time his informer did not look to her colleagues for support. Presumably once the green light had been given it stayed given. 'Journalists,' the woman said.

'Apart from journalists.'

'No.'

Herbie nodded. 'Thank you, my dear. How much is a ticket to New York?'

'One way or return?'

'Well, let's say a one-way for now...'

## Chapter 3

1.

This was a year ago, don't forget.

I worked in the same department from which, six days ago now, I ran away in terror, only then I was a Finance and Income Adviser and now I'm officially a Senior Finance and Income Adviser. Big deal? That Senior nets me an additional twelve grand a year; or it did. That's two grand a letter. I get paid so much dough I've got plenty to fritter away in this hovel, tipping delivery boys and the Italian kid...

My clients two years ago were not as important as the ones I have worked with recently. As opposed to ten per cent general public and ninety per cent bigwigs, I deal with the exact reverse. I made a reputation for myself; I was good.

The morning I spoke to Herbie for the first time I was in the middle of a job for a mufti-millionaire property developer.

One of my colleagues was McGarhen; Eoin McGarhen. Irish. If I use his expression, he was lucky as a leprechaun. He had a point. I've never known anyone so hot when it came to betting at the track. A year earlier, I went into work after the Christmas break, January 2. McGarhen was grinning like a loon. He had his feet on the desk, and smoked what I first took to be a cigar – bad enough as it flagrantly ignored the NO SMOKING sign on the wall of every office – but was in fact a Philly Blunt, a cigar packed with dope. He didn't care. What work would be done on January 2? he argued, which missed the point. What had been considered by bookies and gamblers alike as a complete no-hoper also-ran nag had the previous day won for McGarhen seven grand.

Lucky as a leprechaun indeed, the bastard. Gives me a buzz on the internal line. 'Guy wants to speak to you. Put him through?'

'I'm real busy, Eoin,' I say. 'Could you do me a favor?'

'Asked for you; don't wanna speak no one else. Otherwise, yeah of course.'

Of course he would. At the time he and I behaved with uncommon civility toward each other: we were competing for one promotion. We both knew we couldn't let anyone – and I mean anyone – hear we rankled each other. If the bosses deduced that Malarz and McGarhen couldn't roll with healthy competition without backbiting, we could both forget about promotion. No room for bitterness or hotheads in this position, we'd already been told. So whenever the chance arose I snapped up his work when he couldn't do it, and he gobbled up mine. Then we let it be known what we'd done.

Here was a guy who wanted only to speak to me. 'What's his name?' I sighed.

'Herbert Deckler,' McGarhen mispronounced.

'Buzz him through.'

I felt I'd won a round, despite to-the-guts weariness. I regretted asking McGarhen to take the call for me: I shouldn't have asked him to do anything.

'This is Adam Malarz. How can I help you?'

'Good morning, Mr Malarz. Herbert Dechtler. I'm calling about a woman named Agnieszka Pull.' A perfect Brooklyn accent.

'I'm afraid I don't know anyone by that name. Sure you come to the right office?'

'Yes I'm sure. You met with her in the last two weeks.'

'You've definitely got the wrong person, sir,' I said, with more confidence this time. 'What was it in connection with? Perhaps I could transfer you.'

Herbie sounded petulant. 'It's in connection with her murder,' he said.

'...Is this supposed to be amusing?'

'Not unless you find murder a gas,' said Herbie. 'The girl travelled from Poland to see you, she went back to Poland, then someone killed her.'

'I should warn you, sir, this phone call is recorded. Perhaps you should watch what you're saying.' I had already formed my opinion: the guy was a crazy. How he'd got my details, and why me, were things not too much on my mind at that moment.

'Record away. I'm making a legitimate inquiry, Mr Malarz.'

Two things.

The first: even then I had a sneaking suspicion Herbie knew I was lying about the phone call being taped; he seemed too confident and smart.

The second: I wanted to know what the guy wanted to say.

'Do I take it you're blaming me for this girl's death?'

'Did I say that? Do you have a guilty conscience?'

'No. I do have a mountain of work to get through if I want to have a lunch break today, so I'd appreciate it if we bought this to a close. I don't know the girl you're talking about, and I'm sorry about what happened, but it's nothing to do with me. Goodbye.'

I hung up.

2.

That evening I left the office at 7.13.

You didn't need to know it was January to know it was January. Seasonal information is thorough in New York. You know it is summer when you stroll sticky sidewalks in an equatorial colorless fog of oppressive heat. Your skin gets rubbed by the material of your double-breasted suit. You get sweaty with the effort of lighting a cigarette; you get groin rash and neck rash and any rash in-between.

Winter is like being pinched and drained. Winter is pernicious anaemia.

Breath sucked from my lungs, I loped along in my dark blue suit and cashmere coat, swinging my hundred buck briefcase like Gene Kelly worked that umbrella.

I was exhausted. The day had been long, rewarding, and I'd completely forgotten about the fruitcake on the telephone. I headed for the subway. I did not pause by the stairs to smoke a final cigarette before taking to the tunnels – where my lungs would be denied their feathery sustenance for the forty-five minute duration of my journey. The floor was slippery at the bottom of the flight; I skated my way to the turnstiles. With one fluid movement I removed my pass from the inside pocket of my coat, waved my photograph, and slipped into the labyrinth where so many tread each day.

I had no idea I was being followed.

On the train I sat in the murder rack – the carriage farthest from the driver; the one that barely makes it alongside the platform. Apart from me... let's call it five or six people: winter clothes, chunky paperbacks, hard-day looks; relief and consternation.

Subways are subways, the universe over. There are rules, one of which is this: when there are plenty of seats, you don't sit next to someone – unless you know them or plan to harass them.

Herbert Dechtler sat down to my left.

The panic I felt goes without saying. Turning to him I found him already looking at me. Guess if that made me feel better or worse.

I turned away quickly, wondering whether or not to move, to get off at the next stop and pretend it was the one I wanted. My head contained fog.

Don't speak to me, was all I could think.

'If I've made a mistake, man,' he said, his American accent flawless, 'then I'm gonna be feeling pretty much how you're probably feeling right now.'

I tried ignoring him. I thought of how alike the two of us looked: he could have been my older (healthier) brother. We both wear our hair short to disguise male pattern baldness, though his follicular remains are grey, mine black. We are more or less the same height and build; he's slightly thinner.

Fixing my gaze on the black window opposite me, I tensed my muscles, in preparation of the inevitable touch this weirdo would give me. The tunnels flashed past, points of light elongating and blurring like one of those dreams you try to get out of but which will not go away.

'You're Adam Malarz, aren't you?' he asked.

Of course I had to look at him then. If a weirdo knows your name then maybe he isn't a weirdo, or maybe he's a weirdo who's done some research. A name is an invitation. I didn't like it but Herbie had invited himself into my attention.

'Do I know you?'

'We spoke on the phone.'

'We did?' I should have gotten it by this point, but keep telling yourself: long day, long day, and exhausted. My brain was my answering machine. I replayed all my day's messages. Got it. Chills ripped through my body, and all I wanted to do was slide off my seat and fall onto the floor.

It might be true in situations such as the one I was in – with your heart a mad bass drum, your skin oozing – you rely on clichés because they're all you can think of. Witty repartee seemed out of the question.

'What do you want from me?'

'Just to talk,' Herbie replied.

I willed the train onward. Next stop, I thought, I'm out of here.

'About what?'

'A conspiracy,' was the reply (a word I used often when briefing Spencer Thorne – a word that Thorne, in turn, was to employ when trying to shine a little light into Analiese's darkness later on).

Quizzes and conundrums, at this point, did not fly high on my list of priorities. I've never enjoyed guessing games at the best of times. Nevertheless I asked:

'What sort of conspiracy?'

Herbie nodded in two relaxed motions. He was cool. The nodding of his head told me plenty, not least the fact he'd known he'd get me to ask, sooner or later. 'Someone killed a girl in Poland,' he said, 'but I think she was here to see you first.'

I frowned. As best I could I avoided Herbie's piercing eyes, but I could feel the weight of his concentration on the side of my head: that sort of cramped-skull sensation you get after whizzing around too quickly on too many fairground rides in a row.

Herbie can get to me like that.

'What I said on the phone was the truth,' I told my interrogator; 'I don't know her.'

'Didn't know her,' Herbie corrected.

'I've never even heard her name before today,' I went on. 'I'd be interested to know how this confusion's come about. How have you connected her with me?'

The truth is, and I'll explain this soon, the poor girl had come to New York to see me. Herbie wouldn't have approached unless he was absolutely sure. Agnieszka had come to see me... because she was worried about me. There's irony there. She worried because I hadn't returned any of her international phone calls or replied to any of her letters, or – what got this big ball rolling – I hadn't sent her a 21st birthday card.

Inadvertently, I am responsible for her death. Yet I honestly believed I'd never known her. I'd been made to believe she'd never been part of my life.

Herbie really had to work to convince me of this.

'Let's go for a cup of coffee,' he suggested. 'My treat.'

I hesitated. Could he see how apprehensive I was? If so, his following words couldn't have been more cannily chosen.

'Come on,' he said, 'if you really think I want to do anything other than talk, am I really gonna do it in a coffee shop? Use your commonsense: that's probably one of the safest places you could be, unless you're worried about your caffeine intake.'

It was perfect. I agreed to go.

3.

If New York is the melting pot of America, a New York coffee shop is a microcosm of that melting pot. Nowhere else can you find life so varied, so ageless, so multi-hued, so difficult to translate.

Not wanting to sound like the President and sole member of the Herbie Dechtler International Fan Club, I want to tell you something about Herbie's interrogative technique. Namely: it's not like being interrogated, or even interviewed. To be honest, it's almost not like being asked questions. At first you're captivated by the voice. I know I've indicated he can do voices (he does me incredibly well) but with each one, you get a sense there's a face behind the mask. It didn't matter Herbie sounded like a rough-and-tumble construction worker: more than ever, more than I had been, I was convinced of a conspicuous intellect. I'd fallen into his opening words; started looking around the mini-melting pot – at a seven-foot transvestite mulatto, laughing hysterically across a table from a biker with a tattooed face; at Solzhenitsyn over there, muttering slowly at his reflection in the window, cappuccino froth laced into his beard hairs – and when I returned to my body, to my head, I found myself telling all.

'What about your luck in relationships?'

I shrugged. No wife, I told him; no girlfriend, no brothers, no sisters – no family. 'What's that got to do with anything?' I asked.

Herbie's reply was elliptical. 'Everything's got something to do with something.' He was distracted. What had he expected?

'Tell me how you got here,' I said.

'I have a question,' said Herbie. 'Have the police been in touch?'

'No.'

'I don't get it,' he told me. 'Why haven't the police been able to work it out if I did?'

'Work what out?'

'Wouldn't you agree, if a girl goes abroad and then returns home and is murdered, it might be a good idea to check out what went on when she was abroad?'

'I guess so.'

'So where are the cops? There should be an international deal by now.'

I finished my drink. 'Maybe they haven't sussed it yet,' I suggested.

'Or maybe someone's protecting you from them.'

'Protecting me from the cops? I don't think so.'

'You've got some powerful friends, Adam.'

'Friends only in the look-good-to-be-seen-with sense. Not one of them who wouldn't drop me like a hot potato if there was anything I could do to damage his career,' I said. 'I save them money so they're good to me. That's about as deep as it gets. And unless I've misread them all completely, there's not one of them who would support me over a murder deal – at lease not without talking to me first about it.'

'Unless this supporter in high places has something to hide which'd come to light if the story broke about Agnieszka Pull's murder.'

'Like what?' I asked after a pause.

'I don't know. I was telling you how I got here.' He drained his hot chocolate as I got out a pack of cigarettes. I'd already smoked four. I intended to smoke eight more to finish the pack, or die trying. 'I went to the place she worked. It's a small insurance business; they deal with claims for accidents in the workplace...'

Herbie went there twice in the course of one evening. Both times he wore what he had purchased by VISA that afternoon: a suit, a shirt with cufflinks, and a colorful bow tie; this is one of the few ensembles that makes him look his age. The suit lent him authority; gave him weight, in both senses. Herbie also donned a pair of wire-rim half-circle spectacles, fitted with non-prescription glass. Herbie's eyesight is, if not exactly 20/20, then pretty good for his age. The glasses were the perfect touch: Herbie looked sixty, but tough with it; not to be fucked with.

The second time he arrived at seven-thirty.

The office was on the second floor of a four-storey building, in an area of Gdansk called Zabianka... Every day Agnieszka would have gotten on and off the bus from Brzezno and strolled among the tower blocks. Just inside the front door she would have shown her security pass to the guard behind the desk by the two elevators. Everybody who worked in the building had to do this; visitors had to sign a book and have someone from the relevant company (one company per floor) come collect them. The reason for this security was not the insurance firm on Floor 2, for which Agnieszka had worked. Nor was it the accountancy firm on the fourth. It was for the computer firm on the third floor, with its priceless machinery, its documents, its secrets.

Picture it. A building, watched by a couple of cops and a handful of freelance journalists with no better leads to go on, and somehow Herbie had to get in (without attracting suspicion), past the guard (without owning a pass), and then through the electronic doors across the vestibule from the elevators on each floor...

Before buying his new clothes, Herbie called the office in which Agnieszka had worked. He asked to speak to the manager, but when questioned about the nature of his call he was only allowed as far as the manager's secretary.

'I'm calling from Zano Cleaning,' he lied. 'We're a new company in Gdansk, specializing in office cleaning, and we've got some superb introductory offers...'

The secretary cut him off. 'I'm terribly sorry,' she said, 'all our cleaning is done by Isis Contract Cleaning, and as we're ten months into a contract with them and have nothing to complain about, we can't change now, I'm afraid. If you'd like to put your prices in writing I'll be sure to put them on file, and we'll think about you for next time.'

Herbie wondered how many times she had recited that speech. 'That's fine. Would you happen to know who does the other floors? I'd like to telephone them too.'

'Isis have the contract for the whole building, sir. They're hired by the building's proprietors, not the businesses.'

'I see; but I'd still like to cold call, so I'd really appreciate it if you could give me the names of some people high-up in the other companies...'

Herbie found a place that would loan him an electric typewriter. Though the contraption had been hired for the store's minimum leasing period of a week, Herbie only needed it for an hour.

At five-thirty he was in the parking lot – to the rear of Agnieszka's building – waiting by a car. Most of the drones had left.

A guy in a rumpled grey pinstripe number walked round the corner of the building and into the parking lot. Though his face was thin, pinched, tired, pale, he whistled a happy tune and playfully tossed his keys up and caught them. He glanced at Herbie. Herbie judged the slant of the guy's walk and guessed which vehicle he was heading toward. A Bug, with freckles of rust on the trimmings. No other car near it.

'Excuse me!' Herbie called from five meters away.

The worker slowed his pace buy did not stop. By way of response he raised his eyebrows.

'That your car? The VW?'

'Yeah,' I Americanize.

'I'm afraid I've got bad news for you.'

The guy stopped walking. He looked at our hero's brand new suit and the wrinkles on his face. 'What kind of bad news?'

'We've had a prang. I clipped your front fender with mine. I'm terribly sorry.'

Don't assume it's only in America liability must never be admitted; that culpability should be shunned like the plague. People don't apologize anywhere else either. The guy looked taken aback; he stared into Herbie's face, willing him to continue.

Herbie said, 'My first reaction was to panic. I drove away, I'm ashamed to say; but I couldn't stand what I've felt for the last half an hour, so I walked back here... As you can see, there doesn't seem to be anything broken.'

The man was down on his haunches, inspecting the fender with the stern eye of a forensics expert. Herbie produced a piece of paper from an inside pocket. 'Here.' Straightening up, the other man took the offering. 'My name, address, telephone number, signature and insurance company,' Herbie said. 'If you find there's been any damage, make a claim and I won't refute it. Perhaps I can have your details too?' As Herbie produced a fountain pen of black ink, the worker produced his business card.

Minutes later, Herbie walked away, leaving a Mr Romec Brzecki thinking maybe a claim might be a good way of making a few thousand zlotys.

Herbie took a tram back to Centrum, to the Hotel Hevelius. He sat down and fed in the sheet of paper he'd prepared earlier. In the space he had left he typed the following:

Romec Brzecki

Section Assistant Manager

Underneath which was the company and the building's address.

Herbie carefully tore around Brzecki's signature on the business card. He took a cab to the University library, which was open late and had a color photocopier. From the business card Herbie enlarged the company's red and black logo, and then Brzecki's fountain-penned signature. Then he xeroxed them both onto the letter he'd composed.

7.30 p.m. A return to the building, although this time Herbie walked right up to the front door and entered.

The guard was a large woman whose pulled-back hair revealed a widow's peak as sharp as an arrowhead and as black and grey as her uniform.

'Can I help you, sir?'

'Yes,' said Herbie, producing the letter. 'My name's Jurek Rawski. I'm from Isis Contract Cleaning; I'm here to pay a spot check on the cleaners working on the fourth floor, in the offices of Radzikowski, Perdeus, Konczak – Accountants. My invitation is from Romec Brzecki, on behalf of Rafal Ozorowski, the Manager.

The guard read the letter. 'I wasn't told anything about this,' she muttered.

The letter heading might not have been quite right, but how would she know that? Despite the woman's hesitation, Herbie felt confident. The letter heading had been enlarged, but not so that the cracks showed up in the red. The company's address, then, on the left, the address of Isis Contract Cleaning; then the letter about how Rafal Ozorowski wasn't happy with the cleaning standards in the office. The letter suggested a rep from Isis Contract Cleaning make an unannounced inspection one evening to ensure correct measures were in place. And then Brzecki's signature.

Herbie smiled. 'It's okay,' he told the guard, 'call up Mr Brzecki. He'll confirm it all.'

'I'm afraid Mr Brzecki went home a couple of hours ago, sir.'

'Well, if you'd care to accompany me so we could get this over and done with,' Herbie said, 'I'd certainly have no objections.'

'I can't leave my station.' The guard shifted. By allowing herself to be offered alternatives she undermined her own position. She had to show she was in charge.

Looking up from the letter she studied Herbie's eyes and crows' feet. 'As you've got a letter from Mr Brzecki, I'm sure I can allow you up.'

He was in. Nonetheless, Herbie knew the guard would watc the panel of numbers above the elevator doors light up one by one, so for her benefit he rode the car to the fourth floor. Herbie strolled down to the second, using the fire escape stairs. What he'd viewed as a problem – getting through the electric doors without a cardkey – proved no problem at all. The door was open. He didn't need to lie to cleaners to let him in: obviously they didn't share the company's concern for security. A bucket of suds propped open the door; a mop leaned against the wire-mesh glass of the door's window.

Finding Agnieszka's workstation was Herbie's next task.

Not an arduous one either. Herbie caused a stir by interrupting the cleaners; their chitchat died down at once. He was the fox in their free-range coop. All eyes followed him as he trod purposefully among the computer banks and filing cabinets. The floor was in a number of sections, one divided from the next by two meter-high boards. No doors... Herbie wondered among these snugs until the gossip from the domestics started up again, at which point he knew he was as good as invisible.

Reading the typed names and extension numbers beneath the shadowy transparent plastic on each phone was as difficult as finding Agnieszka's desk got. Within a few minutes he read the equivalent of: Extension 2204. Agnieszka Pull. He sat down on her swivel chair and cracked his knuckles.

The VDU beeped as he turned it on. The computer cleared its throat and the start-up program raced up the screen. Then up popped a question.

NAME?

With two prodding forefingers Herbie typed in Agnieszka's. He chose not to touch-type the entry in case there was a security clause on the program which would shut down the system if he missed a letter. He hit the Return key

PASSWORD?

He had given this thought. What he'd hoped for, on getting to her desk, was a clue. Not knowing enough about Agnieszka's life, Herbie found it hard to guess. Swiftly he investigated the desk's drawers.

Equipment. Herbie ferreted among boxes of staples, ink-punches, pencils and erasers. Sighing heavily to himself, he keyed in Agnieszka's road: a guess he deemed small potatoes. Without the benefit of guided inspiration he had nothing better to go on.

The machine beeped alarmingly. Herbie longed for her to have had a boyfriend in order to make the chase a more realistic proposition.

He had no notion someone was watching him.

## Chapter 4

1.

She was thirty, titanic, her face softly questioning. In her left hand was a feather duster; in her right a yellow cloth.

Herbie remembered who he was supposed to be. 'Can I help you?'

'I need to clean here.'

'I've been hired to investigate thefts in this building,' Herbie said. 'I don't suppose you know anything about what I'm talking about.'

'No.'

'I thought not. What if I told you everyone who works for this company is under investigation.' Herbie pointed to the nearest corner. 'There's a camera there, as you probably know. Over the last few months we've watched this area. Tell me truthfully...'

'I haven't done anything wrong.'

'Help me get the ones who have.'

After darting her head back and forth, the cleaning lady returned Herbie's attention. Time to face the music. Looking intermittently up to where the camera was supposed to be, the lady said, 'The only thing I've ever taken was waste paper.'

Herbie waited. His eyes, like heat on plastic, caused melting.

'It was in the basket,' the cleaning woman said. Emotion entered her words. 'How was I to know? I didn't do anything wrong. I was just...'

'Just what?' said Herbie.

'...Trying to help my teenage son. He wants to be a writer. He wants to be Ryszard Kapuscinski – but we're poor. His father died three years ago, he was a gambler. I'm still paying off the bastard's debts. I can't even afford paper for Maciej to type on. I took anything that wasn't too creased because they only use one side of the piece of paper. It's a waste. I thought I was doing my bit for the environment,' the cleaning woman said with a shrug.

'Did you stop to think some of those pieces of paper might have secrets on them,' said Herbie, automatically adjusting his offensive stance.

'I'm not interested in that sort of thing. I was getting paper for my son!' She paused. All she could think of was to reiterate the smallness of her crime. 'It was waste paper! Most of the sheets had only a few words on them. It would be worse to let all that good paper get thrown into the trash.'

Herbie stepped toward her. 'Does your son still live with you?' he asked.

'Yes.'

'I want to see the paper you stolen. Every single sheet; I don't care if I have to look at the back of your son's budding masterpiece. I want to see every bit of writing.'

Her name was Gosia and she lived in an area called Jasiem. You wouldn't call this district a moneybelt exactly, but it is out in the sticks, and more for a cleaner than I would have assumed possible. Herbie reckons her husband left her quite a sum.

Her son's name was Tomasz. Fifteen, and he'd made the decision he would be a writer, and there was nothing that could have talked him out of it. His room was a shrine to the god of paper. Quite apart from the books – mainly paperbacks, mainly damaged science fiction – on every inch of shelf-space were piles of A4. Attempted short stories and attempted novels.

What interested Herbie was the paper on his desk. Young Tomasz worked in longhand. He worked with a stack of sheets waiting for him, having crossed out in a single red-penned gash what had been printed on the reverse. He wrote in uneven lines of monstrous scrawl, but Herbie wasn't in a stranger's flat to criticize handwriting styles.

Herbie took hold of the papers and flipped them all over. One by one he read what had been crossed out. Luckily for him, Agnieszka was anything but frugal when it came to company budgets. Either that, or in her work she was simply a selfless perfectionist. Whatever: there were plenty of pages that to Herbie seemed fine, until he studied them more closely, whereupon he found a period had been missed out, or typed twice, or mis-hit to emerge as a comma.

Herbie's reading mainly consisted of paragraphs that disputed liability. We hold you responsible for. Please find enclosed a cheque for...

Then he found a personal letter, addressed to one Adam Malarz, disregarded and binned, as far as Herbie could tell, because of a typo in the Polish word for 'sauna'.

Herbie's pulse raced. It was obvious the letter had nothing to do with an insurance claim. Underneath her company's address was mine, neatly typed for a windowed envelope. And the text began Czesz.

In other words, in another language, it began Hi, Adam. And it went on to ask why I hadn't written in so long. Had I forgotten her 21st? What had I been doing recently? Was everything all right? In English, apart from the opening greeting.

There were two other drafts of the same letter; one draft of another letter entirely.

Herbie has shown me these pieces of paper.

International phone calls from Poland are clear, but they are expensive, and sometimes I am not an easy man to get hold of.

Herbie tried. Wasted several phone cards – at one hundred units or fifteen zlotys each – endeavoring to make contact with me. Herbie knew he had jumped the queue; but the police would get to me sooner or later. Agnieszka had used company time and resources to mail letters, and Herbie wouldn't be the only one to work it out.

He couldn't get through to me.

'I thought it was a conspiracy in its own right,' he told me in Monica's. We were on our fourth of fifth cup. Via donuts of varying flavours I had eaten enough sugar to keep me buzzing until dawn. I lit the last of my chain-smoked dozen. 'I've never met a man people are so fucking protective of. Spoken to prison governors on the phone easier than I could get to you.'

I joked. 'Are you telling me a prison governor is as important as me?'

Herbie did not take it in the lighthearted way I'd intended. Whole deal was as serious as cancer. 'Your everyday financial whizzkid is nowhere near as important as a prison governor,' he said. 'But you are not an everyday financial whizzkid. You're a mover and a shaker in this whole murder shebang.'

I couldn't tell you if Herbie had my unalloyed confidence at this point. I don't know when I sloughed off the remainder of my doubts. Maybe it wasn't so soon. All I can say is, the man sure as hell knew how to butter me up.

'This is my last smoke,' I announced. 'I should get some more.'

Herbie was swift to contradict me. 'What you should be quick to do is not get some more; but as you're gonna do it whether it's the right thing or not, I guess we should leave. I'll get the check.'

At a liquor store I bought a packet of Kents. We strolled through a neighbourhood I didn't know, Herbie as animated as a circus clown.

I reached a decision based on what my watch told me. 'It's late,' I said to Herbie. If memory serves, it was a shadow or two from midnight. 'Just for a second, let's say I believe this Twilight Zone bullshit. What do you expect me to do about it?'

'It's weird. Of all the difficulties I tried to imagine, I never considered you might not believe me.' By this point Herbie gone back to his East European accent, but every now and then a word was said in rock-solid Yankee. He ran a hand over his head. 'Look Adam, there's only a few things I can think of right now. One: Agnieszka got to New York and never found you. That's possible. The police might know that from a diary, if she kept one, but if your name's in a diary I'm surprised no one's wanted to talk to you yet. Agnieszka's parents can't have a clue who you are.'

'Well I haven't got a clue who they are, so maybe that's not so strange.'

Herbie wasn't listening. 'The other problem, if she did meet you, is why you can't remember it.'

'And what we're going to do about it,' I added.

Herbie nodded.

'I've gotta go,' I said after a pause. 'I'm a creature of habit. If I don't get seven hours' sleep my body's shot the next day.'

'Can I call you at work?'

'Why would you want to?'

He looked at me expectantly. 'You don't think we can let this rest do you?'

'That wasn't what I suggested.'

'I might need to call, that's all.'

'Fine. Say somebody recommended me. If I'm not available and whoever it is suggests a guy named Eoin McGarhen, say you've only heard bad things about the son of a bitch. Let's see if I can get some decent slander going.'

'If you gave me a couple of days, I could probably dig up something about him anyway,' Herbie stated. 'If you just want to blacken his name – no problem. We could call it my gesture of goodwill.'

At that point, standing face to face near the arch of a subterranean billiards den, my body freezing but buzzing with adrenalin, I was still sure Herbie was crazy; but I had stopped considering him dangerous. If anything, he was a drunken uncle who happens to tell a joke well. For a second I imagined McGarhen had set him up.

'Do you want me to?'

I bit the bullet. With a final suck on the cancer stick I nodded my head. I tossed the butt into a gloomy puddle. 'Do it. If you get me this promotion I'll get you some money off your taxes for the rest of your life.'

'What about the murder investigation?'

I nodded. 'Or I'll do that instead.'

2.

I didn't hear from Herbie for over a week. He was on my mind constantly – any time I thought of McGarhen. I wanted what he'd said to be true; I wanted there to have been a murder in Gdansk, if that made greater the likelihood of Herbie digging up the dirt on McGarhen... As the days died away though, I felt less and less sure. Not once did it occur to me to be worried about him; in a selfish haze, all I wanted was Herbie to get back to me so I could go about ruining McGarhen's promotion chances.

Then he called at three o' clock in the morning.

'I was beginning to think you're a crackpot,' I told him.

'What makes you think I'm not? Do you need a few minutes to wake up?'

I glanced at the clock. 'Are you on Leningrad time or something? You'll have a reason for calling me so late, I presume. Where you been?'

The reply surprised me. 'Baltimore. Ever been there?'

'No I haven't.'

'Yes you have. Have you ever been to Baltimore?'

'No, I haven't.'

'Yes you have,' said Herbie. 'Have you ever been to Baltimore?'

'Okay, man, I've been there. I was born there. That what you wanna hear?'

'No you weren't. Can we meet?'

'It's three o' clock in the morning.' Tell the truth, I was a little pissed. I heard a woman's gentle mutter, and I wondered where Herbie was calling from.

'Ain't this the city that never sleeps? I wouldn't ask you if it wasn't important.'

'There's nothing can't wait till tomorrow,' I stated. Then I had second thoughts. 'Have you found out something about McGarhen?'

'Not over the phone I haven't.'

'Don't tease me, Herbert.'

He chuckled. 'I might as well tell you right now. The real name's Theo.'

'I beg your pardon.'

'I just told you Herbert until I was sure about you.'

'I'm going to put the phone down.'

Herbie's voice turned a little mean. 'Okay. Then you're gonna put on your overcoat and meet me.'

'Where? Your place?' He'd given me his temporary address. I hadn't given mine.

'No; that place where we were before.'

'The coffee shop on--'

'Don't say it, Adam!' Herbie shouted. His voice returned to normal – or at least to normal American. 'Don't say anything over the phone. Get a cab.'

'Are you there already?'

The line went dead.

Humming to myself while I considered what to do, I sat on the edge of my bed, on the electric blanket, and pulled on a pair of thermal longjohns. It was cold enough in the middle of the day; in the wee wee hours it would be freezing.

I would go: I had already made that decision. My head swam; I had gone to bed on a belly full of booze, as usual, but even in my state I knew I had to liaise with Herbie, or Theo. I dressed as quickly as I could, and left the apartment, extremely nervous.

Stepping out of my building, I had a strong doubt. What the hell was I doing? Those moments on that sidewalk were the coldest moments I have ever spent. The wind was actually painful: not only to the parts of my skin it could touch but to my entire body. It woke me up once and for all, if nothing else.

Get a cab, Herbie had said. No shit. Like I was going to get on the subway in the middle of the night. I should have phoned for one back in the apartment. As I was about to go up to do so, the lights and sound of a vehicle drew nearer.

When the cab had pulled up alongside me, the door opened and a woman's leg reached out. It was shapely, that leg, the shin and calf trussed in the leather crisscrossed webbing of a pointed-heeled black boot.

Only one type of woman gets out of a New York cab in the middle of a winter's night, wearing stilettos and a mini-skirt. She smiled at me as she slipped a purse strap on to her shoulder; her full brown lips pulled back from a dazzling vista of white teeth. Her coat came down to her waist, but was open to reveal a thin red blouse, beneath which a large unsupported chest strained. As she started to walk off, the high heels clicking, her rump as heavy and immovable as a jeep's front fender, I wondered how much she had just cost the guy on the back seat. Furthermore I wondered how she could seem so confident, when I, truthfully, was petrified.

'Get in,' I heard.

Bending at the waist I looked in. You've guessed it.

'Get in,' he said again.

When I'd done so, the car pulled off. The driver already knew where to take us. 'Jesus, Herbie, what's with the secrecy act?'

'It's not an act. Your phone's being tapped,' Herbie said.

I didn't want to believe it. 'Who by?'

'Whoever it is trying to cover up a girl's murder, I guess.'

'By the way,' I remembered, 'do I call you Herbie or Theo?'

'Herbie to my face; Theo on the off-chance I call you again on that line.'

'...You're serious, aren't you.' Apart from anything else, his American accent was dripping away like a melting candle.

He didn't answer; there was no need to. For half a block we rode in silence. I caught the cabbie's eyes in the mirror. After he looked away I did, my gaze falling gradually, inexorably to the NO SMOKING sticker above the meter. I saw the driver's permit: in its transparent stocky sheath, the photograph of the suspect smile; the name; the detached lower case letters of his infantile signature – as though he'd recently learned to write in our alphabet, if indeed he had.

Leaning forward I said, 'Hey, Mahmoud. You don't really mind if I smoke do you? That's just a company thing, stop people putting burn-holes in your upholstery. If I light a cigarette, you won't complain, will you? I'll even offer you one.'

'Go ahead – smoke,' said Herbie. 'I've given this guy a hundred bucks. He doesn't care if you start to mutilate yourself with a razor.'

I stared at Herbie for a full ten seconds. He smiled. 'Though I might have something to say if you get any blood on me...'

I reached for my pack and a lighter. There was something about the moment that made me doubt, again, Herbie was lying. I offered one to the cabbie anyway. With relief, it seemed, he accepted, nodding his head.

When I'd exhaled I said, 'Explain.'

'Have you ever been to Baltimore?' Herbie asked.

'Fuck you. Explain.'

'Have you ever been to Baltimore?'

'No.'

'Tell me the truth. Have you ever been to Baltimore?'

I paused. Tingling apprehension made its way through my muscles. 'Do you know something I don't know?' I asked him.

'Have you ever been to Baltimore?' he said.

Uncertainly I answered, 'Yes.'

'Have you?'

'Yes,' I said with more confidence.

Herbie nodded. 'Do you see what happened there? I asked a question a few times over and I got you to change your mind. Do you regard yourself as a gullible man?'

'Why, what do you think I've fallen for?' I gave him no chance to respond. 'Look Herbie, enough of the riddles; just tell me what's going on. Who was that woman?'

Herbie remained amused. 'Prostitute. I needed a reason to be near your apartment building, in case anyone was watching. A blow-job in the back of a cab was that reason.'

I drew hard on my cigarette. In a tone of warning I said to Herbie, 'The full story.'

We sat down again in the all-night bistro called Monica's, near the Staten Island Ferry landing; ordered coffee and pie. 3.30: I had to be up for work in four hours.

Herbie had not given me his real address after all, last time. He'd tested me. Under the name of Lenny Bird he had rented the address he'd given me, and had bugged it, but he was actually staying in a modest room across the street. With his bag of clothes and his new acquisitions: a pair of binoculars and a cellular phone.

For a day Herbie watched the apartment he had told me about. He hadn't trusted me; or hadn't trusted the people who controlled me. Nothing happened. No one went to see him, least of all me. For a day: no knocks at his door, no rifling through the woodwormed cabinets. Herbie concluded I could not have reported him. He started to watch me instead. While the sound-activated tape-recorder in his second apartment stood by to capture any noises in the first, Herbie got himself into my little hutch: Apartment 26. Even for Herbie, the way he did so was a gem.

Telling Mike the doorman he'd been hired as a Baldygram from a place in the Village called Partygrams, was a masterstroke. When Mike expressed a lack of empathic feeling, Herbie's performance was nothing shy of genius. He embarrassed him. With a flourishing flick-back of the head, Herbie wrenched open his shirt – a denim number with poppers for buttons – and revealed a caveman's furry leotard he had hired in the Village.

'Do you want me to do my act?' he inquired with a petulant pucker of the lips.

Mike said something like, 'That sure don't sound like Mr Malarz-' which I guess I'm glad to hear. Then he let Herbie in.

Mincing toward the elevators, Herbie heard a question about how he was supposed to get into my apartment. (Mike kept a notebook on his desk, a detailed record of who was in the building, who had left, but also the times of people's comings and goings. It must have whiled away the hours – he was working more than ever since Arthur Green, the other guard, an old guy, had started having problems with his hearing and his sinuses.) Herbie waved a key at Mike and told him not to worry. Those who had hired him for the gig had made sure he was prepared.

Herbie said he was sure no one was tailing me at this point; I was damned if I knew why anyone should be. Therefore, it was with confidence he had entered my apartment block. While watching me he had also watched to see if anyone else followed me, or watched my apartment.

It sounded way paranoid.

Getting into my apartment was a cinch. Herbie used a skeleton key and remained perfectly calm as he broke and entered. I never even knew he was there. When he told me what he'd done I said, 'Christ Herbie, you should've been a thief.'

He coughed as I accidentally leaked smoke into his face. 'Not in it for the money.'

'Tell me more.'

He put on music – to cover the sounds he made. The rooms might've been bugged. They weren't. Herbie executed a genteel ransack. Stopping short of knifing open my throw-cushions, he nevertheless moved furniture, opened drawers, stood on chairs, checked out light fittings. With a screwdriver the size of a hairpin, Herbie took my phone set to pieces, intending to put a bug in there. One had already been implanted.

I got a refill. I stared at the pecan pie crumbs on the plate in front of me. As though my life depended on it, I drew on my latest link in the evening's chain of cigarettes. Nothing I could say. I listened to two old-timers behind me talk about a friend of theirs who had died. In my fingers and thighs, a subcutaneous bristling feeling, as though my limbs were full of ants trying to make it to the surface of the skin.

'What about the phone call tonight?' I said.

'We have to wait here a bit longer,' Herbie replied.

'Why?'

'Our man hasn't arrived.'

'What man?'

'The one going to help us. Just be patient; I'll explain everything.'

'That's easy for you to say!' My voice was too loud; with effort I pulled it down again, like a kite on a long string in a high wind. Fingers twitching I finished my smoke and pulled from the swiftly-emptying packet a new one.

## Chapter 5

1.

The idea came to Herbie fully formed the day after he'd been in my apartment. (Incidentally, Mike didn't mention my visitor.)

Herbie wanted an evening off. If you can't let your hair down in New York you might as well not have any (which neither of us do). Coins jingling, Herbie went out to feel the pulse. He had a couple of beers, then strolled 42nd Street, windowshopping for later on. To a tiny Korean girl he said, 'I'll be back here at eleven. If you're still here I want you. First I'll get something to eat and see a show.' He ate tacos deciding on his viewing matter. He found a very small theatre, Dante's-off-Broadway. At the door he paid five bucks and left his coat with a large black woman reading a UFO magazine.

Down the stairs it was dark, and red in the neon hues of brothel lights and am-dram presentations of Hell. Twenty people in the audience, at least half of them sitting singly at circular tables. A round of applause sounded sketchy and sarcastic.

Herbie sat a table near the exit. He saw in the gloom that most people drank from tall glasses. A thin waitress with earrings that looked like bullets on chains sauntered over with her tray, which she carried like a shield. 'What'll it be, sweets?' she asked quietly so as not to interrupt the guy on the stage.

'What's everyone else having? The tall glasses?'

'Swamp Fever; a house specialty.' She looked tired and trapped; her voice was airy and educated.

'What's in it?'

'Bourbon, black rum, some vodka I think. Fruit juices.'

'Sounds awful. I'll give it a try.'

Herbie watched the guy on the small stage: a magic act. In tux and top hat, the Armenian giant seemed to be winding up to something special, if the excitement in his voice was anything to go by. On stage with him was the customary paraphernalia: the detritus of tricks already passed, the promise of those still to come.

By the time Herbie approached the glass's bottom, where the liquor was richer, less touched by fruity essences, the magician was gone, his last cloud of exploded confetti descending. His replacement was the compere – an act in his own right named Marcel Cliché. His routine involved parodying the type of entertainer found in places where fun-loving oldies pay for the meal, not the cabaret. Overweight Cliché wore a jacket of shiny golden sequins (made of radioactive plasma); an obvious toupee, and a pencil-line moustache. He said things like, 'Thank you, New York, you're beautiful...'

He introduced an escapologist called Floyd Acclune.

On to the stage they sprang: Floyd and his lovely assistant Analiese. She doesn't help him with all his performances but she does sometimes. Their smiles were wide and identical. They bowed to the clapping; they opened their torture trunk on its gleaming wheels. Soft music filtered out. Together they dragged free the straitjacket and the lengths of clanking chains...

He was good, Herbie said. I've seen him since, and he is good. As well as wielding extraordinary skill at manipulating locks, to be a good escapologist you need great physical strength. Floyd, however, did not give Herbie the inspiration.

The name was Somtow Chai; a hypnotist. To great applause for an audience of twenty, Chai bounded on stage with Peggy Lee's 'Fever' cranked up. He looked Oriental but spoke with an American accent. He had a Mekon forehead and deeply etched lines.

'You've been hypnotized,' Herbie said. 'You can't remember Agnieszka because you've had other memories painted on top. Deep down you know her; we've just got to strip off the new coat of paint.'

I knew enough about Herbie to feel confident issuing my next statement. 'You've asked Somtow Chai to meet us here, haven't you?'

He nodded.

'How much have you paid him?'

'A hundred.'

My worries had nothing to do with Herbie's expenditure. 4 a.m. and I was wired as an LA cop, the sugary pies and coffee having done what they're supposed to do. Scared, too; my own head kept secrets from me; someone had paid someone else to make my head turn traitor.

Herbie glanced away. 'Talk of the Devil,' he said. 'Here's Chai now.'

Suffering for your art is something I'd never thought much of before. One look at the place where Chai lived told me he did what he did for the love of it, not the money.

Chinatown was deserted. The narrow streets were racetracks for polystyrene and plastic food containers, blown by the wind. Light rain had started to fall.

The dripping stairs of the walk-up... Merrily a cockroach scuttled along the peeling wall as we ascended, trying to keep up. The three of us entered the apartment. For one or two people it would not have been cramped; but there were representatives of three generations of Chinese, lying on futons, or sitting up brightly button-eyed. A very old man had the couch, snoring gently. A baby in a white towel slept on its mother's flat belly and small breasts. A refugee camp.

A woman of about Chai's age, forty, stood up. Briefly, in a hiss, they conversed. Then Chai said, 'The bathroom is the only place. All ready. This is my wife, Soon.'

In the bathroom I sat on a wooden chair, shaking. Having had my wrists slapped for nearly lighting up a cigarette, I gratefully sucked on the tip of the pipe Soon had prepared and lit for me. The smoke was orange-flavoured and went straight to my head in a wavy cranial massage.

'Relax,' said Chai.

I'd anticipated this command ; also not being able to obey it.

Herbie turned on the dictaphone. Not pausing my inhalations for a second I asked, 'What am I smoking? Dope?'

Chai shook his head. In an explanation as terse as I ever heard him utter, he sounded like he poked fun at his own people. 'Chinese. Herbal. Natural.'

I imagined I'd caused offence but I didn't much care.

'A mild soporific,' he explained. 'Does not shut down part of your brain; finds your stress and wipes it out like an eraser.'

'Sounds good to me,' I said.

Chai bent over. 'Look deep into my eyes,' he began; that's all I can remember.

7:15. Having been in a trance for one hundred and eighty minutes, I had, it seemed, talked like billy-o. When Chai brought me out I wanted more of that orange-flavoured smoke, but I felt relaxed, composed, as though I'd slept.

Standing up I said to Herbie, 'I want to hear the tape.'

So well had I been programmed, in my trance I lied to Herbie and Chai. Like a faithful obedient robot, I protected my brain-washers. At first I insisted (in a flat, Boris-Karloff-as-the-monster voice) that I, Adam Malarz, was employed as a Senior Finance Adviser and knew of no Agnieszka Pull. I talked about my daily routine and how I was lonely; stated I had never been to a hypnotist – that's what I'd been conditioned to believe. For my observers in that tiny bathroom it was like searching for a particular computer file. They clicked on icon after icon.

Chai took me deeper; he told me to disregard any previous instructions.

'You haven't told me the password,' I said.

Herbie whispered, 'We have to give a password to get to his memory?'

'These guys were thorough. I don't know if I can do this.'

'You can do it.'

'They might've put in a shutdown mechanism,' Chai said. 'Three tries, you know, the brain wipes itself clean. Or short circuit. I never come across nothing like this.'

'You can do it,' Herbie repeated.

Chai paused. 'What sort of shit has he got in there?'

'That's what we're trying to find out.'

'No. What sort of shit? Has he seen something he shouldn't've seen?'

'Possibly. It's to do with a murder.'

''Whose?'

'A young woman in Poland.'

'Famous?'

'No. Mr Chai, I really haven't got time for this. Adam has to go to work as usual, or people will talk. We have to finish up here, then you have to tell him he won't be tired all day and won't remember any of this and will do his job correctly. Then you have to protect the information we've learnt tonight. So really, we can't afford to fuck around.'

Considering this took a second. Chai addressed the living dead on the wooden chair. 'I do not need a password,' he said. 'You want to tell me what you know.'

'You need the password.'

'I do not need a password. You will forget the password ever existed. Tell me what happened before you were told what to think.'

'You haven't said the password.'

'Why didn't that work?' Herbie asked.

'Whoever did this took out insurance on someone like me ever wanting to get what's inside his head. There's dynamite in there; and they've convinced him not to reply to anyone trying to talk him out of there being a password.'

Herbie asked, 'Are we fucked?'

Chai smiled. 'Semi-fucked. Let's try something else... Adam? I am the man who gave you these instructions.'

'Identify yourself,' I said.

'No, Adam, you will identify me. Who am I?'

'You're Mr X.'

Chai to Herbie: 'Three-quarters fucked.' He coughed. 'Adam, you've done everything we asked you to do. Congratulations. You can drop your guard now. We're all friends here... We'd like you to arrange for someone else to be killed...'

'Someone else?'

'Yes. Like Agnieszka Pull.'

'I don't know anyone called Agnieszka Pull.'

'She was the girl from Poland. She came to see you. You arranged for her to be killed. Do you remember that?'

'No.'

'Who arranged it then?'

'... You haven't said the password,' I told him.

'Does he know or not?' Herbie whispered.

'Impossible to say. I can't think of anything else to try.'

'I won't accept one hundred per cent fucked.'

'You might have to. He's tight as a nun's cloister. They got him good.'

'Tell him he's Mr X. Ask him what he saw.'

That didn't work either. I repeated my name and what I did for a living.

Herbie said, 'You know what we're doing wrong? We're trying to jump over the castle walls when we really need to break the motherfuckers down. We don't need a catapult; we need a ball and chain.'

'What do you suggest?' asked Chai.

'Frighten him. Tell him I'm a monster the size of Manhattan. No, tell him Manhattan is a monster and only he knows. He can't stay in his apartment because that's the monster's heart, it's too hot, and there's so much blood in the air he can hardly breathe. The streets are the monster's veins; every step he takes makes him more frightened, more paranoid. Everyone's talking about him. He'll never sleep again.'

Have you ever heard yourself scream? Really let it all out and scream? I woke five people after panting my way up to that lung-shaker.

Chai knew what to do. 'There's only one way to kill the monster, Adam. Go back to how you were before you knew Mr X.'

'I can't.'

'It's the only way. It's breathing in your ear, Adam; it'll eat you up. There is no password. Say it.'

'There is no password,' I repeated.

'There is no password,' Chai said.

'No... password...'

'No password!' Chai had reached fever-pitch. 'Do you know Agnieszka Pull?'

'No.'

'Do you know Agnieszka Pull?'

'Yes.' In my sleep I started crying.

2.

Corruption; corruption by the bucket load. If corruption was a commodity, New York would buy low and sell high... and then we'd welch on any deal we didn't like. Go sue.

Having lived in Manhattan nearly all of my life, I was sure of its faults and insecurities.

One thing I could never have seen, however: it seems I was involved in some corruption of my own.

I can't tell you how I felt when I learnt of my part. Sick does not do the sensation justice. I feel better about it now, but not much.

I will make this city embarrassed; make the blood rise to the skin and burn with shame. The scum will come up too. The boiling bomb of Manhattan is ready to explode with remarkable and unexpected power.

Paradoxically I am one of the people safe at the moment of detonation.

3.

First approached to hear the idea at some party, I awoke the next morning thinking I'd drunk too much and I'd dreamt it.

I can see it all now, here at my desk in Little Italy. I know my real past, but as far as 'they' know, all I recall is what they gave me.

After I'd heard the tape, I agreed to be put under again. Chai gave me a form of post-hypnotic suggestion. I would remember all I'd said, but I would not be afraid. I'd be calm. I'd get a cab to my apartment and get ready for work; I would not be tired. On meeting people from the conspiracy at work, I would be the greatest actor; no one would suspect what I knew about them.

If I was hypnotized by anyone other than Chai, I would become another person: someone strikingly similar to the guy I'd been when Herbie found me. With no knowledge of my knowledge, as it were. Give no reason for anyone to be suspicious. The password would remain the same, but Chai's spell to reset the previous hypnotic parameters does not have a password of its own. It's unnoticeable. If anyone asked me about being hypnotized, while I was already under, I would deny it believably. Only fully awake would I remember everything.

Herbie's phone call had to be explained. 'Tried to call you real early this morning,' said a jovial Eoin McGarhen, as he perched his butt on the corner of my desk. Under other conditions I would have believed this. Get to my position of reasonable respectability and you're going to get work calls at home – and Eoin and I were still competing; we'd occasionally see how confident the other felt.

However, Eoin was part of the conspiracy. He'd been asked to ask me.

'Had the weirdest night,' I said, carefully laying down my fountain pen. 'This guy has been hassling me, okay. His name's Herbie – except it isn't. Sometimes, as of last night, he likes to be Theo.'

'Hassling you how?'

'I think he must be one of my old clients, though God knows I can't remember the fucker. He writes me here one day, calling me all the names under the sun. I trashed it. He wrote again. You know – just one of your everyday Average Joe wackoes, I'm thinking. Don't prompt him, blah blah blah... Well, he writes again...'

Mail went unopened to the addressed party. No one would have any idea what I received on any day. By contrast, who could tell how much personal mail didn't make it to my hands?

'Why's he pissed?'

'Says I could've saved him more money than I did. According to him, I didn't try. So I decide, best think to do is show friendship, not be frightened... You won't tell anyone this, will you?'

'Lips are sealed,' said McGarhen.

'Well, we spoke on the phone a couple times – a pay phone. He wrote me where to be at what time. Don't ask me what possessed me to go, but I went. The guy's a real schizo. Then last night he calls me at home. So I gotta be cool, right? God knows how he got my number but I can't let him hear I'm scared. I'm like, "Where you been?" All this... He gives me this routine about going to Baltimore, and have I ever been there; and I can't call him Herbie anymore; he's got it into his head my phone's tapped.

'Then he asks me to meet him.'

'Tell me you didn't go,' McGarhen said.

'I went. Hell, I met him before last night – in a coffee shop, in the Village. I decided to humor him. I felt like some Studley Dudley trying to bring about the end of an affair. I was determined to tell the bastard: no more.'

'And did you?'

'I guess so. Time will tell.'

McGarhen approached the door. Grin on his face he turned to me. 'Just wish I had your balls,' he said, slowly shaking his head. He left.

I'd be tested and probed; they would find out I believed the lie I'd given.

'I bet you do,' I whispered.

4.

The first time I took cocaine I immediately thought I'd taken too much, although the line had been cut and arranged by a seasoned pro. That it went straight to my head is probably no surprise to anyone; but it seemed, that time, to go further: having sniffed what I sniffed, my scalp started wriggling like the plastic cover over a pool. My brain shrank; I was going to die...

Turns out, that's pretty much the way you're supposed to feel.

Therefore, I was high when they asked me to do it.

Yes: the very same party. My first try of coke, and the offer I couldn't refuse.

I stood by a full-sized suit of armour. On coke I was hyper; on champagne I felt heavy – as though I wore that suit of armour.

I was talking to none other than Matthew Carreras, the ailing Mayor of New York. Conversing with a Mayor is no big deal. Especially not if you have a personality like mine: two parts grovelling insincerity, to one part admiration.

'Would you like to help us with something?' said Carreras.

'Tell me about your family, Adam,' he had said earlier on. He must have sensed my second of suspicion. He went on quickly: 'I mean, these functions are to break down barriers, are they not? To show we're not only robots in offices.'

Ostensibly none of us was present to talk business. It was certainly the case that though I knew as much about Carreras as I ever needed to know (I had read both of the school-of-rock-journalism biographies) – he didn't know much about me.

'There's not much to tell,' I said. 'Mom was a seamstress; she worked on an old-fashioned sewing machine in the kitchen, in bad light. She ate my sister and I's leftovers for her evening meal. We didn't know that. When we got in from school she'd say she already had something. Some nights she didn't eat. Dad left us when I was seven. Mom used to say he ran away to join the circus but the circus didn't want him. She never spoke about what really happened to make him go. He wrapped his car around a telegraph pole in the middle of the night, in Nebraska. Driving with his lights off. Mom went to his funeral but Michelle and I didn't hear about it till much later. I was fourteen and Michelle was thirteen when he died... Or killed himself. We'll never know.

'Mom told me she had cancer when I was in my second year at university; when it was too late to do anything about it. She'd had it for a year, in the breast. She had chemo on the sly; she didn't want to worry us. Next time I went back (Thanksgiving, ironically) she wore a wig. I didn't want to mention it, but it looked ridiculous. It had taken a long time for her hair to fall out, and I think if the therapy hadn't made her go bald she'd have pretended nothing was wrong. Her skin looked good, she'd always been small...

'She died in hospital. On pain-killers. Delirious.

'I got into my studies while Michelle got into drink. She worked in a Piggly Wiggly, bagging groceries. Staff discount on Dorito Chips and Ballantines: all she lived on. Her boyfriend did body-piercing. He's still around somewhere. He was okay.'

I stopped. Carreras broke the silence. 'That's one of the saddest stories I ever heard,' he said. 'You're a very brave man, to have gone on to your level of success...'

I interrupted. 'I'm hardly King of America, Matt.'

'Neither am I,' he replied. 'But you know... When I was a kid, people thought I was a loser, but do you know what a loser is? Not somebody born with nothing who ends up with nothing: that's average. A loser is either someone born with nothing who lets despair dig his hole deeper and deeper; or someone who has a planet to himself and then fucks and fritters it away. Me, I built a city out of dust. Does that sound arrogant?'

'Only a bit.'

'We're winners, you and I, Adam. Don't forget it.'

'I won't.'

'The question is, do you want to win more?'

They chose me because I had no family; no one to be suspicious of my moves. It wasn't they feared I would tell someone: the therapy I received saw to that. I forgot everything. Not having anyone close to me meant there was no one to question me at the end of the day. But no one banked on Agnieszka Pull.

It all took place at my apartment. Floyd and Analiese would visit (sometimes together, sometimes singly) a couple of times a week; usually evenings. Then it was up to me to brainwash them.

Part of my day-job was to visit offices. Even though at the time I had yet to achieve my Senior status, I was still a hot shit, as Spencer Thorne would say. If the client was important enough – if the circumstances suited it – I would travel away from my desk, to sit at someone else's for an hour or two.

I walked into offices the way some people enter stately homes: with reverence, gauging my place in the world by noting what I had yet to achieve, or earn. Ambition, in those days, was the acquisition of an enormous desk, a beautiful secretary, and leather-bound volumes on groaning shelves.

...Under the guise of working, I was taught the art of cerebral seduction. My trainer was a man known only as Mr X. In the office of a would-be corporate climber named Fishburn I learnt how I'd screw up the Acclunes.

Then I was to forget everything I'd gathered.

Mr X told me Floyd and Analiese Acclune were involved in an accident – a bomb blast at a cash dispenser near a West Side hotel. According to my information, they had lost their memories and I had to replace them; to teach them about themselves.

So Floyd had been born in Harlem; Analiese had been born in Indiana.

I repeat: they hadn't considered Agnieszka.

Between my first meeting with Herbie and my second he had not really been to Baltimore: that had been for the benefit of anyone listening. He'd been around New York, doing what checking he could on me – and on Eoin McGarhen.

By sheer coincidence (I think) we had attended the same university, though he graduated the year before I did.

Was he being brainwashed too? I suspect so.

For a year I told Floyd and Analiese utter lies about their combined history. I don't know what they were like before I met them; even once the key to my thoughts had been turned by Chai, that fact remained hidden. Of course, I had never known. What did they have in their heads that was so important for the electorate of New York to disguise?

## Chapter 6

##

1.

Having taken elaborate precautions, I sat in a booth – a coffee shop, uptown. Herbie was already there. Two days had passed since the events in Chai's john. Eight p.m.

Herbie grinned. When I sat down he said, 'They know something about Carreras – Floyd and Analiese do.'

Coffee waited for me. Though I fancied something stronger, I sipped it. Listening to Herbie, I lit up a cigarette.

'They're being made to forget something,' he said. 'Something'll blow this city sky-high; and going by the measures they've taken, we're looking at more than a sex scandal.'

'So what's our next move?' I asked.

'We've got to get Chai to open Floyd and Analiese. Find out what they were.'

'Maybe they won't want to be opened up.'

'I don't give a fuck what they want.'

Herbie and I went out one evening: to the theatre. The same one Herbie had gone to before: Dante's-off-Broadway. Red lights, small stage; waitresses with attitude problems... and the same bill. On he came – Marcel Cliché: tuxedoed, fat, cracking his microphone cord like a whip. Snapping his fingers, he dragged a voice that was camply lazy through 'New York, New York...'

There was something about that line – 'I want to wake up in a city that never sleeps' – that got to me. I felt paranoid. I had just woken up and there were eyes on me.

When Floyd came on, both Herbie and I applauded warmly. In his allotted time he escaped from a milk churn (inspected by Herbie himself for hidden compartments or keys) and then from a chained-up sack, having been swaddled in thick ropes.

Marcel Cliché introduced the next act – a comedienne.

Herbie and I got to our feet and left our glasses of Swamp Fever on the table. 'Find the backstage exit, if there is one,' Herbie said into my ear. 'If Floyd tries to leave, stall him.'

'How?'

'Get his autograph. Suck his dick. I don't care. I'm gonna see if I can get behind the scenes.'

'Good luck.'

I left a five on the table though we'd already paid and tipped. I stepped outside into the cold. Rubbing my hands together I jogged to the end of the block and turned left; passed a wino who told me it was good to see me again. I looked for an alley that would run behind the theatre, parallel to the road it was on.

I found it. You would not say it looked like a sensible move to go down it, but down it I had to go. Pitch-black and somehow warm with vapors it was. Alleys are exempt from the seasons – at least at night. No snow lay on the floor, but my feet splashed through the inevitable puddles. It stank to high heaven; every garbage dumpster I slalomed past breathed out its poisonous fumes. I would have pinched my nostrils closed if I didn't need my hands out in front of me to get through the assault course. Though I didn't bark my shins I got them wet as drains vomited out jets of hot water, and wet flaps of cardboard reached for my pants like thorns.

How the hell was I supposed to find the stage door? The alley was so dark and scary there weren't even tramps.

Herbie, meanwhile, had met a bouncer.

'I just want to interview him.'

'Press pass?'

One of those places on 52nd that produces fake i.d. and t-shirt prints had risen to the challenge of manufacturing a press pass. Herbie flipped open his leather wallet. His name was now Paul Lewis.

'What paper?'

'Village Voice,' said Herbie.

The bouncer spelt his own name. 'In case you wanna put me in too.'

Then he let Herbie through.

So picture this. I'm freezing my ass off in a wind tunnel downtown – stamping on the ground to try to get warm, but trying to stamp quietly so's not to attract attention – with the occasional rat gnawing away at some crap in a gutter, and with a fear of gangs building inside me with every distant siren or shout I hear...

And Herbie's sipping coffee in a dressing room.

He charmed his way in. 'I'm researching an article on night-club entertainers in Manhattan, and I've gotta say, what I just saw...' That sort of thing. Floyd agreed to the interview quickly enough.

Herbie knew what I had programmed Floyd to be: a neurotic wreck. There was no point in coming right out with it: you've been made to believe all the things you believe. He would have shouted for a bouncer right away. Herbie had to get him somewhere that Chai – or even I – could get him into a trance.

Floyd did not react well to Herbie's suggestion of relocating the interview to other surroundings. What was wrong with where they were? Floyd had no intention of allowing a stranger anywhere near his home. In that case, would Floyd permit a follow-up interview – and a photographer to come along too?

'Give me a number,' Floyd said. 'I'll get back to you.'

Herbie turned off the dictaphone and took a small jotter pad from his back pocket. He wrote his pseudonym on a sheet of paper, then his phone number. Floyd wouldn't try to investigate.

Then Herbie rescued me from the alley.

2.

How high would it go?

If the Mayor of New York had gotten me involved, who had gotten the Mayor involved? The President?

A theory. If I controlled the Acclunes, and someone controlled me, I was like a military man with a platoon to command. If a sergeant could brainwash his men into fighting till the battle was won, there'd be no battle fatigue, fear, no Gulf War Syndrome. No complaints.

I explained to Herbie: 'It's an army experiment: they're creating the perfect army.'

Herbie raised an eyebrow and blinked through the curtain of smoke between us. 'An accountant and an escapologist is a perfect army?'

'We're just guinea pigs see if it works,' I said.

Herbie's way is to let people down lightly. 'I'm not saying you're wrong – but I think there're other issues here. Why Floyd and Analiese, for example? We know where they think they were brought up, but where were they really brought up? Who are they? If I could get into their heads and strip away the lies...'

'We have to find out who gave the idea to Matthew Carreras too,' I said.

'You've read his life,' Herbie replied. 'Who might it be?'

I drank the cold remains of my coffee. 'Two biographies I've read and I can't be sure of either of them. What if Carreras has been tampered with? Sure as hell we're not gonna get near him to get into his head. Even if we did, can you imagine the security round his thoughts?'

Herbie nodded. 'With Carreras we haven't got long anyway. News tonight said he's knocking on heaven's door. Problems with his blood.'

'I heard.' Herbie counted out some ones for the tip. I went on: 'Blood's the thing. I tell Floyd to go to the blood bank every three months and Analiese to whine about him doing it. Why? Don't tell me it's just to add some depth to their lives...'

'Maybe he's got good blood. Rare.'

'Or bad,' I added.

'They wouldn't take bad blood would they?'

'Wouldn't use it. Gets tested for Aids and Hepatitis. If it's bad it's thrown away.'

'Where?'

'You've got a twinkle in your eye. If a donation don't provide enough blood, or if there's no anti-coagulant in it, it can be used for research; but if it tests positive – incinerated. What are you thinking of?'

'I don't know. I'm seeing a room full of bags of contaminated blood.'

'Who's in the room?'

'Shall we go for a walk,' he said.

At the heart of Greenwich Village, we stopped by Washington Arch. As I looked out across the Square, Herbie glanced back up Fifth Avenue. 'Do you know,' I said, 'this place used to be a potter's field for victims of the plague. Used to be public executions.'

Herbie looked at me. 'There's something awful and poignant about that,' he replied. 'A plague; murders.'

'I guess so... Wish it was summer.'

'Adam? We have to get a sample of Floyd's blood.'

'Had a feeling you were gonna say that.'

3.

Two months passed. Herbie was careful not to hassle Floyd; he'd show up to a performance every few weeks, nothing more. When asked if Herbie might instead talk to Floyd's agent, Floyd replied he managed himself. Herbie could not get close; instead of Floyd growing less suspicious, he grew ever more guarded and thorny. Floyd would speak to Herbie and the dictaphone in a dressing-room or backstage – but that was as far as the relationship went.

If hypnotizing the guy seemed unlikely, getting blood from him was reaching for the moon. Analiese – on the rare occasions he saw here – was the same.

Herbie and I were nervous about the idea of me trying. Maybe one of the couple would recognize me. And if my phone was tapped, maybe their apartment was; maybe I was being watched, maybe they were...

A lot of maybes.

## Chapter 7

1.

I dressed in a dark green suit and slicked my hair back with too much wax. I'd shaved, and had polished my black shoes. Now I waited, with a gin and tonic.

I answered the intercom, nerves steady, breathing slow. 'Your taxi has arrived, Mr Malarz,' said Mike the doorman (no doubt wondering where his strange protectee would be going this evening). I thanked him.

The ride to the Regent Hotel on Park Avenue did nothing to steady my nerves; fear rumbled. Though chemically pacified, I was nonetheless aware of nerves waiting for their chance to jump out and say hi. Outwardly cool, soon I'd be shaking.

I was off to meet Carreras: another party, another hired suite. The embossed invitation sat in my jacket pocket, hard as a credit card. In the opposite pocket was the dictaphone. The pharmacy prescription I'd taken – well, I'd told the woman in the white coat I was about to sit my driving test for the sixth time; did she have anything to chill me out. She told me not to drink alcohol on top of it, but fuck that. Soon as I got in the suite I got a whisky from the drinks table.

I mingled. I waited to get Carreras on his own.

He looked terrible. When I was close enough to talk to him, I saw he wore make-up; I thought he was trying to disguise his illness. Now I know he was trying to give the illusion of actually having one.

'Who are you here with tonight?'

'On my own,' I replied. 'Not counting Jack Daniels.' I held up the glass – my sixth, as it happens. 'I was thinking. I just been reading – or rereading I should say – those two biographies on you. Which one would you say's the best?'

'Phoebe Miller's – no question,' Carreras said, 'but they're both a bit...'

'Thin on the ground?'

'Yes.'

'And what would you say...' I paused for effect. '...to someone wanting to do a real study of your life?'

It took a second to sink in. 'You, Adam?'

'I'll hold my hand up. I've never written a word of biography in my life...' He would have known that already. 'But Matt, forgive me – it's no secret...'

Carreras closed his eyes. 'I'm dying.'

'I want you to be represented by a friend,' I said.

'That's nice of you, but you've had a few of those now. Maybe in the morning...'

'Do you still correspond with Youssou Hussad?' I asked.

It's strange to think even important people have gurus. I would say that Herbie is mine – and I suppose I am an important person, or at least I will be. God knows who Herbie's guru is (perhaps God) but I bet he has one.

Matthew Carreras' guru is Youssou Hussad.

The two biographies stress the effect the friendship had on Carreras' life. Carreras and Hussad both went to NYU. It's where they studied Biology. Carreras got in on a scholarship whereas Hussad's circumstances could not have been more different.

Hussad was born in Zaire, where his father was and is a copper mining plantation owner. Megabucks. On his nineteenth birthday the Old Man says, 'Son, we have to start planning for your twentieth.' The present was university, anywhere in the world! Father would pay; Youssou only had to choose the city. The teenager had always wanted to go to New York.

I'll tell you what made me mention him to Carreras. Before I do I'll confess I had made (at best) a tenuous link and I acted on a hunch. It felt less like trying to touch the moon than trying to duck a bullet. Certainly I didn't feel like I was attacking; by then I was protecting myself.

At the party where Carreras had asked if I'd like to take part in the experiment, he'd made a big deal of how we'd both changed our lives for the better. I quizzed Carreras about the man who had changed his life. Hussad's role had been to convince Carreras of the potential he had. Carreras had gotten into NYU, but without Hussad's encouragement, assistance (financial) and maybe even love, he would never have gone into politics. Hussad made Carreras a Mayor.

'We write from time to time,' Carreras told me. 'He went back to Africa of course – to work on the plantation; or at least supervise. America would never have been his country – not with the power he's got over there. Comparatively.'

'It sounds like you miss him,' I said. 'Why don't you visit?'

Carreras smiled. 'In my condition?' He was not talking only about his health. His political popularity was deteriorating – melting down and beginning to smell. In the papers his health was often mentioned in the same paragraph as the day's mistake, leading people to infer that a problem with his blood was screwing with his mind; that he weakened, mentally, and was no longer fit for his position... I think it's worse that he made his disastrous decisions while completely fit.

To be fair to Carreras (though God knows why I should be) you can imagine how these decisions could have gone well. Bad luck – simply that and no other – is to blame. Carreras was not one to sit on the fence.

It sounds like a good decision, for example, to support a litter-clearing campaign. Then Douglas Wood, Carreras' main rival, suggested the idea had only been implemented as part of a long-term plan to make half the city's streetsweeps and garbage collectors redundant. After all, if citizens suddenly became so conscientious about their refuse, what need would there be for the legions of sanitation people on the city's payroll? This stupid argument found favor; took root. Wood followed it with public statements along the lines of: Aren't there higher priorities than litter?

Carreras decided to tackle the gun problem. He wanted to enforce a longer cooling-off period before ordering a gun (and having your credentials checked) and actually picking the weapon up. Wanted everyone with a gun who shouldn't have one to hand it over at a police precinct – no questions asked. In a utopian society this might have worked; but after a few days of handovers, a precinct got robbed. A gang busted in, started shooting up the place. Five people killed, including one of the gang – and four days' worth of handed-over weapons taken. As Wood was swift to point out, in this crime-infested city, having a gun was one of the things people felt comfortable about.

On and on. Every choice Carreras made or credo he stated was like spitting into the wind. So when he asked In my condition? he referred to his political standing. Going to Africa to see an old university pal would be seen as an escape from his problems.

Nonetheless I said, 'What better time?' Shortly after the subject was changed.

Telling Herbie what I'd found out did not have the dampening effect on him I'd expected. 'I spoke to a woman called Sue Lodge today on the phone,' he said. 'I called as Paul Lewis; said I was writing a piece about Carreras and I needed to include some info about his days as a student.'

'Who's Sue Lodge?'

'She lectures in Politics and Political Science; she wanted to tell me about Carreras' theories. Abilities. So I listened to that first and then I asked if there was anyone around who used to teach him. No one. But Lodge was friends with the then-Head of Political Studies before he died, who in turn was friends with Carreras' Biology tutor: so she told me what he had told her.

'Basically, Carreras was a good student from the beginning. Then after two terms he transformed into a remarkable student. Guess what happened after two terms.'

'He met our friend Youssou,' I said.

'Correctamundo. All of a sudden his B-minuses are A-minuses then straight A's. Youssou made him determined to succeed. But get this. Sue Lodge thinks Carreras told this Head of Faculty, a Dr Drummond, he was going to be Mayor one day...'

'Egotistical bastard.'

'That's not it.' Herbie sounded frustrated; I should've known better than to interrupt. 'He was going to be Mayor because there was something he had to do. Something he wouldn't explain. Something Youssou Hussad had taught him. And he wouldn't be able to do it until he was in a position of control.'

I asked why this had never come out before.

'Because Herbert Dechtler never asked before.'

'Seriously: two biographies, neither of them mention Hussad teaching Carreras anything specific. Something African? Why has no one ever said Carreras wanted to be Mayor for one particular reason? Why's no one checked it out?'

'Lodge insisted her name stay off the record,' Herbie replied, 'but she told both biographers what she told me. They just didn't use the information. Know why? Because the biographies were authorized: Carreras gave his permission. Which probably means he also had a hand in the editing; it would have been part of the deal to at least see the proofs. If he didn't like it, he could cut it. Do you know the names of the authors?'

'Got both books in the apartment,' I said. 'Phoebe Millers and Harry Hughes.'

'Will you do something for me?' Herbie asked.

It took nine days, which was faster than I thought it would. I wrote two identical letters: one to Phoebe Millers, care of MegaInk Books; one to Harry Hughes, care of the Goodwin Press.

All writers like to talk about their work, but Hughes wrote back first. The letter gave me his personal address on South Street, near the Seaport.

2.

Dear Mr Malarz,

Thank you for your kind letter and for your comments on A CITY FROM DUST. I would be happy to assist you on your take on Matthew Carreras' life by answering your questions; I'm fascinated to see what new facts you have unearthed. I can only assume you intend to concentrate on the death – the illness, the bad choices. Which is fine.

Professor Lodge helped me a great deal, which is why she got the mention in the Acknowledgements. Her analyses of Carreras' political life were scalpel-sharp. But frankly, I didn't rate her comments on his student days too highly. She quoted Carreras' old personal tutor, and second-hand statements do not a biography make. It's unproveable if Carreras ever said he wanted to be Mayor just so he could get into action something he learned from Youssou Hussad. And even if he did – so what? If we were all responsible for things we said as students... Do you see my point? Maybe Hussad taught him elementary Black Magic or effigy carving, or to play the bongos. Or techniques to mine copper. Whatever the 'plan' was, it hadn't materialized when I was writing (nor has it now) so it seemed irrelevant.

If you have any other questions...

'I'm going to find Hussad,' Herbie told me.

## Chapter 8

##

1.

The last halfway serious girlfriend I had was the one I inadvertently ended up getting murdered: Agnieszka Pull.

When Carreras asked me about my family, to check on my suitability for the project, he also needed to know about girlfriends. I was asked later, under hypnosis, if I had a regular girl. I said no. So they gave me the job with the Acclunes.

I met Agnieszka two months before Carreras asked. She had won a week's vacation to New York in a competition run by the Warsaw Voice. She travelled with a girlfriend called Kasia. It was the third day of their holiday, a Saturday, and we met in a bar on FDR Drive. I was drinking on my own.

Romantically enough, I made Agnieszka spill her vodka and lime. That's how it all began. I was getting off my stool and she was walking to her table. The place was virtually empty but we still managed to collide. After apologizing madly as I watched her dab at her top with a napkin, I ordered her another drink. She wasn't angry: I made it a double. No pun intended, but she seemed in good spirits. I looked at the table where she'd left her coat. Asked her if she'd care to join me.

'I wait for my friend,' she said.

I replied with a nod of my head. She reconsidered. 'Until she comes,' Agnieszka stated, and leaving her drink on the bar beside mine, she walked over to fetch her coat.

Kasia had gone for a stroll in East River Park; like holiday-makers do, they had gotten on each other's nerves and wanted some solitude. I was with Agnieszka for over an hour.

'Malarz?' she said. 'That's Polish for painter.'

That night I took her to a Mexican dinner at Caramba! on Eighth Avenue. Kasia had decided to go to the movies. They would meet up later on, at the hotel.

I paid by VISA and we left slightly wobbly after mighty Margaritas. 'What do you want to do now?' I asked, terrified of inviting her back to my place and hearing her say no; equally scared of parting. We walked. I didn't know her hotel – the Ramada Inn – was also on Eighth Avenue, and that we slowly made our way toward it.

I stood with Agnieszka in the elevator. I hardly dared to speak. She had a funny half smile on her face. 'What floor are you on?'

She said nothing. We stepped out and the smell of New York in summer had been joined by something unexpected and foreign. A particular type of water.

'You're kidding.'

Agnieszka unbuttoned her blouse beneath the crescent moon. We were on the roof and there was the pool, the water black and still.

'A swim? It's closed.'

Her half-smile was beautiful. With a flourish she dropped her blouse and stood before me, her breasts whitely, lacily cupped. She was drunker than I'd imagined.

'Warm tonight,' she said.

That wasn't the point. 'There are rules. We'll make people angry,' I said.

'Fuck them! Water makes me happy, especially at night.' We stood by the pool's edge, tiny licking sounds rising up. Agnieszka turned her back on me. 'The bra.' Not quite believing I did it, I reached for the clasp. 'In Gdansk,' she went on, 'I walk to the sea at night. But it's too cold. I watch. It's very special.'

She faced me. I suppose her naked breasts were what convinced me. As she pulled down her jeans I pulled down my own. 'God, if we're caught...' I began.

'If we're caught, we're Polish,' Agnieszka replied. 'We can't read the signs. I'm a guest from Poland; they won't throw me off.'

I smiled. I ripped off my socks and she said, 'Kasia is now in the room.' Noisily, fingertips first, she entered the water. A few seconds later, so did I.

The next day, Sunday, we met for lunch – with Kasia. We all got on well, but I knew Agnieszka left shortly. I was frantic with desire. As good as the night-dip was, I was drunk and the water was not conducive to the sustaining of an erection, to put it politely.

I saw her the next day, after I'd finished work, the three of us in a bar, with a pitcher of Coors Ice... and then another.

On Tuesday they flew back to Gdansk.

We wrote. Every fortnight or so I'd be jittery with the expectation of seeing that blue sticker – LOTNICZA. Air Mail. In her patient gappy prose Agnieszka would inform me of what the previous fourteen days had held, somehow managing to make the mundane sound miraculous. I recognize, now, the symptoms of love. She was twenty. Part of me would've liked to abort this fondness, but she had snagged on my affections. So I put pen to paper... and then I stopped.

'Any girlfriends?' I'd been asked, and even under hypnosis I'd answered no. Because she wasn't my girlfriend: she was the destination of my desire.

Without even knowing she was there, they wiped her out of my head.

The poor girl couldn't work it out.

Her letters went from sugarly scolding ('It's your turn to write') to anxious ('I hope everything it is okay'). I didn't reply. She was no longer in my database. I can see myself, opening these letters with my brow like a piece of corrugated iron: then binning them.

Agnieszka did not tell her parents about me: they were good Catholic sorts, and would not have taken kindly to their daughter's vacation romance. The police in Gdansk knew nothing of me, so no wonder I had not been contacted following her murder. To keep the situation even better hidden (or perhaps to make it richer and more delicious with deception) Agnieszka had even composed her letters at work, drafting and drafting until the English was as good as she could get.

I ignored her; made her angry. She saved her money to visit me again: to have a showdown if necessary.

Agnieszka arrived at JFK. Because she was from Eastern Europe and this was her second visit in a short time, she received some static at Immigration, or so she said. She spent her first day trying to track me down. From booths she called my home and left three messages on my machine. She found my apartment building, but not as devious as Herbie, she couldn't get past Mike. She made him promise, however, he'd tell me she'd come round; that she was determined to speak to me. Mike did; I replied I didn't know who she was but she was starting to get on my nerves.

The people listening in on my phone conversations must have wondered who the hell I'd gotten involved with. They traced her calls, perhaps, just in case she lied when she told me on my messages she was at the Howard Johnson on Eighth Avenue. They found out where she was; what she looked like...

Poor girl. Someone was on the plane with her – maybe seated a row or two behind, a seat or two to the side. It's possible they got a conversation going during the flight, but I doubt it. They probably hadn't wanted to question her in New York in case she blabbed or made a fuss. They wouldn't want trouble on any airplane either.

They let her get all the way home. Then one night, when Agnieszka went out for a stroll along the beach at Brzezno, they followed her. She was staring at the dark hard sea when someone spoke to her in an American accent.

Who can say why she didn't struggle? She was confident, friendly, lonely: I can see why she would let someone get close. Perhaps she contemplated a skinny-dip in the freezing waves she'd always been too scared to enjoy.

Agnieszka was left on the sand; shortly after, an American tourist flew back home. By knowing me she'd known too much. Having a drink spilled down her front was the beginning of her downfall, and I'm sorry, Agnieszka, I'm so sorry...

2.

'Let me get this straight,' I said to Herbie. 'You're going to Africa.'

Throwing his hands in the air he replied, 'What's life without adventure, Adam?'

'Normal.'

'Well, you signed away all your normality rights when you promised me you'd see this shit through.'

We walked in Central Park. A light late summer rain had recently finished and the place smelt of growth and health.

'I want my boring life back,' I complained.

'Tough.'

To a sound like the distant rumble of thunder a rollerblader sped past us, leaving in her wake a tinny hiss of Walkman music.

'Okay: tough,' I said. 'You're going to Africa; I'm with you so far. But how the fuck are you going to find him?'

'He lives in Zaire,' Herbie said.

'Which is somewhat larger than this park, Herbie.'

'How hard can it be to find a copper mining plantation? You can probably get the address from Carreras if you ask him nicely – now he knows you're interested in writing his life story.'

I nodded my head, not necessarily in agreement. 'Say you find him. What then? Start asking Hussad what he taught Carreras and it's gonna get back to our beloved Mayor... People'll want to know who you are, Herbie.'

'I'll tell them...'

'Paul Lewis: Investigative Journalist,' I said.

'No; Herbert Dechtler: Investor.'

I was puzzled. 'Investor in what?'

'Bananas and copper,' he said with a grin.

Two weeks went by. Herbie waited for a phone call or a letter. I worked, aware I was ahead of McGarhen in the popularity stakes for the promotion.

Herbie called me at work, in his Brooklyn accent.

'Hello, Mr Delballo. How are you today?' I said. 'Let me pull your file.'

To overcome the problem of communication we'd invented another character for Herbie. Having let McGarhen know 'Theo' had stopped bothering me, we had created Frank Delballo, an altogether nicer type of guy. I had his papers in my cabinet with all the others. Delballo made thirty grand a year as an ambulance-chaser attorney; he was fifty-two and proudly convinced of his ability to screw the system.

'Yeah, Mr Delballo,' I said. 'Did you wanna make an appointment to see me? Or we can do it all by mail, like you suggested in your letter – if you're still too busy. Thing is, I can help you out with your financial situation. What do you say?'

'Squeeze me in Wednesday?' Herbie asked.

I made a show of flicking through my diary. Even if I hadn't had holes throughout the day I would have said: 'Three p.m. good for you?'

'Good as gold.'

Wednesday is the third day of the week. Herbie was telling me to meet him at Coffee-bar 3 on our list: a place on Avenue B, so anonymous and small everyone there boasted they found it themselves by chance and say 'It's not normally this crowded' to their friends. The code was: whatever time was mentioned, add five.

So: 8 p.m. Tonight.

3.

I was late. Herbie didn't care; he had a Cheshire Cat grin on his face that made him look younger than usual. 'I'm going,' he told me as I sat down.

'I just got here,' I joked.

Pushing a plate toward me he went on, 'I got you a muffin. You can read this if you like.' He dropped a letter onto the surface.

4.

Herbie has three per cent shares in the banana-importing firm Herbert Dechtler Sr. had made into a four million dollar concern. Two weeks earlier, Herbie had made a long-distance call to a man named Friedrich Baum, Manager of Ongoing Developments. Herbie asked this Baum guy a question. Hypothetically, if bananas could be bought and imported cheaper, would the company be interested in adding to their supply-base? Baum's reply was: hypothetically, yes. Where did Herbie have in mind?

VBF, the new name of Herbie's old company, imported bananas from a variety of sources, but not from Zaire. Grown on plantations, Zaire's export crops are palm products, coffee, tea, cocoa, rubber and cotton; but three-quarters of the country's forests aren't used as an economic resource, and in those forests, among other things, grow bananas.

Herbie proposed to take a trip to Zaire on behalf of VBF. He'd be a spokesman, ambassador, an emissary of light. Using his considerable charm, he would find the right people to talk to in order to make preliminary enquiries. VBF had now told him yes. They trusted him; he had their blessing to travel under the company banner (he had made it clear he would pay the fare himself, going to Africa on an unrelated issue, in case they used company poverty as an excuse not to back him). Any facts Herbie collected would be gratefully analyzed by VBF and if he was serious in his offer to finance some of the operation until it got up on its feet, VBF would be thankful.

'Why do you need to say you're with the company if you're paying for the trip yourself?' I asked. 'Case someone checks?'

'Exactly. Lone German in the middle of Africa? Doing what? This way I've got an excuse to be there.'

'So when are you getting your jabs?'

'Soon as possible. What will I need?'

'Fuck should I know?' I blew cigarette smoke into his face. 'I've never even been to Arkansas. Fuck Africa!' I was actually more annoyed than Herbie took me to be. Rather stupidly, I felt left out. Why couldn't I go to Africa?

'Will you do something for me?' Herbie asked.

'I guess so.' It dawned on me Herbie hadn't dug up anything on McGarhen yet.

'What the hell's up with you, Adam?'

'I got my period.'

'Then don't tell me. Do you want to do this or not?'

'Do I have a choice?' Looking for the waitress I muttered, 'I need some orange juice; these cigarettes are fucking with my Vitamin C.'

Herbie leaned across the table – one arm to either side of the untouched muffin on its snow-white plate – and laid fingers on my shoulders.

'Adam, tell me,' he said softly.

'Pissed off. I want it finished.'

'So do I.'

'No you don't. You love this,' I said, a little surprised by the anger in my voice. 'This isn't a disruption in your life; this is your life. Chasing. Learning. Me, I'm responsible for two people not knowing their true identities – and for another girl being dead. So who's got the shit end of the stick, you or me?'

'...You,' said Herbie, leaning back. 'Know what? A good person ain't someone who never makes a mistake, especially if he couldn't help it! A good person is someone who learns from that mistake and lets it improve him instead of drag him down.'

My bitterness had passed but I couldn't resist one last shot. 'I don't need orange juice after all. Herbie, you're so sunny you can be my source of Vitamin C! Something else you can do well.' I laughed.

Thankfully, Herbie joined me.

'This is where we make Manhattan blush,' he then said quietly.

# III. Distant Blood

## Chapter 1

1.

Near the end of October I received a phone call from Matthew Carreras. It was with some trepidation I took it. A promotion decision loomed; things couldn't have been tenser. McGarhen and I burnt candles both ends, and Carreras was on his last legs, medically speaking. What do you say to a man you vaguely know who is dying?

Then again, you don't refuse a telephone call from the Mayor of New York.

'Hi, it's Adam,' I said into the echoing receiver.

'How you doing? Matt Carreras.'

Fervently I hoped he wasn't about to do what had never been done before and ask me to a party without sending me a proper invitation; hoped we hadn't gotten that chummy.

'I just have a quick question,' he said. It had to be serious: the Mayor employed a secretary and a PA to deal with run-of-the-mill quick questions.

'Have you been reading the newspapers? The stuff about me?'

'Sure.'

'And do you believe it all?'

'Why should I?' I replied. 'They're hardly likely to be more accurate about you than they are about anyone else.' This felt like a test I had no idea how to pass.

'How's the race for that promotion going, Adam? Gonna win?'

'Well, you yourself told me I'm a winner, Matt. Course I'm gonna win.'

'That's what I like to hear...' His voice would not have led no one to believe as much; it was croaky, sick, low – it was all but unrecognizable. What if it wasn't Carreras on the line at all? Any impersonator can take on a well-to-do Spanish man who has learnt English as a second language. For all I knew it could have been Herbie.

Whoever it was asked: '...So what do you think'll happen to McGarhen?'

'Been nothing said about the loser being fired.'

'What if your success means he will lose his job?'

There is a crust around that part of my brain that once housed sympathy and understanding. With a trace of a sneer on my face I replied: 'I'd put him out of work easily as take a shit in the morning. I look after myself, that's that.'

Carreras laughed.

'Is that what you like to hear as well?'

'Sure is.'

Another thought struck. The voice could be explained in a different way.

'Matt,' I said, 'are you drunk?'

'I've had a few glasses of champagne. I think I can allow myself the luxury of drinking during the day. And I'm rich, it might as well be champagne.'

He would not remember this conversation, I hoped.

'...Adam? One last thing. Do believe the things they say about me in the papers; it's all true. Some things I just fucked up; but I want people I know to say everything Carreras did politically he did for the right reasons. Understand? To be remembered for doing good deeds, or trying to. You'll see, after I go, some advertisements I made encouraging people to sell their blood. If I can boost the reserves of blood in this city, I'll have at least a halfway clean image.'

'Ads for TV?'

'Yes. I want as many healthy Americans to sell their blood – give people who really need it a chance to live...' He paused. 'Speaking of which, how's Floyd Acclune?'

Benzene had been poured over me, and Carreras held a match and a matchbook. After that preamble, this phone call was a trick.

Recalling what I was supposed to know I said, 'Who?' I had never heard of Floyd Acclune. Whenever I went out with Herbie, or rendezvoused with him somewhere, I usually took two or more cabs – to throw any follower I might have off the scent. Surely nobody knew I had gone to Dante's-off-Broadway.

'Never mind,' Carreras grumbled. 'Adam, I gotta go.'

Three days later he died.

2.

'Come on in,' said Marianne.

Smiling weakly Analiese crossed the threshold. 'How are things?' she asked.

'Better than with you, apparently. What's up?' Carrying her daughter, Marianne followed Analiese to the sofa, having locked the front door.

'I should've called,' said Analiese. 'Am I keeping you from anything?'

Marianne shook her head. On her lap, Jolene sat patiently, staring up adoringly into her mother's face. She played a game of her own invention entitled Butterfly. The rules of Butterfly were simple. Whatever Mommy did, Jolene did too. When Marianne shook her head, Jolene copied: vigorously, with great concentration, her brown ponytail whipping from side to side. 'Do you want a drink?' Marianne asked.

'That might help.'

Jolene copied her mother's quizzical look. She followed her mother to the kitchen, her little legs keeping in time. In the doorway Marianne turned. She looked down at Jolene. 'Would you like a drink, darling?'

Jolene copied. 'Would you like a drink, darling?'

Analiese laughed.

'Don't encourage her. I've had three days of this.'

Jolene waited. When her mother had finished speaking she too looked toward Analiese. 'Oh, don't encourage her,' said Jolene. 'I had three days of this.'

'Enough!' said Marianne, pointing a finger at her daughter's nose. 'Do you want a drink or not?'

Jolene pointed her finger. 'Enough! Do you... Ow!'

Marianne had grabbed the hand of her daughter's outstretched arm; she gave it a squeeze. 'I mean it, Jolene: no more. I want to talk to Analiese. Go play.' She released Jolene's hand just as the girl started to cry.

'I am playing!' Jolene protested. She pinched her eyebrows together, folded her arms and stamped her left foot.

Marianne would have none of it. 'Don't you dare get petulant, young lady.'

The child nimbly spun on her heels, and with her arms still folded, marched off in the direction of her bedroom.

Marianne made coffee and returned to Analiese, who had picked up a fashion magazine from the low glass table. Marianne did not mince her words.

'What's the problem?'

3.

Floyd paced the apartment, feeling trapped. December 21. He waited for the guy to come change the locks. Thorne still had his keys; the last thing Floyd wanted (or so he thought) was to see that bastard again.

Floyd had no way of knowing the U.S. Mail would bring his keys back to him as soon as the Christmas backlog had cleared. And his wallet; and the small change Thorne had demanded Floyd hand over when they were in Thorne's parked car in Harlem. Thorne had told Floyd he wasn't a thief: but why should Floyd have believed him? When he mailed back Floyd's belongings, he was doing what he said he'd do.

In spite of everything, Thorne is a man of his word.

## Chapter 2

1.

Herbie left for Kinshasa on November 17.

I had beaten McGarhen to the promotion the day before.

November and December were two of the busiest months of my life. To get from a bench in Central Park, wishing Herbie wouldn't go, to hiring a man to teach two brainwashed married people the truth about themselves, is quite a leap.

Made tougher as I was all on my own.

Today is December 29. Eight p.m. and I have had a successful day. For some a successful day refers to working hours during which a million dollars are made for the firm; for others, a day a dozen chores get completed, bills are paid, and there's a cold beer reward before bedtime.

For me, now, a successful day is one where I do not get captured or killed.

Sorry to sound melodramatic. When I read back over these pages I'm sure I'll find these self-indulgent patches becoming more regular. Time's fault. Perhaps, deep down, I half expected to have been located by now; perhaps I want to be.

That's nonsense. I should scribble it out.

2.

Today I had jobs to do, none of which would be easy. I left my lodgings at nine, carrying a bag, hungover though in fact I'd hardly drunk anything – to be in fine fettle for this trip. At a small convenience store I bought cigarettes and a bagel for breakfast. I ate as I walked, having decided to eschew the Subway. Exercise do me good.

With no confidence in the idea here she'd grant me an audience, I went to see Marianne. You'll want to know how I knew the address. Simple. From my (now) meagre belongings, I retrieved a tiny cassette and my dictaphone. Labelled CHAI 11/1, the tape was the recording of my time under hypnosis in that Chinatown bathroom. I fast-forwarded to the part where I explained all about Floyd and Analiese... and their friends. I jotted down the Clacks' address from my sleepy dictation.

Marianne answered the intercom: a transmission from ship to shore, or Neil Armstrong addressing the Earth.

'Hi. I wonder if you can help me. My name's Paul Lewis; I'm a freelance journalist, and I want to...'

'I know you, Mr Lewis.'

'You know me?'

'You want to interview Floyd and he won't let you.'

I hoped I could send my shrug through my voice: she had me. 'That's about it.'

'What paper is this for?'

'I'm hoping the Village Voice.' I gave her only what she could have learnt anyway from Analiese.

'Now you're trying to get to them through me, is that right?'

'That's right; but this isn't at all what you think. I'm freelance in the sense of I've just started and I'm trying to make a name for myself, not freelance in the sense of "big shot can sell his work anywhere". I'm looking for a break.'

'If you think I'll give personal details...'

'No; I'm you have too much self-respect for that. What I want is a profile. You give me thoughts about the couple in question. At no point are you quoted: this is for my information, and I'll pretend the insights are mine. So what do you get out of it? I have in my hand a cheque for one hundred and fifty dollars – for fifteen minutes of your time.'

'Then what?'

'Then I go. Neither Analiese nor Floyd ever know I was there, and you have some extra money in your pocket, to spend on who or whatever.'

Marianne paused. The door opened a fraction. I pushed my way into the building and – as directed – rode the elevator to the fourth floor, where Marianne met me.

'I'm Paul,' I said. 'You must be...'

'Come in.' She was dressed in an almond pants-and-blouse two-piece of a material so thin it lapped and licked at her figure. 'Take a seat.'

I sat and made a great show of digging for a notebook and ballpoint. My eye caught the ashtray on the coffee table. Pointing at its molded glass I said, 'Do you mind?'

'Go ahead. I was about to do the same. I couldn't stop now if I wanted.' This sounded bitter. Marianne joined me, sitting opposite my armchair on a lounger which didn't match, having gone to the sill to retrieve her smokes. I flicked the lighter and we made a bridge over the coffee table, leaning, the fire at my thumb to the paper between her lips. Our eyes met over a glowing ember and through a thin stocking of smoke.

'In what way would you like me to betray my friends?' said Marianne, as we fell back on our cushions.

'Try not to see it like that,' I replied. 'I'm not out to chop anyone to pieces.'

'That's always nice to know.'

'I'm on their side. But we don't pay for performance anymore; we pay for the life.'

'Very quotable,' Marianne told me. 'Haven't we forgotten something?'

For a second (I don't know why) I believed she referred to her daughter: should I have mentioned her by now? Nothing so innocent.

Fifteen ten dollar bills were folded in my shirt pocket. Wanting again to build the bridge, I lifted myself out of the chair and leaned forward.

'You said a cheque.'

'What's the difference?'

'The lie... is the difference.'

'A turn of phrase, for God's sake. Money's money.'

Marianne shook her head. 'Not so.' Remarkably composed for a woman tethered on the brink of panic, she added: 'I wanted to see your name on it. Or the Village Voice's. This is too anonymous for a business transaction.'

'Call it cigarette money...'

'You have no way of claiming your expenses.'

'...Marianne, you let me in.'

'Maybe my first impression was wrong. Maybe I reverted to the dumb bitch Leonard married.'

My press pass was in the bag. Encouraged not so much by Marianne's skepticism as I was by her restraint in the face of awesome possibilities, I removed the i.d. 'Look,' I said to her.

Marianne swatted the air like someone gasping denials while having a bad dream. 'You can get that stuff done anywhere. How do I know it's real?'

'Call my editor!'

'What's the number?'

As though speaking to a child I gave the digits. A smile crossed Marianne's face with the speed of a fly across a continent. Providing me with a view of her neck, she leaned her head back (she blew ten bullets of smoke at the ceiling) and chuckled. I took the opportunity to feel confused and to sneak a look at her tits.

Marianne pointed her cigarette at me. She smoked as quickly as I do. 'I know who you are,' she affirmed, and what traces of humor there had been were gone. 'Don't jerk with me, pal. You're Spencer Thorne, aren't you?' she said.

Imagine train tracks disappearing into the distance. You stand by them, waiting, rucksack balanced on the fulcrum of one shoulder. A train will be along soon but you have no ticket. Do you really want to board? You know nothing about the train, who's on board, where it's going. The destination might be a long way away, a place you don't want to be; worse, there might be no place to alight. The tracks stretch on to the sky...

That's what embarking on a lie is like. In this sense, if in no other, we are all gamblers, travellers and fools.

'Yes,' I said, 'I'm Thorne.'

Movement to my left made me snap my head round. Wearing a white plastic tiara, leggings and a cut-off top, in she bounded, flapping her arms: Jolene.

'I'm a butterfly,' she cried, and hit some invisible springboard in full stride in order to execute a stupendous leap, her legs tucked under her. She landed on the sofa in the prayer position, a breathless chuckle escaping her lips.

Marianne was far from amused. 'Don't jump on the goddamn furniture I thought I told you!' she shouted. I thought she would smack the girl's wrist. Intending to defuse the situation I said to the child, 'What's your name, sweetheart?'

'Butterfly!'

'Mr Thorne. As there's no point asking you to leave I'll put up with your presence. But don't think for a second I'll let you perpetrate your mind games on my daughter.'

'That's not my intention.'

Jolene was confused.

'Get to your room, young lady,' Marianne hissed.

'Marianne...' I began.

The cigarette dog-end pointed in my direction. 'Stay out of it, pal!'

The child had ducked beneath a veil of grief, so quickly it seemed to me sorrow was her normal mood. Jolene raised two doughy knuckles to her eyes, gulping tears as though dying of thirst, or longing to drown. I watched the girl stride back to her room.

The last few minutes hadn't served to make Marianne pleased. 'Hell do you want from me?' she demanded, crushing her cigarette. 'Scare the shit outta me like you did Analiese? Won't work. I used up all my fear when I was married to Leonard.'

'I need your help.'

Marianne lit up again. 'You've got a nerve, know that?'

'I might have scared them....'

'You did.'

'...but I'm not out to hurt anybody, or I could've done so to Analiese. Agreed? Or Floyd, for that matter...'

'Apparently you're trying to educate.'

Her tone bugged me. 'That's right...'

'By tricking them into worrying about their pasts.'

'No tricks were used. No sleight of hand. It was the only way I could think of... Floyd and Analiese aren't the people they believe they are. Wacky but true. I was the one taught 'em to believe in pasts that aren't their own...'

'And why would you have done that?'

'I was told to. It's only recently I found out what went on; what I was involved in.'

'I'm all ears. Help yourself to a cigarette...'

'Thanks. Would you tell me what Analiese told you about the evening of December 20? Please?'

3.

Pride found soil to grow beneath my skin as I walked along: for once I didn't travel alone. By my side Marianne ambled, her three paces matching my two; it felt good when we strode together. Jolene kept up, her right hand in her mother's left, a candy apple blush on the puffed and swollen flesh of her face.

Marianne pressed the button. As though it was God Himself we summoned, I let my head roll back on my neck and looked up at the building, at the sky. The latter so pale as to verge on pink.

'Hi baby,' said Marianne, 'it's me.'

'Come on up, sugar.'

The connection broke. 'You did good,' I said.

'I just lied to my best friend.'

'No you didn't. You forgot to mention you brought a guest.'

The door clicked. I gained entrance to the building. 'It's up to you,' I said to Marianne, who loitered on the sidewalk. 'Come with me or go. Long as you know one thing: I'm not in this for any reason than to clean my conscience. I don't mean your friend any harm.'

Marianne stepped forward. 'I'm coming up with you; at least I can offer an explanation. Maybe she'll speak to me after this afternoon.'

'Tell me: do you always get nasty after you've made a decision?'

Her face deadpan Marianne replied, 'Usually.'

The elevator arrived; the doors closed. 'Do you believe what I've told you today?'

'Why else would I be here?' said Marianne.

'Try and trap me?'

'That's your problem. If you think I've set it up with Analiese that if you happened to come to my apartment I'd lead you to her to ensnare you... well, you're even more paranoid than Floyd.'

'Possibly. Were you listening to the part about the way I'm living these days?'

'I was listening.'

The corridor smelt of air freshener; an apartment door was open. Toward it Marianne, still clutching her daughter's hand, nimbly stepped. Pushing open the door, Marianne let go of Jolene to hold both hands up in front of her face.

'Don't hate me,' she called. 'I thought it was the right thing to do.'

Awkward, I entered the apartment after my guides and locked gazes with Analiese. A second later Analiese thawed. 'Marianne, what are you talking about?' She looked down at Jolene, who carried the weight – in face, in limb – of incomprehension.

Analiese had sensed something was awry. She said to the girl, 'Sweetheart? Why don't you go on into the kitchen and get some chocolate from the fridge?'

I looked to my right. Marianne was sore as a pimple on the end of a you-know-what. Because Analiese had not screamed or fainted or shown hostility or bile, it was perfectly logical I was not Spencer Thorne.

Nevertheless Marianne said to her friend, 'This man told me he was Spencer Thorne...' It sounded weak and wistful. 'He lied to me. My guess, he's Paul Lewis.'

To be honest I considered it a second: being Lewis.

Extending my right hand I said, 'My name is Adam Malarz. I paid Spencer Thorne to do what he did on December 20. Shall we all sit down and talk?'

4.

Floyd, to my regret, was out at rehearsal. So far I have made little – next to nothing – of his professional life. He works in part of a converted warehouse near the river. The place used to be somewhere you could buy fresh seafood; now it's in sections, large and not expensive, and accommodates a tattoo parlour, a hair stylist, a stamp dealer, a clairvoyant, and so on. Floyd rents out one of the boxes, to train.

I was all set to go get him. The ladies persuaded me to the contrary. I explained what I could, which took nearly thirty minutes. Then I said:

'I need to look into your head, Analiese...'

'Forget about it.'

'...and then I can forget about it. Once I know who you are; where you're from.'

Analiese got to her feet and leafed through her leather-bound address book by the phone. Marianne said, 'Who you calling?'

The forefinger prodded down, insistently, on numbers. 'I was born in Valparaiso, Indiana,' said Analiese. 'So were my brother and sister. My brother is in prison.' She turned to me. 'I'm calling, if you must know, my folks.'

I heard the line. 'When was the last time you called?' I asked. 'Long time ago?'

'Not so long.'

'I swear to you, Analiese: they fed your mind.'

'Bullshit! You're after my husband's money is what you're after.'

'Analiese...' said Marianne.

'Don't you start with me, sister! Can't I trust you to keep these freaks away?'

Someone hissed in Analiese's ear. 'Mom?' A look of tragic frailty crossed her face: too much for me to watch. 'Okay,' I heard; 'okay, thanks.'

Analiese replaced the receiver. 'This gets worse,' she muttered. For a second she was ready to accept: but no. Angrily, impetuously, she snatched at the phone again to reattempt the connection. When she pushed each digit, in the silence of the apartment, the signal was like a chord on a church organ. The conversation – such as it was – went as follows: 'Hello? Yes hello... Yes. I'm sorry. Yes it is. I don't understand. Am I calling correctly? Indiana...'

I could have wept.

4.

## Chapter 3

1.

Come along, folks, get your malaria here!

That's right: we can offer you the risk of malaria all year round! Just come along! Bring the kiddies for our malaria group rate!

Or how about some Yellow Fever for you, sir?

Rabies, madam?

Meningitis or polio for anyone?

We' got 'em all!

Just come to Zaire!

2.

When Herbie told me what delights the country had in store I felt silly and awkward for having kicked up a stink. We rested in the Park, sick and tired of coffee-shops.

'Something I been meaning to ask you,' I said. 'What's your credit card limit?'

Herbie's eyes twinkled through the plume of steam he exhaled. 'Oh, we're not there yet, Adam, don't worry.'

'When you are, what happens then? You been throwing money around like...'

'Not throwing it, Adam: investing it. What have I bought we haven't needed?'

'Okay... forgive my poor choice of words. I'm worried about you, is all. Have you even got a ticket back to Berlin? No. Your room's cheap for New York but it's expensive for anywhere else...'

'Not for Germany. I'm here till the money runs out, and that's not for a while yet.'

I remained concerned. The ticket to Kinshasa had cost him twelve hundred bucks, and the assistant had the gall to tell him he'd gotten a bargain.

Herbie was leaving in a week. A month had passed since he'd received the letter from Baum at his father's company.

A week ago Herbie had shown me some marks on his arm: vaccination scars – for those illnesses in your life when a pill will not do. At a private clinic on the Upper West Side he'd had the compulsory Yellow Fever vaccination, and also the 'strongly recommended' pre-emptive strikes for malaria, meningitis, polio, tetanus, typhoid, diphtheria – and Hepatitis, Parts A and B. Some of these were merely boosters, but he had them done anyway: better to be safe than sorry. The course of treatment took place over three non-consecutive days, at the end of each of which Herbie handed over his credit card and signed his name on the tongue of paper wriggling out of the machine. I think he had the hots for the nurse. He was ready. Nearly.

'I got what you wanted,' I said to him. 'Bad news: there's more than one.'

Herbie puckered his lips thoughtfully and said, 'That's not bad news. Gives me the excuse to move from place to place.'

I sat back on the bench; comfort didn't come. I wondered if it ever would again. I was nervous, agitated; ridiculous as I know it sounds, I couldn't help thinking I was losing a friend forever – and my protector. How would I cope on my own?

By this point we had known each other ten months. There was a lump in my throat. 'Herbie, are you coming back?' I asked, turning to face him. I felt I had known him all my life, and now I wanted to beg him not to leave me.

His face adopted an appalled look. 'What makes you think I might not?'

'What if you meet a good-looking black chick over there?'

He smiled. 'Well, obviously, I'll make a home in the jungle and live like a king. I'll wake up every morning to the sound of screaming monkeys.'

He was trying to be funny but it didn't work. 'Come back to me,' I said. 'Just promise me that.'

'Don't get sappy on me, Adam.'

'Promise.'

'Okay, I promise,' Herbie said. 'Now tell me what you found out in the library.'

As well as copper – cobalt, gold, tin, cadmium, industrial diamonds and petroleum are mined in Zaire. Like pimples on a sixteen year-old's face, the mines are everywhere; but the copper mines are mainly in the north.

'A lot of them have foreign personnel so you'll have no problem communicating with somebody.'

'I wouldn't have any problem anyway, but thanks.'

'You don't speak African do you?'

He explained. Many, many languages are spoken in that part of Africa alone. Two-thirds of the people speak Bantu. There are Sudanese groups in the north, and Nilotic people in the northeast. The linguistic categories of Bantu, Nilo-Saharan and Pygmy together comprise more than two hundred languages and dialects spoken in Zaire. The four national languages – used for local trading, radio and broadcasting – are Swahili, Kiluba, Lingala and Kikongo. Lingala is also the language of the military, but guess what: the official language of instruction, business, administration and international communications – is French. One of Herbie's, in other words.

'I never met a guy luckier than you,' I said. 'That includes McGarhen. How do you do it?'

'Pure genius,' he said with a grin.

3.

Five days had passed since Herbie left from JFK. November 22 – my birthday. I didn't celebrate; but in the evening I did go out – as I did in my lunchbreak.

As I was now officially Senior and had, by definition, eared my right to take an hour for lunch again, I was determined to do so every day. The months of working every hour God sent were over.

Lighting a cigarette I strolled along in the maddening gale, turning right off West Street onto Vesey Street: on my way to the Post Office. On my person I had a newly acquired passport and driving licence, courtesy of Herbie.

From behind her bullet-glass the woman regarded me suspiciously.

'I've come to collect the mail in my box.'

'Name?'

'Paul Lewis.' I produced the aforementioned forgeries and slipped them into the spoon-like tray.

She pulled back the tray and started to inspect.

Minutes later, after an untroubled amble behind the scenes, she handed over the long envelope: Herbie's distinctive scrawl, and the kaleidoscope of colors on the three small stamps.

'Thank you very much,' I said.

4.

He had arrived safe and sound, albeit late; had endured the usual friction at Immigration, and at the time of writing had procured the services of a fourteen year-old boy who had volunteered, while still at the airport, to be Herbie's personal driver for the duration of the stay. Herbie chose the boy over all the others clamouring for his money because his rates were the lowest: See Adam, he had scribbled, I'm more concerned with money than you'd believe! Furthermore, the boy spoke French very well, and Herbie needed someone who would understand him.

The boy's name was Kwame, and the vehicle was an old, decrepit Ford the size of a bear cave.

That was it: the sum of information. Or nearly. I reread the five-paragraphed gobbet, searching for hidden meaning, for illumination. Nothing. Why had Herbie bothered to send the damn thing?

I checked the postmark. He had sent the letter the day after he'd landed, and for the first time I forced myself to think through the problems of having to wait five days for mail. What if Herbie got sick? Needed my help?

I stood still on West Street – just me and a cigarette. The traffic was a welcome buzz and roar, and I wanted it to obliterate my thoughts of Africa; but all I could picture were dirt tracks, trees, huts and muscular black kids with facial tattoos swinging from creepers and having sex too early. Oh, and heat.

The last thing Herbie mentioned in his letter was the temperature. From the moment he arrived, the sun had tried to dry up his hope and ambition. He wrote:

Adam, I never want to hear anyone complain about the weather ever again. You don't know what 'weather' is, believe me. Africa is where 'weather' begins: the radiator, the central-heating system, of the whole world.

Night is falling. I am breathing in the mosquitoes that have bitten the shit out of my knuckles and cheeks. You don't know itchy until a mosquito has bitten the bags under your eyes.

The air is damp and thick as pipe smoke. It's like I'm inhaling the armpit sweat of the nine thousand monkeys screeching in the trees...

Wish you were here. Love,

Theo xxx

I smoked another cigarette before returning to work, although it made me ten minutes late. Why? Seniors are allowed to be tardy.

5.

That night I went to Dante's-off-Broadway. Booted and suited, I followed Little Miss Attitude to my table. Wordlessly she hovered. Peering up at her – a thin face, an oval of expectation – was like staring up at the moon. I divined she would like me to make an order. Deciding that a Swamp Fever might be a bad idea I asked for a beer.

She shook her head long-sufferingly. 'We don't serve no beer,' she said.

'Whisky?' I virtually apologized.

'JB?' she puffed, her eyebrows pinching together. 'Old Grandad, Jim Crow, Ballantines...'

'JB. Make it a double.'

Off she went. I felt like I'd emerged from a police interrogation.

'Good evening, ladies and germs,' said the guy on the stage, slimy voice. 'My name is Marcel Cliché: I'll be your man at the Michael-rophone this evening... Thought I'd start with a few impressions...'

I looked around. The place was half-full or half-empty, depending on whether Dante was an optimist or a pessimist. Couples out on dates; a few solitary drinkers. I was surprised to learn admission was free this evening and the drink, when it arrived, was reasonably priced. I thought this sort of place would be packed.

Not wanting to think about the meeting I'd arranged for an hour from now – at 10 pm – I turned my attention to the entertainment.

Marcel Cliché: tall, fat, with unpleasant toupee and pencil-line moustache; a lot of make-up, some of which drizzled, under the heat of the lights – which I suppose was intentional. The jacket sparkled; his wit executed a similar function.

'You talking to me?' he impersonated. 'You talking to me?' He sniffed and touched the side of his quarter-circle nose; then made some pointless (therefore relevant, given the context of the act) gesture of finger-shooting the audience.

I lit a cigarette with the previous one's dying glow. I ordered another double, having decided that I could do this nonsense drunk or sober, so why not make it drunk?

Cliché smoothed his moustache and told us he was bringing on a very dear personal friend, and on he ran. No, not Floyd: Chai.

Early on in the act Chai noticed me, and nodded quickly to let me know it. I walked over to the door that led backstage.

Barrel-chested, arms limply crossed, a bear in a black t-shirt advertising a band (or album, or product) called Botulism, managed said door. He did not look amused to have his complicated standing routine interrupted.

'Name's Paul Lewis,' I said, producing the press pass Herbie used last time.

The bear didn't look at it. Apparently the name was enough. 'You had a face-lift, Charlie?' he asked. 'We don't get too many journalists in here.'

Ignoring him I said, 'Doing an interview with Somtow Chai after his set. I go in?'

'Set ain't over.'

'No, I gathered that when he appeared on stage. Chai said I could wait for him.'

'Why don't you wanna see the show, Paul? He's good.'

'Seen it already,' I told him. 'Did Chai tell you to expect someone or not?'

Reluctantly, after a moment's pause, the bouncer nodded. 'If I let you in and you hounding anyone else, I'll be forced to make you eat your shoes. Is that clear? Paul?'

'Both clear and beautifully put. I'll send you a copy of the magazine so someone can read you the article.'

I have already mentioned my reason for not wanting to meet Floyd, but in the cramped backstage area I was bound to see him. When I did I was in one of the three dressing rooms. There was a knock at the door; Floyd entered.

'Sorry,' he said. 'Looking for Marcel. He was getting ready a second or so ago.'

I exhaled, my heart surely drawing attention to itself. How the hell was it possible? Floyd did not recognize me!

'I just got here,' I explained too quickly. 'I didn't see him.'

Floyd's awkward attempt at smiling accompanied his declaration that he simply wanted to know when he would get paid. I knew how it was.

'If I see him I'll tell him you're after his blood.' Immediately I winced. Floyd nodded and closed the door. With difficulty I sat there and breathed, hands over my face.

While still in this position, the door opened again: no knock. It was Chai.

'I want to tell you something,' Chai said. 'I haven't been sleeping too good since you and Herbie were at my place. I'm scared.' If his hushed voice was anything to go by, he was telling the truth. I waited. 'All I wanna do is hypnotize everyone here; find out who has something to hide. I don't know what I'm dealing with.'

I waited a few seconds more, but that was the end. 'What you're dealing with,' I said, 'is another hundred bucks, as we discussed on the phone.'

Chai shook his head. 'I been thinking. I want two. Or you can find another hypnotist, Adam. I don't care, this is frightening; and Herbie has lots of money.'

'It's me paying you now; Herbie's gone away... to Baltimore. One-fifty. No more.'

The inscrutability of Chai's Oriental gaze must have found what lurked and quivered in my soul: what shrieked for assistance. He knew I needed him.

'One-senny-five,' he said.

What choice did I have? 'If you throw in some of that herbal tobacco it's a deal.'

6.

Chinatown. Eleven p.m.

The air was fragrant and swift, as was Chai himself – he walked ahead of me up the wet dark street, trailing the vapor of aftershave.

As before, his apartment was crowded with the sleeping and the alert as a hospital ward. The only greeting Chai offered was to Soon, his wife, who met him at the door and who would act, on this occasion, as Chai's guardian angel – as a witness.

This time I would hypnotize Chai.

After a babble of Chinese from Soon, Chai said, 'She asks if you brought the tape recorder. I said you have.' I had shown it to him in the dressing room. Chai had insisted on the session being taped so he could hear the playback. He was worried about what seeds I could plant, but Soon, not speaking a word of English, would not be much help.

The three of us took our places in the narrow bathroom. The dictaphone was on and from around my neck I removed an amulet on a leather lace: something I'd had for years, which my mother gave to me.

'Chai, I want you to concentrate on this,' I said softly.

In Herbie's absence I'd turned over the idea of infected blood. There had to be a reason for wanting Floyd to sell his blood so regularly. When he went to the blood bank, did they give him something on a prepared needle? Unlikely; an incorrigible paranoiac, Floyd always watched the doctor open the syringe's crackling packet. Then what? His blood was added to afterwards; then passed, tainted, into the body of a patient? But that didn't work either. Blood is sold on to hospitals; at some point a test on each sample is inevitable. Not every hospital in New York could be allowing polluted blood into its patients. There'd be bedlam. Why do it anyway?

More I thought about it, more obvious it seemed to me Floyd already had something in his blood someone wanted to experiment on. I had to get a sample, and the only way to do that was to get him on my side. I had two plans to do this but both of them required the assistance of a new recruit: somebody Floyd didn't know.

Chai said he would find someone for me; but first I had to ensure Chai himself was clean. I'd hypnotized Floyd and Analiese on a regular basis; how hard could it be to polish up the old skills?

Some people cannot be hypnotized but Chai, with the aid of some good hard pulls on the pipe, got himself into the right mood with an almost suspicious ease. Before very long he was under.

Weird feeling. You stand before a man and his mind is wide open for you, inviting you in. You learn a lot about yourself in such a situation. You could destroy; run riot around his neurons, with your Doc Marten boots, knuckledusters and a bolo knife. You could make him love you; make him swoon with anxious adoration with your every casual rejection. Or of course you could turn him into a chicken.

I inhaled the aroma of the orange-flavoured smoke. Behind me, the sound of Soon's troubled breathing – the air catching occasionally in the back of her throat.

In I went: I flew.

While I made sure there was nothing in Chai's mind to suggest he had any links with the government or Carreras or McGarhen, I had a thought about Floyd.

Perhaps the blood-donation sessions were simply appointments Floyd had to make. By arriving at the clinic, Floyd proved the training I'd given him worked: it was a test of the longevity of the programming.

Might it have nothing to do with blood at all?

7.

Chai was clean.

'Come back in two nights,' he told me when I'd brought him back to the here and now. 'I'll have someone to help you – the perfect guy.' Chai smiled and raked his fingers through his oily hair. 'His name is Spencer Thorne.'

Chai stopped talking. I took the hint. 'You want some dough, I guess.' Grimly I opened my patent leather wallet and started to count out the withdrawal I'd made from the machine two hours earlier. 'A hundred now; that's all I've got. I didn't expect you to change the deal.'

'Expect the unexpected,' Chai told me, 'especially now.'

Raising an eyebrow – a gesture dripping with laconic cool – I said, 'Is that some Confucian bullshit?'

Chai didn't see the humor. 'I want to know something, Adam. Are you sure there's nothing in there lurking?' He pointed two fingers at his very high forehead; the action made me uncomfortable.

'You heard the tape. No mention of passwords, experiments. Mind's your own.'

'Unless they put it deeper. What if you didn't ask the right questions? Maybe even my subconscious doesn't know it's there.'

'Don't get paranoid on me, Chai. You've got no links to City Hall or politics.'

'But I've got a link to Floyd; and right now I'm suspicious of everyone, including myself.'

'I'll be back in two nights,' I said, but I must admit – he'd started me thinking.

## Chapter 4

1.

My first meeting with Thorne, there was turbulence in the air, New York in one of its funny moods. The previous day had brought snow – a light, cute fluttering, as of feathers – and today there was no weather. No wind, no rain, no cold (no hot either): simply a nothingness, a silenced voice, a held breath. The atmosphere couldn't have been better selected to match my apprehension and dread.

I entered the East Village bar with the sort of confident swagger one does not really believe in. In an otherwise empty establishment, I sat in the booth farthest from the bar. I ordered a JB Double and nibbled the peanuts.

They were late. I started to think about the calories I took into my system; the color of my JB; anything apart from blood. I refused.

Twenty-five minutes on, they arrived. They sat down opposite me, Thorne's leather jacket creaking like a horny frog. Thorne smiled.

'I know you,' I said.

'You might,' the man replied. He pushed a hand over his closely-cropped hair.

I studied him. 'Where do I know you from?' I searched for context.

'Everyone thinks they know me.'

I tried to find some comfort in that.

'Funny thing is,' he went on (I tried to identify and place the voice, but was certain I had never heard it before) – 'in your case you actually have seen me before tonight, but I didn't look like I do now. You wouldn't believe my make-up bills.'

'Who are you?'

'The clues are there for you, Adam. Alter me in your mind. Only one thing a person can't change about his appearance and that's his height. How tall are you?'

'Five nine,' I replied.

'So how tall am I?' Thorne said.

'Six three?'

'Close enough. Who else have you seen about that height?'

'God knows.'

'So alter me.'

'How?'

'Use your imagination! Make me fatter.'

'You're a tall fat guy,' I said.

Thorne touched his stomach. 'Padding.'

Little, it seemed, would be gained by not humoring him. I regarded the close-cropped hair; the lagoons of his recedence. 'You wear a wig,' I said.

'Bingo! Gimme hair!'

I tried, but mentally putting hair on a virtually bald man is like trying to imagine the oldest person you know jerking off.

'This'll give it away,' Thorne told me. It was like I'd changed channels on the TV: the voice became instantly and utterly different. 'All I wanna say is, Good Lord I'm happy to be here at this table tonight...'

'Jesus Christ. Marcel Cliché?'

'One and only.'

I waited. Then turning to Chai I said, 'But it won't work.'

'Why won't it?' Thorne said.

'Have you any idea what I'm expecting? He'll recognize you.'

'You didn't.'

'This is the third time I've seen you! And even I would've eventually.'

'I doubt it.'

'Look Chai, I need someone else.'

'No one else,' Chai responded.

'I'm your man,' Thorne added. 'You'd be surprised at the variety of my interests.'

'That ain't the issue. I appreciate you wanna do it; I just think he'll see through you.' Trying hard not to sigh, I wished Herbie was with me. My initial reaction – on the bench, in Central Park – had been correct: I couldn't do this on my own, despite what Herbie had said. Obviously I'd failed to make clear my demands.

Four eyes on me; two men waited for me to speak. When I didn't (it was a somewhat petulant refusal) Thorne took the chair instead.

'Look Adam,' he said. Was I naive to have expected to be called Mr Malarz? Thorne wanted to confirm our familiarity: 'Lemme tell you something about fear.' He stitched his fingers into a lattice and leaned forward. 'Fear is a chemical... and a human being's a reagent. Making what? The inability to see what is obvious: the truth.'

'...You're going to scare him into not recognizing you?' I asked.

'I'm saying I can make him ignore the obvious. Him or anyone else. Do you know what produces irrationality better than anything else? The fear of being trapped. I don't even mean lock and key, necessarily. Could be mental; could be anything... You ever been trapped, Adam?'

'Trapped right now.'

'Do you know the rat? Rat's an intelligent creature.'

'What...'

'I've studied rats for a long time. Sell rat traps: that's my biggest hat. All this other stuff is secondary. So I know a rat's personality.' He frowned as hard and deeply as I'm sure I was doing. 'Rat can sniff his way through a five-meter wide maze just to get to a crumb of cheese. But you take that rat; you snap a trap's jaws on its paw – you know what? Loses all fucking reasoning; can't handle it. Why not? We're human beings; we got big brains. You know what I'm saying? Fucking bear-trap snaps on our thing – man, it hurts. But we're capable of thinking: if I do this, lift this, I might just get out. Might not, but might. You with me? A rat can't tell the difference between being trapped and the fear of being trapped: they're equally painful. But to us, the fear of being trapped will destroy the power of logical thought. Getting outta the trap is easier than avoiding the springing.' He leaned back in his seat.

'Convincing,' I said. 'You have no objection to us looking in your head?'

'You're the boss: you're paying me two hundred bucks for this gig.'

'Jesus. Traps don't come cheap these days do they.'

Thorne winked. 'Not good ones they don't.'

2.

Thorne's apartment was like a torture chamber, owned by a fastidious housekeeper. Though I'd already hired the guy, one look at the spotless racks and snares almost made me change my mind. I would have preferred it if the place had been awash with blood as a slaughterhouse; but these traps were more like museum exhibits – to be admired.

'Home sweet home,' Thorne said. Last in, he closed the door then locked it – three bolts. In New York not even a maniac can afford to take chances. 'For now,' Thorne finished. 'I'm moving soon. Can't really afford this place anymore.'

This was the man who would lead Floyd and Analiese to an understanding of their secret histories? I had told Thorne it would be no good simply telling them they're not who they are: they'd have to be shown. The least I could do.

'Coffee or something stronger?' Thorne asked.

'Something stronger,' Chai replied.

'Much,' I added.

Thorne went into what I took to be the kitchen. I asked Chai, who appeared every bit as bewildered as I imagined I was, 'Have you ever been here before?'

His answer sounded like a sigh of relief. 'No.'

The room was small, square, and devoted to traps and other restrictors. I can paint the scene best, perhaps, by saying there was no room for chairs.

I looked around. To my left, by the wall, the cocked, poised, lethal-looking teeth of a bear- or elephant-trap with the open-mouthed span of a child's paddling pool. To my right, on brown pedestals, were mouse-traps, rat-traps; flypaper on the wall, a dog-catcher's long-handled choke-collar leaning in the corner like a broom. A lasso hung on a hook; a set of horse's reins dangled from the ceiling like a madman's chandelier. There were ferret traps, or traps for small animals: boxes with the front opened up like a garage door, with a coin on the trigger of the weight-plate. Glass-fronted cabinets full of traps; low coffee tables covered with traps. Shining springs and the dull glint of oil; metal teeth, leather cuffs. In the far corner, by the door through which Thorne had walked, was a straitjacket clothing a dressmaker's dummy... Manacles, handcuffs, ankle-cuffs, coils of thin rope; the list was endless.

'Come on in the kitchen,' Thorne called.

I was happy to get out. Then I wondered what atrocities – what oven-roasted limbs or boiled innards – would be in there.

None. It was a regular, small kitchen; Thorne had already lowered the table on its hinges from its vertical position by the wall, to horizontal. Three glasses sat on the table, and a bottle of supermarket brandy. Somewhat cramped, we sat down. Thorne poured into my glass and Chai's, to the top; then he leaned to the side and filled his own from the faucet.

'Do you mind if I smoke?' I asked.

'If you must.' Thorne removed a dish from a pile of crockery in the sink.

I needed a cigarette just to get over the traps. 'What do you do with that stuff?'

'It's my obsession,' Thorne replied. He sipped his water. I flicked ash into the damp dish and watched the grey of it darken with moisture. 'I sell 'em. I travel. Put ads in the paper; always a market for this stuff, believe me. I make some too. They cost more than I can sell 'em at.'

I didn't want to see them.

'...I work on 'em in my bedroom. There's something else I do.'

Brandy glowed in my stomach.

'I sell my blood at the place Floyd does. Why I know he won't recognize me.'

'...Why didn't you say that before?'

'You didn't ask. Now are you ready to peek into my brain?'

'As I'll ever be.'

'Then open your wallet,' Thorne said.

'On completion, we agreed,' I told him.

'No. Two hundred bucks on completion of trapping Floyd. This is different. This is selling you my history.'

'And how much will that cost?'

'Let's call it a round hundred.'

'Let's call you a mercenary motherfucker.'

Thorne grinned. 'You can get up and leave any time you want.'

'Fuck you. Fifty. Top offer.'

'I said a hundred.'

I sighed and took out my wallet. 'I want this done on the night of December 20. Does that pose any problem?' I asked. 'Well at least we agree on something. Now this is the address you're to take him to. Practice the route...'

3.

It's January 2 now. Sorry to slot this page in and spoil the flow, but something has just occurred to me. Chai and I probed the contents of Thorne's head, and now, with hindsight, I am better equipped to describe what we found. That we discovered his fondness for selling parts of his anatomy must go unquestioned; that his love of traps bespoke a cruel, sharp, and cunning mind cannot be doubted.

Splashing in Thorne's memories was like goofing around in a lake of oil; and there were plenty of dead birds on the shores. His life had been, was, and probably still is, a horror film of appallingly gruesome accuracy.

Thorne is so good at disguising his appearance, perhaps he is near me every hour of every day. Perhaps he is Darratello. He could be anyone: no wonder he is proving impossible to locate these days.

4.

Dear Adam (the next letter I received from Herbie began),

Learnt about the kid driver's life and times today. Fourteen, as I told you before – and he's seen and experienced what people in America (even New York) twice his age have no idea about.

The old, decrepit Ford Kwame drives me in is actually his father's. Quite fashionably for these parts, Kwame Sr is HIV Positive. The Africans do not fuck about when it comes to disease, even if that's what gave them the disease in the first place. (It's also responsible for the birth rate here. The streets of Kinshasa are packed. You have to go north, or west, or east, into the tropical rain forests to get a moment's peace. Or south to the grazing lands and the savannah.) Here, everything is done with more intensity: the weather is hotter than I have ever known; breathing is like trying to swallow scalding toilet tissue. Diseases are VIRULENT.

Kwame's father has HIV, his mother has it, and four of his six brothers have it. Guess what. Little fourteen year-old Kwame has it too. Not through sex or needles (though he's certainly not a virgin, even if we assume half of what he says to be youthful bravado): he inherited it from his parents. Some legacy. Kwame knows he'll die young, but he refuses to be idle or self-important. He does what the rest of his family cannot do: earn a living. Driving people he meets at the airport won't make him rich, but it feeds his sick relatives. For now. What'll happen when he's too sick to work?

His obituary will be truncated, lacking in complications. Born into a normal and normally struggling Kinshasa family, young Kwame was told at ten, when both his parents were diagnosed, to give up on education. The only subject he kept up was French. He learnt to drive aged eleven. If he's lucky he'll see his 20th birthday. In his time he will have learnt a foreign language, supported a family and had his own business. How many other 20 year-olds can you say that of? He's inquisitive, funny, he can do lateral thinking exercises IN FRENCH.

Two thirds of Africa has HIV or Aids, Adam, and if you're on my wavelength at all, you'll know what I'm going to ask. When I meet Youssou Hussad's father I'm going to pose the same question, but who knows if he'll tell me the truth. Find out if 'Tippu' (or Zaire in general) exports any copper to the U.S. If so, how's it done? Also investigate Aids in Africa. I've an awful feeling there's more than one type of Aids, and I think the shit Carreras got involved with was concerned with exporting the African type.

If I'm right, do you know what it means?

Carreras has initiated the spreading of a lethal virus.

Think again how we might test the blood donated in the blood bank Floyd goes to. Me, meanwhile, I'm avoiding sexy black chicks like the plague. That's a joke.

Yours

Theo xxx

P.S. I'm going to need to eat bananas now as a matter of survival. Not to put too fine a point on it, I need to clog myself up. Right now, I need to rush for the john every thirty seconds or so... and sometimes there's NO FUCKING JOHN!

At least I've done my bit to help a few weeds and struggling plants grow up!

5.

Four hundred kilometers to the east of the outskirts of Kinshasa – near Ilebo, in a clearing of dry forest land – is the first of Hussad's copper mines. He has five; the rest much farther north, and negotiations are well underway into Hussad contributing funds to a sixth – in the other African big producer of copper: Zambia. The mine to the east of Kinshasa is the most productive. It is called Tippu 1.

On his third day in Zaire Herbie asked to be driven there.

The previous day saw Herbie investigating the possibility of banana exportation – ostensibly. Along a muddy road, in a dark emerald tunnel that stank of decomposing leaves they drove. Young Kwame was drunk. Herbie has told me of the astonishing amount of beer and whisky consumed in the Congo basin: mainly as a soporific at night, but also as a social thing – and as a way of keeping at bay the pain and fear, the heat and loathing. The chauffeur did not enjoy the jungle path though it was wide enough for the large car. He was scared of animals that had evolved on from their terror of machinery. Scared of the small tribes of pygmies that live in the trees, not all of them as friendly as the Aka, whose representative Herbie was soon to meet.

Scared the car would break down.

Kwame depressed the brake at a wide spot in the road. He would turn the vehicle and leave the engine running. Herbie was free to wander but his guide told him not to stray too far from the mud. A maternal chimpanzee could rip open his sternum with one swipe. A big cat could scratch his head into strips of blood and bone.

'You're one hell of a tour operator, Kwame.' Then, with his bottle of water and a whip, he started to stroll from where the car waited under a canopy of dripping branches.

Herbie squatted at the side of the road for thirty noisy seconds with his pants round his ankles. The paper was three hundred meters away, on the back seat of the Ford, around a bend. Nor did he wish to walk back with an uncomfortable John Wayne swagger, an itch, and trailing the ungodly stench of sickness. Cautiously, fussily, Herbie chose leaves that had neither serrated edge nor berries attached to their host.

While abluting, Herbie heard the hiss of a gas leak – or a snake. He got to his feet quickly. Dropping his ad hoc tissue, Herbie wrenched up his pants and moved to the middle of the road. He shook. One hundred meters later he tried to calm down by drinking water, through he knew he'd pass it through his agitated system soon enough.

Birds chuckled overhead, loud and shrill. Silence was something to be afraid of. Noise meant no predators nearby; none of the jungle's inhabitants took Herbie seriously.

When he stepped off the road, the vegetation adjusted itself, as though to accommodate his weight. Life scuttled for cover; twigs snapped. The ground felt spongy; each step released a puff of wet, aromatic air that clung to Herbie's face as surely as the atmosphere in a Turkish bath. Bushes vibrated at his approach like a cheerleader's pompoms.

Herbie stopped being so frightened when some of the birds hushed. An alien in the undergrowth: now they gave him the respect he deserved.

Anything could be hidden in here, he thought. He ate two bananas from a tree and then hurried back to the road, feeling hemmed-in and alone.

6.

'Why do you want to see a copper mine?' Kwame asked Herbie.

'He's a big business man, right?' said Herbie. 'I need a big business man's money. My company can do it on its own if it needs to, but extra capital is always good. I'm going to ask several big business men if they want in on a new opportunity.

'Also,' he continued, 'I want to see if my company can get a piece of the copper mine – a few shares perhaps. Branching out can only be a good thing.'

Not nearly as drunk as he'd been in the jungle, Kwame drove on in his usual fashion: ignoring all other traffic, swerving madly and sounding his horn every six or eight seconds. He was deep in thought, but finally he spoke.

'Herbie? I am not a big business man. I am a small business man. I'm thinking of my family. I want to be a part of your company too. Can I have a share in VBF if I refuse my wages today? I can buy a piece of the concern and we can arrange for you to send my family money every month from Berlin. What do you say?'

Though Herbie overtipped Kwame by a significant margin, what he paid the boy on a daily basis would have covered the costs of two or three international phone calls, and that's all. 'I can't take your money,' Herbie told the boy.

The look he received in return was one of disgusted and horrified surprise. Kwame had expected Herbie to say yes immediately.

Two hundred kilometers to go, and Herbie didn't want to pass them in the unfriendly silence which followed. Quickly, before it seemed too much of an afterthought, Herbie told Kwame some money would arrive for the family every month anyway – as Herbie's treat for Kwame's loyal service.

This was good enough for Kwame.

## Chapter 5

1.

Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome.

In front of me I have a pamphlet, about Aids. Though I don't believe in fate, there seemed something pre-destined about the fact I received the literature on the day I got the letter from Herbie about Kwame and his disease. I took it from a guy with less hair than Spencer Thorne has, as I walked back to work at the end of my lunch hour.

HIV-2 is prevalent mainly in Africa.

By the time I got back to my desk I felt sick. Four people asked me if I was all right; I said I was getting a head cold.

Three of the clock struck, and suddenly I knew what was going on. My fingers stiffened and froze on the keyboard; my knuckles had turned into pebbles.

Obvious. Floyd and Analiese had been brought to New York from Africa. They were carrying HIV-2, or Floyd was. They'd been conditioned to believe they were a well-to-do couple, each having overcome poor beginnings. Floyd was passing HIV-2 to the Western world.

Carreras and Hussad were trying to bring Manhattan to its knees. Why was nobody objecting to kneeling?

I had to speak with Herbie.

2.

Third day in Zaire.

Some distance from the Tippu 1 mine, the sounds of production could easily be heard. Kwame stopped the car at the compound's open gates.

Throughout the 1990s, Zaire has been responsible for mining approximately half a million metric tonnes of copper every year; for 5.3 per cent of the world's total copper production. Even given the presence of the Shaba mines in the north, and the fact Tippu 1 was the first of five mines owned by Hussad, Herbie took a look and couldn't help but doubt the figures he'd learnt. He'd expected something much larger.

Herbie said, 'Tippu 1? The big one?'

'That's right.'

'Don't leave the car,' Herbie told Kwame. 'Back in less than an hour.' Onto his left shoulder Herbie hoisted a small hessian sack. In it, bottled water, toilet paper, writing paper, three cheap pens, and the whip. He walked into the compound, ears ringing.

To the cacophony of fans, drills, trains, blasts and general above-ground labor, he acknowledged some of the stares he received and some of the more amiable expressions offered. Very few people stopped working, or even singing, but the word went round.

The air was dusty – each particle carrying a degree of temperature into Herbie's face, cracking open his lips – but he could see operations clearly enough. Chain-link fence surrounded the compound. Bicycles had been chained and secured. Cars that looked like they'd been used for target practice were parked here and there, in no order; there were a few newer-looking jeeps. All in all, not as many vehicles as Herbie would've thought necessary to transport the workers. Either there was a great deal of sharing when it came to transportation, or some people lived on the compound – possibly in the huts also to Herbie's left, scattered as higgledy-piggledy as tossed dice, though of differing sizes, shapes and colors. What else could the huts be for? Storage, possibly: tools, maybe even the excavated copper.

Up ahead, on the right, was where the action was centered.

The compound leaned against the side of a hill, into which a hole the size of a man crouched over had been bored. The hill, the honey-pot. The nearer Herbie got to the hill, the plainer it became there was a great deal of activity farther on, beyond piles of debris where muscular black men pushed overloaded wheelbarrows.

However, Herbie stopped walking at the hill. Into the crosscut tunnel at its base a short man stooped, carrying a drill with a long electric flex. Behind him, at the mine's mouth, a huge industrial fan puffed a strong and steady stream of air. Peering into the mine, Herbie saw electric lights on the roof the tunnel, shining like stars on a clear summer evening but strung out like a rich woman's pearls.

Not caring he caused a distraction, Herbie was troubled by the thought of there being two separate mines. He glanced at what he could see of the one farther off through the dust; he wiped a good deal of dirty sweat from his face with a handkerchief. As he looked down to replace the hanky, he noticed sweat showed through the fabric, even though – this close to the fan, its blades like a helicopter's – he was cooler than he'd been for ages. In fact, he didn't want to move; but it was imperative he established what was coming out of the entrances to both fissures.

Looking to his left, Herbie saw a man with a tattooed face regarding him. In his eyes there was less confrontation than solemnity.

Herbie took a step toward him and asked if he spoke French. The wide heavy head shook slowly, but as no one else seemed prepared to speak to him, Herbie convinced himself to persevere.

'Hussad?' he asked, and the other's eyes lit up. Herbie imagined for a second he'd actually found Hussad – here, with so little effort. But this tattooed face was, despite the sadness, far too young even to be Junior.

The guide nodded and turned his back on Herbie, who inferred he was to follow. Past the bustle and din of the second mine – a straight vertical shaft – they walked. Herbie needed a drink – the dust in the air hurt his throat – but he couldn't stop now. Quite possibly his luck was in and he would be led to the younger Hussad, who himself would be sixty; but if not, a meeting with the elder, who at the grand old age of seventy-eight was a patriarchal, somewhat legendary figure in the area.

The guide opened the door. It was one of the largest wooden cabins, but once inside (the guide gestured for Herbie to enter) it might have been a waiting room, anywhere in the world. The air was chilly and moving: four table-poised fans whirred as noisily as tenor mosquitoes. Shining plant leaves on the immaculate dark blue carpet shook in the gusts. There were large wide chairs; magazines fanned the black glass of a coffee table. Framed photographs all over the wall.

Herbie sat. On his back, perspiration turned to ice cream, cold and sticky. He opened the bag and pulled out the water. For the first time the man with the tattooed face became agitated. He had closed the door behind them; now he splayed the fingers on both hands and gestured for Herbie to stop. Wavy lines appeared on the man's decorated forehead; he faced the problem of communication. His fingertips he lightly placed on the damp green shirt covering his bulging pecs.

Herbie understood: the man wanted to get refreshments for him. Herbie lifted the bottle of water, and with the other hand pointed at it. The guide nodded. Delicately for a man his size, he tiptoed along the carpet to one of the two doors at the far end of the cabin. As he opened it, he heard a mumble of voices and wondered whether he should personally announce his presence to Hussad, presumably behind the other door.

Barely a minute passed; the door opened again and the man with the tattooed face came out, looking as somber as before. He carried a tray on which stood a bottle of water, a decanter of whisky, and a very large glass.

Herbie had to know if Hussad knew he was here. After a few seconds he came up with a mime consisting of a finger pointed at the guide, then at the door on the left, then a knocking-on-the-door. Remarkably the other man comprehended, but while nodding his head seemed disturbed. Those wavy brow-lines returned; then he extended a long forefinger, opened his mouth – and pointed between his own lips. Far back, in the grey-and-red lining beyond the yellow teeth, like a small hunk of half-cooked pork, nestled what remained of his severed tongue. He gave a thumbs-down gesture, then he pointed at the side of his head: a thumbs-up. No, he couldn't speak French, but...

'Can you understand me?' Herbie asked in French.

Nod. His finger and thumb held close together.

'Does Youssou Hussad know I'm here?'

Yes.

'Is he the father or the son? The son?'

No.

'The father... and he's going to see me?'

The man nodded quickly and left the cabin.

Increasingly concerned as to what Kwame would be thinking, Herbie waited an hour-and-a-half. He had four small whiskies and a gallon of water; the booze arrowed to his head. He was tired; pissed off: he could have explored the compound.

Lacking confidence in his bodily functions, Herbie eventually decided to try the door on the right. By this point he had heard a voice from beyond the one on the left, so Herbie knew somebody was at least making telephone calls; it couldn't be long before he was seen. When it happened, he had to be comfortable.

The door opened on to a small kitchen. Beyond that, another door – the can.

When he emerged, breathing with difficulty (diarrhea being, among other things, an exhausting ailment) Hussad was ready to see him.

3.

Youssou Hussad Sr. is tall and thin and such hair as remains is grey and black in natural streaks. Two of his teeth are studded with tiny diamonds, but this is Hussad's only form of personal decoration. He dressed plainly – baggy pants, loose shirt wide at the collar. Even for someone as accustomed to the heat of Africa as Hussad must be, Herbie told me that the man found the temperature cruel: like standing in front of the open door of an industrial oven and having a flannel of warm water wrung out over his head...

When I received Herbie's first communication, my only thought was how was he, an old man from Germany, going to cope? But when Herbie told me about Hussad, I felt sorrier for the poor bastards who live there. If a man as old and powerful as Hussad felt it, God help the rest of the continent.

Herbie sat and made himself comfortable; taking no little time, Hussad shuffled around to the other side of the desk, using a stick to support himself. Eventually he also sat. The office – cool as the waiting room – seemed small because of the filing cabinets tight around the walls. There was a small window, a phone, a fax machine, a CB radio, and an ordinary wireless – as it turned out, for news and baseball scores.

'Now what can I do for you?' Hussad asked in French; his voice was tremulous, eyes half-closed under swollen lids and beyond puffy sleep-sacks.

'First of all – do you mind if I ask how the man with the tattooed face told you I was waiting.'

Hussad smiled. 'Mr Dechtler, I told him to bring you here. I got the message on my CB from one of my security staff.'

'I didn't see anyone with a radio.'

'That's why they're still employed here. I asked him to send someone and give you refreshments. I had business, but I wanted to keep you waiting to see if you were serious about wanting to see me. It seems you are. So I repeat: what can I do for you?'

Herbie explained. Throughout, Hussad was silent; leaning back in his chair with his fingers laced together over the head of his cane, he listened attentively. At the end he said, 'A very interesting proposal, Mr Dechtler. I will need to discuss this of course; how long are you planning to stay in the country?'

'A few more days; longer if necessary.' He named the hotel in Kinshasa.

'I recommend somewhere much closer – an hour away. The Zallopol. What is the air conditioning like in the Aurora?'

'It's like walking on the moon.'

'I'm pleased. There is no way to get used to this heat: it's like trying to pacify an angry god. The best you can do is create artificial atmospheres where the heat cannot get at you. A good establishment is one which offers its clientele comfort and protection.'

'And do you think you do that here?'

'Do you think I don't? My workers are not manicurists, Mr Dechtler: they are tough men, and I give them what I can. The mines have ventilation ducts; there are powerful fans. The ceilings are secure, held up with steel rods embedded in the rock, faults and fissures covered in shotcrete to reinforce cracks. My workers use the best, expensive drag-bit rotary drills and percussion drills. What else should I do for them?'

'That man who showed me here...'

'His name is Aruwimi. After the river.'

'Aruwimi. Would he mind giving me a guided tour of the compound?'

'You mean, of course, would I mind if he did.'

'If you like,' Herbie said.

'Neither of us would mind, Mr Dechtler. As no doubt you surmised, I cannot help but be flattered that a rich Western businessman has chosen my company in which to place his interest.'

'You're a very wise man.'

'Thank you. As my brothers in Ghana would say, I am Osagyefo: a great man. And Kukuduruni – Man of Courage.'

If Youssou Jr was half as sharp as Senior, Herbie thought, it would be no easy endeavor to prise from the younger man the nature of the secret given to Carreras. Precisely as he thought this, a second opinion trotted hot on its heels: perhaps the older man was also involved, to a greater degree than having a string of copper mines which were actually the front for something else.

The two men stood up, the elder taking more time and effort to do so. He leaned on his stick and took a deep breath.

Outside the cabin, the heat and noise closed in like worst fears do at night. Matching Hussad's slow aided limp, Herbie was able to ask more questions, under the guise of carefree chitchat. He asked about Aruwimi Nkrame: what had happened to his face, to his tongue. Being Herbie, Professional Bloodhound, he had spotted something else suspicious in what Hussad had just told him. Hussad said security had radioed to alert him a white man was on the premises. Security had been informed to send someone to collect Herbie. Why hadn't security brought him themselves? Possibly Hussad hadn't wanted to scare Herbie by confronting him with men bearing guns; hadn't wanted to give a bad first impression. So security had asked Nkrame to do the honors; but of all the men on the compound, was it a coincidence the one sent to escort Herbie was the one who couldn't speak?

'The tattoos, I take it you mean,' said Hussad. 'Tribal custom. Generations ago, another tribe used his tribe as slaves so they began the procedure of tattooing infants' faces – to make them uglier, more frightening, less welcome to be around.'

Hussad paused. 'What about his tongue?' They were twenty meters away from the chute of the vertical mine, around which shiny shoulders and torsos motioned in the tight determined choreography of a Broadway musical.

'Mr Dechtler?' Hussad asked. 'In your country would it be deemed polite to inquire after somebody's club-foot or amputated limb?'

'Not polite but understandable, human nature being what it is.'

'Maybe you would like to ask why I walk with a limp.'

Herbie didn't reply. Hussad was stalling for time.

'If you must know,' the older man said, 'as a slave, Nkrame saw something he should not have seen. His captors got a full confession out of him, after he tried to escape. They intended to kill him, but he begged and swore he would never tell. Otherwise they were so happy with his work (if you can call slavery work) that they didn't want to get rid of him. As a compromise they agreed only to chop his tongue out.'

'Very lenient.'

'Different cultures have different ideas about such concepts.'

'So what did he witness?'

'Nkrame?' Hussad sounded surprised. 'Have you missed the crux of the tale? Nobody knows. He will not tell. And nobody asks.'

Slowly they walked on. Herbie was reasonably convinced he'd tricked Hussad. One more question on the subject remained. 'How did Nkrame get here?'

'He ran away. After burning the house down.'

An ex-slave arsonist working as a laborer on a plantation? Possible; but why would Nkrame relate he'd been a slave, that he'd tried to escape, seen something forbidden, then agreed to having his tongue taken out, but would not disclose the nature of the spectacle? If Nkrame had promised never to speak, surely that meant the whole of the incident. Give a crumb of something interesting and we want the slice of bread, if not the loaf. Rather than Nkrame having said he'd lost his tongue to a vengeful, overcautious ex-employer, it was probably the case he had never mentioned the incident: never written down answers to questions, assuming he could write. If it broke rules of social etiquette to ask about deformities, it was logical no one would've asked a thing.

How many people know sign-language? The miners swinging picks and pushing drills and breathing dust – why would they know how to sign? They sang, they worked – they bicycled home with their heads full of noise. But perhaps Nkrame knew a system of signing: point being, if you recall what I first said about Herbert Dechtler, he does know how to communicate without the use of words. Not the exaggerated mimes he'd used in the waiting room of Hussad's office: a genuine sign language.

At the mouth of the mine – where the scantily-clad, briskly-moving little dentists carried tools and removed buckets of filth; inside which cavities were filled with shotcrete, and nerves made of an electricity-conducting metal were scalpelled free – Hussad and Herbie stopped walking.

'A sheer drop,' Herbie commented, peering into as much of the hole as could be seen from a meter or so away. He hadn't been slow to notice the nervousness that had befallen the miners. How often did the king come out of his castle? Looking at Hussad, it couldn't have been often; the effort of walking had produced long tears of sweat all over his face and his shirt clung in several places.

Hussad barked something in Bantu.

A wiry man sprinted off, clinging to a sledgehammer.

'I've sent for Nkrame,' Hussad said, 'now I think I must leave you.' He made no move to do so. Instead he said, 'Yes, it is a sheer drop. There are horizontal tunnels running at periodic levels into the copper deposit. If we could see this mine in cross-section it would look like a ladder in the earth. A ladder down to hell, Mr Dechtler.'

'You're referring to the heat again, I imagine.'

'The heat; the noise. The claustrophobia.' Was he trying to scare Herbie away? 'Who knows what little devils live down there, Mr Dechtler? Reaching to put their hands over men's mouths to stop them breathing or screaming.'

## Chapter 6

#

1.

Duly fitted out with apparatus deemed impractical or unnecessary by many of Tippu's miners (a helmet with a flashlight at the front; a silly tinker toy air-filtering mask worn over the mouth and nose and resembling a pair of panties), Herbie stepped onto the elevator platform. With Nkrame. The latter was as staid and emotionless as ever.

A grinding of gears, and with a jerk the platform slipped half a meter. Herbie got a sick feeling in his stomach. As he sank into the ground, as slowly as though consumed by the gums of ancient quickmud, he watched Hussad calmly smile. Herbie knew he wasted his time doing this: if anything was in either of Tippu 1's mines, Hussad would never have agreed to the inspection so readily. Besides, it was merely a hunch that what he sought was physical anyway. The best Herbie could hope for was to communicate with Nkrame when Hussad had assumed such a discourse would be impossible.

Looking straight up, the zenith – the square of blue sky – got smaller, like a white dot disappearing on an old TV screen. No heads looked over to see the white man falling away into the place where time stood still. Gears ground; chains rattled; there was a discomfiting mechanical whine from somewhere below. Herbie held his breath.

He looked at Nkrame's face, illuminated by the pit-helmet's beam. 'Nkrame,' he said loudly. 'Watch.' A brief round of charades began. The black man looked appalled.

Hands raised into the helmet's light, Herbie asked, with many a clenched fist, raised finger, cocked thumb, rictus maw:

Do you understand me?

It was not a simple communication; it would not have been if the two men had shared a mother tongue, but the fact that Herbie was slowly signing (lack of practice) in American Sign Language and backing up his statements with mouthed French made it nigh-on impossible. All the same, Nkrame understood one thing: in ASL, a question can be signaled by an accompanying facial expression – raised eyebrows, a backward tilt of the head – and when Herbie repeated the sign and gesture, Nkrame shook his head. The question asked was unclear, but Nkrame knew it to be a question.

Herbie put thumb to forefinger and smiled. 'Listen carefully,' he said in French into Nkrame's left ear. The elevator stopped. Nkrame hopped off. Herbie followed, standing around, amazed there was so much space. The platform had dropped them at a stope: a cavernous opening where excavation had long since begun. Consequently there were lights in place, on the roof of the opening, and people worked. The din was atrocious: Power tools, and a great fan blowing a gale. With his eye Herbie followed a cable the thickness of his own arm away from the fan and back up the shaft he'd descended. When he returned his attention to Nkrame, the other man was already five meters away, striding stooped into the cacophony.

Bent double, Herbie scuttled after him. He caught up ten meters on and it was evident Nkrame was not best pleased by the revelation that Herbie and he were to share more yes/no pidgin. Had Hussad told Nkrame not to offer even this?

Herbie spun Nkrame round. Movements slow but forceful, like a teacher demonstrating kung fu, Herbie tried once more and indicated:

I want to talk.

A spotlit blank look. Sparse French it would have to be. Leaning in to shout into Nkrame's ear, Herbie summoned up simple French. Herbie pointed at his own mouth as he asked whatever the bowdlerized version of 'What happened to your tongue?' is. Nkrame swapped looking appalled for looking indignant.

'Hussad told me he cut out your tongue,' Herbie shouted. Closer than before, down the tunnel, the tooth of a tungsten-tipped drill nibbled into cold rock. 'What was he punishing you for?' Herbie asked.

Nkrame shook his head.

'What did you see?'

Nkrame had settled on denial.

'If you don't tell me, my friend, I'll make sure Hussad discovers you were insulting him and his god.' Having resorted to such a threat, Herbie felt cheap and nasty.

Nkrame didn't seem to understand – and for this at least Herbie was grateful.

The gratitude lasted briefly. Air as thick as tapioca pressed on either side of Herbie's head. Hussad had been correct: the mine was hell. Herbie gulped down what felt like kettle-steam. For a second he was sure his body – his lungs – would refuse the inhalation, not recognizing the gas taken in. A thought worked away – as solitary and determined as a spider with its web – and Herbie knew only sunlight would increase the rate of silk-spinning. He had to get out.

Herbie turned his back on Nkrame and started to walk back the way he'd come. Only at this point did the guide become animated. Like a rodent he scampered after Herbie, overtaking him in the low narrow passageway and blocking the older man's path.

Herbie tried to stay cool, though by now perspiration ran down his face like a waterfall over rock. 'Let me out,' he said, pointlessly, in German. Then he repeated it in French – loud and insistent. Slowly Nkrame raised a left arm so muscled it resembled a hank of rigging rope. He pointed. The thought that had worked its way into Herbie's comprehension a few moments earlier now materialized.

Down here, amidst the noise and heat – in Hell, with its demons chattering and screaming – Nkrame was comfortable. It was up above ground he had a problem and was insecure. Herbie knew in this instant the way to get information from Nkrame was to get him out of Hell. Off his home turf.

Herbie dropped (painfully) to his knees. 'Please...' he shouted. 'Need water. Not used to this.' To emphasize his point he made a pantomime of strangling himself.

Perhaps Nkrame saw the potential for a genuine faint, for after a few seconds of drill-accompanied consideration, he dipped his head in a quick nod. Nkrame did not want an inquiry on his hands. This at least Herbie took to be a good sign.

Back to the elevator they walked and crab-jogged, depending on the height of the roof. The grinding of its mechanisms sounded like cymbals clashed together during a Chinatown parade. Herbie emerged from the throat of the dragon, its hot breath on his back, the rattling sounds of its rumbling belly deep below him.

Feet on earth again, Herbie felt better. Though his clothes were wet and close to his skin as a fresh coat of paint, he thanked God for the blinding sunlight and inquisitive stares. The temperature was high, the air dry and easier to breathe.

Herbie walked away from the mine entrance, in the direction of Hussad's office. Nkrame didn't like this. (What was he scared Herbie would say?) Nkrame bound along at Herbie's side like a defense player after his mark.

They stopped. 'I'm going back to Hussad now and I'm going to say you were disrespectful and rude. You might have lost this compound a million dollars in foreign backing, my friend. Just by being stubborn.'

Herbie waited for this sink in. Then he said: 'One more time. I won't breathe a word of what you tell me, on my honor, but I have to know because people's lives depend on it. Do you understand? People's lives in America depend on it. I'll even take you away from here if that's what you want...'

Nkrame looked lost and confused. Herbie hoped it wasn't the French itself which was the problem. Herbie unslung his bag and dropped to his knees in the dirt. They were between two cabins, protected, shaded. Herbie fished for his small spiral notebook and a pen. He handed them to Nkrame.

'Hussad will never know... Did he cut your tongue out?'

Looking ashamed, Nkrame wrote in big clumsy script: Not him. His people.

'He didn't want you to talk about something. What?'

Nkrame shook his head. Not the reason, he wrote very slowly. My (he drew and colored in five small circles while trying to think of the correct word in French) gift?

'Gift?' Herbie asked.

Nkrame tucked the writing paper and pen under his arm and performed a mime. With his right hand he proffered an imaginary something to an imaginary someone. With his left he received an imaginary something from an imaginary someone, his face breaking into a rare and charming smile.

'Exchange?' said Herbie. 'You let him have your tongue in exchange for what?'

On the paper, large-lettered: Life.

'He saved your life? Hussad did?'

Nkrame shrugged.

'Were you sick?'

Nkrame nodded.

'And Hussad gave you medicine.'

He nodded again.

'Here?'

Encore.

Excited, Herbie asked, 'Does he keep the medicine in his office?' He peeled his wet shirt from his sternum.

Nkrame shook his head. Hussad's son brought it.

'But where does the medicine come from?' Herbie wanted to know. Subconsciously he pulled his sopping clothes material from his skin. 'Was it found in a mine?' said Herbie, pointing exaggeratedly at the ground.

No, the vigorous shake of the head replied. Nkrame himself extended that muscular left arm again, and pointed. But not at the ground: no.

He pointed at the blue and brilliant sky.

Herbie frowned. 'The medicine came from heaven?'

Nkrame wrote: It was a gift from God.

2.

A word about the religious beliefs of the people in the Congo basin.

Surprisingly, Roman Catholicism dominates, with Protestant and Christian sects following. At time of writing there are half a million Muslims.

The rest have what is termed traditional beliefs.

Nowadays the tribes have a better idea than ever before of what goes on beyond their forest or river site, or away from their industrial diamond mine; but decades ago they were ignorant and easily impressed. They regarded the sky as awesome.

In July 1960, when the Congo – the darkest, most mysterious, guarded, inaccessible country of Africa – gained its independence, a global conflict broke out. The army revolted, settlers flew; there was anarchy.

The sky, in its way, was involved. The Belgians sent expeditiary forces and the infantrymen were dressed as paratroopers. In Africa in general they feared anybody who dropped out of the sky.

So presumably the same would be true of any object that fell out of the sky.

What did it mean: a gift from God? It was bullshit Hussad had fed Nkrame in order to make the latter grateful for the shots which had cured him, and to inspire eternal loyalty. Or Nkrame had lied, just to get Herbie off his back.

What had Nkrame meant? That he thought the medicine (for whatever disease, in whatever form it had arrived) had fallen literally from the sky? Or that its manifestation on earth – its miraculous efficacy – was deemed to have originated from the sky?

Neither seemed much to go on. What Herbie and I needed were fax machines or e-mail facilities; not these five-day-late letters.

I visited the library. Using encyclopedia, travel guides, books on religious phenomena, and CD-Rom, I attempted to find anything concerning religious manifestations in Zaire. Nada.

A gift from God. Generous. Something that arrived from the skies.

In 1948 the U.S. Air Force began a file of UFO reports called Project Blue Book.

Then in July 1952, the government established a panel consisting of engineers, meteorologists, physicists and an astronomer, led by a physicist from the California Institute of Technology. This followed a series of random detections that coincided with visual sightings near Washington D.C.'s National Airport. The CIA organized the panel.

Ninety per cent of UFO sightings were identified as astronomical or meteorological phenomena: bright planets, meteors, auroras, ion clouds. Or identified otherwise: as aircraft, flocks of birds, balloons, searchlights and hot gases.

That leaves ten per cent.

In 1969, Project Blue Book was abandoned. Of a reported 12,618 sightings, at the end the only classifications were 'identified' (where the sighting was explained by astronomical, atmospheric or artificial phenomena), or 'unidentified' (where the available information was insufficient for a conclusion to be drawn).

Ten per cent of 12,618 sightings is approximately 1,262. Unidentified. In America.

In the late sixties the only other official and fairly complete records of UFO sightings was in Canada. In 1968 these files were transferred from the Canadian Department of National Defense to the Canadian National Research Council...

Defense to research: the Canadians stopped seeing UFOs as something which could attack, and started seeing them as something which could teach.

There were less complete records in Great Britain, Sweden, Denmark, Australia and Greece. As far as anyone knows, there were no sightings or reports in the continent of Africa. None at all... Does that seem right?

3.

'So where the hell do you go every lunchtime, Adam?' a smirk with a flat-top 1940s Navy-boy hair-shave asked me the next morning.

Eoin McGarhen, with his new look.

'...You got a woman and a hotel on a pay-by-the-week?' he went on.

Call me small-minded but I disapproved of the question for a different reason than the reason you might expect. The bastard was in my office – where I rule the roost. It wasn't the question itself (nor its air of supposed relaxation) that vexed me; I simply didn't like him asking me anything except work in my own domain. Matter of territoriality.

'No woman yet,' I replied. Though it made my muscles stretch uncomfortably with the effort, I matched his smirk. I'd been ready for the question for some time. The response was slippery as an eel. It was a matter of time before someone started following me, if indeed they hadn't been right from the beginning.

'Usually the Post Office.'

Had he known? The look on his face was one of abject surprise, and I couldn't bear to look at it. Gorge rising, I looked down. My quiet office with the picture of the vintage Mercedes on the wall was atypically messy. The desktop was cluttered with boxes of staples and my fountain pen (lid off, ink bleeding slowly from the gash in the nib); a mean-toothed staple remover, one of those old-fashioned pencil sharpeners that buzz and whirr like Dylan's voice on the early albums. Lots of paper, files, detritus.

'The Post Office why?' he said in one sentence, too quickly.

Motherfucker knew all right.

I smiled. 'This is gonna sound weird but I just can't get enough of the place. Working here can be stressful, right? And I can't drink at lunchtime, or work through – so I walk to the Post Office. Check out my box, sit down and read. Let the world pass me by a bit. It refreshes me. Though a hotel's not a bad idea either.'

McGarhen shook his head. 'You're a strange one, Adam. You need a vacation.'

'Like you wouldn't believe. I'm going to Honalulu on December 20. Can't wait.'

When McGarhen had left I disregarded the possibility of there being cameras monitoring my every move. On my overloaded desktop I placed my elbows; and heavily, wearily I cradled my head in my hands.

How much didn't they know?

4.

At 11 a.m. someone knocked on my door. With my usual trepidation I made a monocle of the peephole, to see the Italian kid, Jerry. There was nothing I needed but I'd have him do some shopping for me anyway. 'Get some beer, a bottle of Chivas Regal, some smokes. And a couple of good cigars,' I said.

Jerry nodded. Like a waiter new to the occupation he wrote everything down in full, wearing a worried frown. 'Anything to eat?'

'Nah.'

'You should eat something will all that drink and nicotine,' he advised me.

'Should I?'

'Sure, man! Unless you're Irish.'

'I'm Polish.'

'I'll bring you some sausages and some Wonder Bread.'

'Okay, that's cool. Will you do something else?'

'Your dough.'

'Let me write in your little book. Thanks. Go to this address. It's quite a way from here; are you up for it?'

'Long as I can claim my travel expenses.'

'That's fine.' I handed back the book and the pen. 'Write this down.' I dictated slowly. 'Marcel. Further to our interview for the Village Voice, I would like to ask a few more questions. Would you be free tonight... Put the date in in parentheses... For a brief meeting at my apartment in Chinatown. At twelve? Paul Lewis... You got that?' His uneasy sneer said it all. Pre-empting his question I said, 'You don't need to understand. Just take it to the address after you've bought an envelope for it, and leave it in the mail slot for Spencer Thorne. You got it?'

'Are you Paul Lewis?'

'Yes. Will you do this? Good. Then I have another one. Here's fifty bucks.'

## Chapter 7

1.

Been in this room twelve days. It is January 1. Happy New Year.

I have no idea where Herbie is, but I'm pretty sure he's still in New York. He returned on December 18; I saw him once before I ran away to hide. Predictably enough, we met in Monica's All-Night Bistro. I was more nervous than ever. I smoked an entire pack of cigarettes while he filled me in on the details he hadn't elaborated on in the letters. He was suntanned.

Just before we parted I explained how close everyone was getting and that they thought I'd be vacationing in Honalulu in a couple of days. He asked me why Little Italy. 'Didn't want to leave New York; felt the need to be in the hub of the danger, I guess.'

Herbie was giving up his New York apartment. I gave him my address and he said he'd commit it to memory. I keep expecting him to come round, but maybe he thinks it's too perilous; or maybe – I don't want to think about this, but maybe – something's happened to him.

Quarter of five now; I'm getting hungry for my supper – the one that should have been my lunch. Jerry has been gone for hours. Where is he? A lesser man might take offence at the way people keep disappearing from my life. How long should it take to deliver two messages and pick me up some food, booze and cigs?

This is how Herbie's journey concluded.

2.

'Youssou Hussad does not work here. Do you know where he works?'

Herbie wasn't sure if his young driver had heard the question. Kwame drove along with uncharacteristic care and attention, both hands gripped on the wheel, bony legs beneath his slacks, pistoning up and down exaggeratedly. The Ford contraption rattled along like a motorized skeleton.

'No, I don't know,' Kwame replied. 'But there are methods of finding out.'

'I'll give you another hundred dollars for your family.'

Herbie had heard of the pygmy tribe's reputation for lightheartedness, but nothing – certainly not Kwame's enthusiastic descriptions (which, in truth, Herbie had considered a little over-painted) – had been a sufficient preparation for the people's good nature and their fondness for tomfoolery. Herbie was pleasantly surprised.

The Paka. And although the fourteen year-old had already arranged a meeting between Herbie and one of the tribe's representatives, it took a day for Herbie and Kwame to find the young man. A day on foot.

Kwame explained the plan before they set off. Herbie started laughing. 'You've got to be kidding,' he said in giggly French.

'There's no other way, Herbie.'

'Then fuck it: I'll think of something else.'

Kwame wanted to help. 'Herbie, please,' he said. 'You want to know about Hussad's son. You can't just go into Tippu 1 and start asking questions. The boss'll find out. Besides, it's possible no one will know. What if you're led astray? What you really need is a good look at the company records.'

'And these pygmies are going to do that for me, are they?'

'The Paka are invisible,' Kwame replied. 'You shine like a diamond in that mine.'

'Kwame, you say the sweetest things.'

3.

The Paka live in the rain forest – one of many, many tribes. Small, funny, enterprising. Like many pygmy tribes, they are owned by their normal-sized neighbors, and are sent on errands – to forage for food in parts of the jungle the natives fear.

('This is supposed to make me feel better?' Herbie asked Kwame. 'We're going to go looking for a tribe of small people who can make themselves invisible, walking through dangerous parts of the rain forest?'

Kwame shrugged. 'What can I say? The car won't make it.')

They left at dawn. The security guard at the front door of Herbie's hotel – extra vigilant following a minor pilfering from one of the guest's rooms – stared at Herbie harshly. Herbie nodded in greeting but didn't speak.

Kwame was waiting outside, in the car. Tossing his bag into the back, Herbie got in. 'Do you know where we're going?' he asked.

'Sure.'

The drive was hushed until –

'End of the line,' said Kwame, killing the engine. Before Herbie could voice his opinion about the safety of the vehicle, his guide popped the hood. Herbie reached for his bag and got out. Like a conjuror revealing what's in his palm, the boy opened his fist slowly to show what he'd taken from the engine: the spark plugs.

They walked into the forest.

'The one I want you to meet is called Bosseke,' said Kwame. 'He's twenty-one and he probably comes up to your hips. A very funny man. He swears he's seen a dinosaur in the jungle. And a UFO. He collects fat, whiskery caterpillars for his family.'

'...Why?'

'For food.'

'Gross.'

'To you. But they have a good life. The children swing on creepers all day; they're never beaten. They're not accustomed to pain. They have their teeth sharpened to be more attractive and half of them faint with the agony.'

'I would too.'

'You wouldn't. You're a white man.'

Herbie frowned, wondering whether to check the logic of the statement. They trudged on. The air was thick with steam and insects; Herbie's clothes had long since been wallpapered to his skin. It was difficult to breathe. Kwame, however, showed no sign of discomfiture. Leading the way, he hacked at belligerent vegetation with a Turkish scimitar. It was Herbie's opinion that Kwame viewed this as a well-paid adventure, like a combat vacation; for the first time, the boy started to annoy our hero.

An hour passed. Then another. The vegetation grew denser, more adroit at casual strangulation. Judging by squawks and feathery scuffles overhead, the birds in the branches were bigger here than they had been at any point along the journey, or indeed in Herbie's life. Pre-historia.

'Not far now,' said Kwame.

4.

The Paka had done him favors in the past. Bosseke was a personal friend. The previous afternoon, Herbie had asked how Kwame could be so certain of the pygmy's allegiance. The Paka believed themselves to be white – their skin was of a lighter hue than that of their owners. While performing favors earned them food and money, they were not above selling out to a higher bidder. What was more, he was hairless – a sign of wisdom in the tribe – and rich.

'Stop here,' said Kwame. Leaning his left ear into a very scarce breeze, the boy made a show of frowning as he searched again for the sound that had alerted him.

Meanwhile, Herbie – soaked to the skin, weary – felt trapped. Trees towered to either side. The sun was feeble through the canopies of branches and leaves.

'I don't like this,' Herbie mentioned. 'Are there wild monkeys here?'

'No, the Paka eat them all.'

'...Is that a joke?'

'Yes.' Then Kwame looked up at his own zenith. 'Bosseke?' he called. The language that followed left Herbie feeling more incarcerated, being swiftly spoken, polysyllabic, and utterly incomprehensible.

Movement. Herbie saw the bomb fall; he flinched as the object descended, shooting ripples through the patterns of forest light.

With a heavy slap the boy landed crouched on the spongy floor. He stood up to his full height, and he was miniscule. Not a boy, though; the lines on his face spoke of experience.

The two friends embraced. At Kwame's behest, Herbie was then obliged to hug the young man, bending over almost double to do so.

There followed an exchange between the two natives. Kwame turned to Herbie. 'He says you must drink. You've lost a lot of fluid in perspiration.'

'Okay, I'll drink. What happens now?'

Bosseke was half naked, as Herbie had anticipated. A loincloth, a nose-ring, some mud and paint smeared across his chest and cheeks. His long black hair was filthy and lank, tied up at the back with what looked like a malleable piece of bark.

'Bosseke says: would you like to eat some caterpillars?'

'Tell him thanks but no thanks. We should do what we have to do.'

The message, and more, was relayed. Then Kwame said, 'Let's start walking.'

'...Back?' asked Herbie incredulously.

'Yes, back.'

'We journeyed all this way just to meet him. Couldn't he have come to us?'

'I thought I'd explained their playful approach to life,' said Kwame. 'He also wanted to know quite how much you wanted this done.'

It was three p.m. by the time they got back to the car. Kwame refitted the spark plugs. Smiling as though he'd just taken mushrooms, the pygmy did his best to communicate with Herbie. The mime was hopeless. When Kwame got behind the wheel Herbie asked after the essence of the message. Kwame replied: 'Ghosts. He says the jungle – that part of it, anyway – is haunted by the spirits of every creature that has ever died there. Close together. It's possible for those who believe to ride on their backs. So it looks like you're flying. He says the Paka can all fly this way.'

'Does he know what I want him to do?'

'He knows. He says the ghosts will follow our car now and help him tonight.'

'Fine. As long as they don't leave their ghost turds for me to step into.'

5.

In Africa, daylight is squashed in one fell swoop by a sudden slab of darkness.

Bosseke took the darkness as his cue.

Having had his offer refused, Herbie wondered – in his hotel room, alone but for a candle, his blue notebook and a bottle of bad wine, minutes after Bosseke had left – how the pygmy was going to achieve the impossible and enter the Tippu mine. A scam? He poured a glass of vino that smelt of goat-cheese. As he sipped his vile Nile-water, he closed his eyes and wondered what the pygmy had in the pouch around his neck.

He sighed and waited for the hotel owner to knock on the door.

6.

Kwame drove Bosseke to within a mile of the mine, and then gave the pygmy an important piece of paper. From there Bosseke walked, the sky his only witness.

Through the mesh of the boundary curtains surrounding Tippu he saw slow-moving guards, pacing and lighting cigarettes. Chatting and adjusting the position of the rifles on their shoulders.

Bosseke waited for the truck that would take away extracted copper. Flanking one side of the road leading up to the front gate was a shallow drainage ditch, overwhelmed by nettles and garbage. Toward it Bosseke now crawled. Virtually naked as ever, Bosseke's flat chest and fat-free stomach were scraped by stones and weeds. He adopted a face down position in the ditch. (When he returned to the hotel, many hours later, after dawn, Herbie had to brave the midges and flies and open the windows wide to let out some of the pygmy's newly-acquired perfume.) He waited.

He felt the timid vibrations of the truck in the ground a few seconds before he heard its engines. His body tensed. He mouthed incantations. Finally the armour-plated truck drew closer. It was not moving quickly; Bosseke had only one chance to time it correctly. He looked to the side, at the road; the front wheels of the vehicle passed his eyeline – at which point he rolled out of the ditch.

Bosseke twisted in the filth – to take his tiny body beneath the truck before the rear wheels crushed him. Holding his breath, his ribcage was bruised from where he'd square-wheeled over the chunky pouch on his chest. His strong arms grasped at the undercarriage. After a fumble or two, the metal he managed to hold was scalding hot. A dribble of warm oil shat onto his shoulders; the flesh of his back scraped against the stones on the track. Bosseke pulled himself nearer the filthy, stinking metal, his legs out behind him like oars being dragged through the water. His lateral muscles creaked and strained with the initial lurch: after that they merely throbbed.

Approaching the gates, the truck slowed. The gates opened. Bosseke's back was a quilt of scars and seeping abrasions.

The loading process began. Bosseke had a few moments to rest. His forearms sang with a feeling like sunburn. Watching the legs around him, he planned his next move to the tune of metal striking metal.

Bosseke did not attempt to get out from under the vehicle: that would have drawn attention. Instead he waited. Hoping that when the truck had eaten and digested its metallic midnight snack, it would pull away with all eyes on its behind, not the space where it had been. Being so small, Bosseke hoped he could lie still in the darkness and not be seen for a couple of seconds.

At first the plan seemed to work. The machinery glided above Bosseke's head, and the native squashed himself into a ball. The truck moved away, its headlights sweeping and dazzling. Bosseke left it a couple of seconds and then made a dash for the mouth of the mine.

Someone saw him. A half-hearted, indecisive cry went out; questions followed, though most of the armed men had heard nothing over the noise of the truck engine. The vigilant guard ran over to the mine down which Herbie had recently descended, but could see nothing amiss. He had no way of knowing the intruder was not hiding near the elevator base but beneath it. So small was the pygmy that he had squeezed between the base and one wall of the elevator shaft. Now he used his battered body to cling to the underside of the base, legs akimbo, in the way he'd boarded the truck.

Fifteen minutes passed. Bosseke's eyes were closed, his teeth gritted; his muscles twanged like double-bass strings; his heart, however, was calm. Though the blood had rushed to the back of his skull, producing a deafening sort of dizziness, Bosseke had hung from branches before, for hours.

Eventually, after the guard had mounted the base himself (his boots were inches from Bosseke's nose) he went away sighing. Someone had called him over with the offer of a cigarette.

Cautiously the pygmy used his strength to make it back out into the open air. There was a moment, when his fingers splayed on the edge of the base, his bare feet pushing at the rock for purchase, that a few stones scuttled down the walls of the shaft. The noise was not awesome; but in the comparative still from up above, Bosseke thought it would be noticeable. No one investigated.

Deep breaths he took on emerging. He tried hard not to pant. Bosseke judged the locations of murmured voices, and made a circuitous journey to Hussad Sr's hut.

The outer door was unlocked. When inside, Bosseke closed it quietly; stood a moment in the darkness until his eyes could make out shapes. Then, very slowly, he took steps toward the end, where Hussad's office and the kitchen and john were. As Herbie had told him (via Kwame) would be the case, the door was locked. Bosseke opened the pouch around his neck; wrapped in tissue paper so they wouldn't clank together were six or seven miniature tools. The pygmy removed the largest screwdriver, and having unpeeled its papery coat, he proceeded to take the door off its hinges. He worked methodically; placed the screws in an orderly row by the other door. Though he worked in darkness, within twenty minutes he had access.

Again he paused at the threshold, letting his eyes swim through the murk. The small window allowed in a modicum of illumination without making Bosseke feel exposed. He walked around the desk to the filing cabinets. Herbie had warned Bosseke these would be locked, and the pygmy had brought with him various lock-picking instruments. But it wasn't the case. Each drawer rolled out easily, albeit slowly because of the noise, and Bosseke faced file after file. For the first time tonight he was concerned. He had too much to choose from, and he didn't have all night.

Bosseke could not read. What Herbie did not find out until later was that Kwame, in the decrepit Ford, had given the pygmy that piece of paper – upon which were words in Bantu and in French. Looking through files at random, Bosseke now proceeded to play Snap! – attempting to find files on the subjects he had been given. Had Herbie known of Bosseke's illiteracy, he would have vetoed the expedition.

Two and a half hours Bosseke spent in that busy office, moving slowly, searching. When he found a match he placed the file on the desk, preparing for the next stage. He would get more excited by matches in French, seeing them as far more exotic; if something was written in French then it was information also intended to be hidden from the bulk of the mine's workers.

Before long the pile of files on the desk was threatening to topple.

It was time to make a phone call.

7.

Herbie was half asleep when he heard a knock. The wind had made the inside of his head into a moldy plum. He got up. As he'd foreseen, the manager himself, smelling money, had come to summon him with a smile.

'Your fax, sir,' he said in French. 'It has started to arrive.'

8.

When the first page of the first of Bosseke's chosen files had gone through, he placed the second on top of it, face down as he'd been directed. The machine took the work – typed bills, invoices, hand-written letters, memorandums – very slowly. But Bosseke, now, was in no hurry. If he was discovered he'd use the chair to break the small window and then risk a few abrasions climbing through.

9.

The manager of the Hotel Zellapol was delighted: the fax was charged at a flat rate per minute. Already thirteen sheets had come through. Herbie sat on the floor, cross-legged, taking the pages from the tray as they emerged, and reading what parts he could; placing what he'd need deciphering in a separate tidy stack. The fax machine was still whirring softly as the first traces of light stroked through the sky.

Of Tippus 1 to 5 there were copious mentions: references to staffing levels, job descriptions, overtime rates and notes on disciplinary interviews and wage rises. Production levels, yields, targets; letters on site management and new-site-finding.

There was a mention of the proposed site in Zambia, and of how the recruitment process was developing. Technological jargon which flew over Herbie's head; some tool prices from rival suppliers. Health-care figures and pension schemes...

And then there was the file called Lake Mai-Ndombe.

This was the piece that did not fit. Herbie was intrigued. With its absence of production figures it could not be a mine. So what was it? What was there?

The earliest records were from 1990. Each month of the year had a separate sheet of A4 paper, upon which a table had been drawn in landscape. The headings across the top were: NAME, LIVES (DISTANCE/DIRECTION), STATUS, 1ST TREATMENT, NOTES, 2ND TREATMENT, NOTES. A typical entry, horizontally, would be: Nambia I'Cello, 5 miles south, -ve, 1/5/90. Strong willed. Full dose. 10/6/90. Believes. Or: Sally I'Cello, 20 miles east, +ve, 2/6/90, Advanced stages. 3/7/90. Believes **Further analysis necessary. Some months had two entries on the page; some had twenty. This was also true of 1991, 1992, and every year to the present. It was a scientific log of results. A project going back to the start of the decade, with more and more entries recorded every year. But what was the experiment?

Added to these stark figures were pieces of paper saying in note-form things like: We are thinking of reversing the process. What do you think? Or: We need more people from nearer the Congo. We have to see what effects the water has. These gobbets were dated, had been faxed to Hussad Senior at Tippu, but were anonymous.

Other intrigues included: The King and the Queen are not popular now. People don't trust them. There'll be trouble. I think they should move south, down to you.

And near the end, a message from October 31, 1996: Dad, our friend will be here soon. I can't wait to see him again. Then I'll have to leave, won't I? It's strange we can't stay in one place together for long. Still, I'll be glad to leave this country...

Reading the gobbets, certain matters made themselves clear in Hussad's mind. Dad in the paragraph above told Herbie that Hussad Junior had written this and the previous paragraphs. Junior had been faxing Senior over a period of years, to keep the latter abreast of developments. So Junior lived – or worked – at a place called Lake Mai-Ndombe, wherever that was. At least he had worked there, until late '96. So where had he gone? Who had come to visit or replace him?

Herbie looked at the blades of the overhead fan. Waiting for Kwame and Bosseke made him tired. He got up to prepare coffee, and having set the kettle to boil (he would leave it bubbling ten minutes, to kill germs) he looked out his hotel window.

The Zellapol was an hour's drive from Tippu 1, situated between the wet and dry forests. Even at this hour the streets were busy. A mule tugged a cart full of vegetables; a few rickety stunt cars rattled by; dogs sniffed at drains and each other; and a boy on a bicycle transported two drums of milk, one attached to either side of the back wheel. This morning would be the market; Herbie would buy vegetables. He wanted to ask where this lake was. He sat on the windowsill, breathing the chocolatey air.

Simultaneously, seconds later, the high wail of a jungle tribe's choir escaped, and the arrhythmic beating of distant drums sounded. The two sounds wrapped themselves around each other and expanded to fill what space they could.

Herbie woke with a start. The singing resolved itself into a single note from the impatient flute of the metal kettle, but the drums were impossible to place until the sound arrived again. Herbie raced to the door and opened it.

'Come in,' he said to Kwame and Bosseke.

## Chapter 8

1.

'It all went okay?' Herbie asked Kwame.

'No problem.'

'...I'll make some coffee. Does he drink coffee?'

Kwame asked. The pygmy replied with a grin. Kwame said, 'He made a joke, but I don't know how to say it. He said: Of course I drink coffee. I'm not a... a... person who is more like an animal.'

'Savage?'

'Maybe. The joke is, he is a savage, you see...'

'Yes, I get it, thank you.' Making the drinks, Herbie wondered if he should mention the horrific wounds to Bosseke's skin. What would a tribesman's take on medicine be? The question led to Herbie's thoughts on disease: disease in general, and then on to HIV-2 and what he'd read. If all was crystal clear, Youssou Hussad Jr, at the grand old age of sixty-plus, had attained the status of mad professor; he was testing people with a particular compound and making notes, for some reason, on where they came from. If they tested positive (he assumed for HIV-2) he was giving them a particular treatment. But what did it mean: Believes?

Herbie served coffee. Kwame said thank you and Bosseke nodded, but continued to seem as preoccupied as he had when Kwame had been explaining the night's events.

Even though Bosseke had been in the hotel room the previous evening, he seemed amazed by the place now. He stared around as a child will, seconds before he understands he's lost.

Finally permitting his conscience a voice Herbie said, 'We should get him something for his cuts and bruises. He looks like he's fought ten rounds.'

'He wouldn't accept it. The forest will heal him when he goes back.'

'I see. What's got him so interested in this room?'

'The faxes. I don't think he really believed it would work: when he saw those asterisks I saw his eyes light up... Did he get you everything you need?'

'I think so. Tell me: what and where is Lake Mai-Ndombe?'

'It's to the north: two hundred kilometers. Not far. I can drive you to Bandundu.'

'What's there?'

'I don't know the word. Where the land is very wet; there is no drainage; there are lots and lots of trees...'

'Swampland. Is there a clinic there?'

'In the swampland?' Kwame asked. 'I don't think so. I've never been there.'

'Ask your friend.'

A brief discussion followed. Herbie was alarmed to see Bosseke's eyes widen in horror; to see Kwame smile, then that smile fade and change to a weary frown.

'What did he say?' Herbie demanded.

'At first he thought I was joking. He says it's where the skinny ghosts get fat,' Kwame said, blatantly bewildered. 'A rock fell out of the sky... and the area is bad. Not the lake itself; a few miles away from the northern tip...'

'A rock fell into the swamp,' Herbie wanted to clarify.

'That's what he says.'

'What does he know about this rock? Was it from space? A gift from God?'

Again the Africans broke for conversation. Then Kwame said, 'He thinks it's an egg. Laid on to the earth so the yolk could leak into the swamp.'

'Is he scared?'

'Terrified.'

'Tell him thank you for all he's done. He'll be rewarded. You and I leave for that place you mentioned at noon.'

'Bandundo?'

'Bandundo.'

'I'll fill her up.'

2.

Despite Kwame's offers, Herbie didn't want any questions about Lake Mai-Ndombe raised. When they were nearer the lake itself – perhaps, but for now, no gossip... In the early afternoon, after Herbie and Kwame had rested (Bosseke had made his way on foot back to the jungle) the unlikely couple got into the Ford. Herbie asked if the boy had rested enough to drive. Though Kwame said yes, Herbie didn't believe him. He looked awful; Herbie had to keep reminding himself the boy was ill.

Insofar as they could be called roads, the Ford followed the roads into the rain forest. To the left and right, the cries of creatures from a place that seemed to be within the soul, the distant bumps of tribal drums.

The lake, when it loomed, smelt of sewage and fresh popcorn.

'Bandundo,' said Kwame, regarding the homestead they'd encountered. 'From here we get a boat.'

It was far from difficult to procure the services of a motorboat captain (especially when he'd seen the color of Herbie's money) and within the hour they were travelling north, counterclockwise around the gigantic body of water. The engine buzzed like the swarms of insects their motion dispersed; every now and then a flock of birds exploded from within a bank of reeds or from the branches of thin trees. The water was murky; it was shoot-ridden, frogspawn-bespattered, its surface swarming with lice and swooping flies. The boat hacked through water-treading shrubs with leaves as bright as fresh paint. The smell of brine was sharp. Cricket frogs croaked in protest, though in truth the small boat – the Pink Panther – moved slowly.

The Captain called himself Jimi. Throughout the journey, which was occasionally circuitous due to parts of the swampland not being deep enough for the boat, it was Kwame's responsibility to keep him happy. For his own part, Herbie was content to sit back and let the world wash by. Hanging his left hand over the side of the boat he caught hold of a lily pad that, warm to the touch.

Herbie's bald bits attracted the sun; they turned pink as the boat in which they rode. Made him feel a little unwell. He wished he'd worn a hat.

'Pass the water,' he said to Kwame.

Jimi had never heard of a clinic in the vicinity. Then again, as Kwame discovered, he'd only once, in his fifty-two years, travelled as far as Kinshasa, and never farther. By African standards he had lived the small-town existence. It showed. Not in the satchel look of his leathery face; but in the cooling disappointment of his hazel eyes and the grim umbrella of his unsmiling mouth. But a better guide they did not have.

North to south, the swamps extended approximately five hundred kilometers; east to west, at the widest, about a hundred and fifty. That was a large area in which to find a fallen rock; or, for that matter, a clinic. Herbie had needed it explained how any building could stand up in the swamp. The answer was stilts. So now he'd woken, he looked out into the ecosystem of plants and mangroves, searching for stilts.

After half an hour in the boat, Herbie's patience and headache were rewarded. Nauseous on diesel fumes, in the distance he saw a large wooden building – no more than a vague shadow through the camouflage and the swarms of flies, but entirely the wrong shape to be more plants.

'There!' he called, leaning forward and pointing.

Jimi aimed the boat at the building; cut the engines by a fourth. Smooth as it was – hardly a bump against the pilings – the docking brought an overseer from inside the wooden construction. A man in his sixties, dressed in an occasionally sweat-stained khaki safari suit and loafers. In his muscular right hand he carried a slim bottle of Coke.

Kwame, Jimi and this lone proprietor conversed. Herbie listened to the lazy hum of the boat's engine, wondering what the guy did for supplies. Where had the Coke come from? Where the hell was his boat?

Herbie's mind was sharp enough to realize it wasn't as sharp as it should be. All of a sudden he found it hard to concentrate. 'Excuse me, I need a drink,' he said.

Kwame pointed to Herbie's bag. 'There's water.'

'I don't want water. I need something sweet. Ask him if I can buy a drink.'

'Do you want a drink or do you want information?'

'Can't I have both?'

The safari-suited man gave a smile. The negotiation had lasted about two seconds. He stepped back into his shack.

'What do we know?' Herbie managed to ask.

'This isn't the clinic, but he knows it,' Kwame replied. 'It's a hell of a long way to the north. He asked me if we were... volunteers.'

Herbie nodded. 'Volunteers for experiments. Medical treatments.'

'I think so. The place has a reputation. It pays people to give in to a particular treatment. Some come from a long way away, as you saw in those documents.'

'But he has no idea what the treatment actually is?'

At that moment the house-owner emerged, carrying an opened bottle of Coke, from which a wisp of steam rose. Herbie wished he'd seen him open it. The guy knelt down on the wooden boards of his porch; behind him, the screen door clapped shut. Holding onto the edge of the wood, Mr Safari leaned over: the water level was about a meter below his knees. Kwame took the bottle and passed it to Herbie, who drank hard. Seconds later the bottle was drained; feeling better already, Herbie belched.

'Have you asked him about the rock?' Herbie said when he could breathe again.

'He's heard rumors, that's all.'

'About?'

'The rock falling near the clinic. About it being a present...'

Herbie interrupted. 'Don't tell me: from God.'

'...You wouldn't mock us, would you, Herbie?'

'Heaven forbid. Let me get this straight. It's a good rock. It cures. That's what he's saying?' Nkrame in Tippu 1 had talked of medicine... Herbie felt the immense pressure of guilt and realization; suddenly he understood why Kwame was so keen to hear out the man who sold the Coke. The boy had made the same connections as Herbie had.

'Please listen to me for a second, Kwame,' said Herbie, softly. 'Please... don't get your hopes up too high, okay? We only have rumors so far...'

The boy smiled. 'But just imagine if they're true...' His eyes were little black holes, each containing a pin-prick of light.

'I have imagined,' Herbie answered, and he wasn't lying. Whether it was the rock, the clinic itself, or something else altogether – the information so far led to the conclusion that the closer you got to it, the greater were your chances of being cured of an as yet unspecified disease. And even if you lived too far away for its effects to work, you could go to the clinic and get treatment.

3.

Next morning, a five o'clock start. They motored north.

At points they flew, the hull of the boat skimming the water as gently as a hummingbird arcing down to drink, the reeds getting battered and split. In other places however, the terrain was more treacherous, and Herbie felt, in the heat, as though he were travelling through thick and stodgy soup.

Herbie slept in a series of synaptic short-circuits – intense but short-lived melodramas of slumber. The dreams were nothing short of vivid. In one, he was in the boat itself, but it was red, not pink; it was called the Skinny Ghost. His travelling companion was me and the captain was Thorne. The swamp was made of blood, dirty water and garbage. Occasionally, in a bank of reeds, an arm would extend above the water, and dug into the skin was a needle, extracting blood to feed the swamp. The Skinny Ghost took crew and passengers, not to a geographical location but a temporal one: back in time. Herbie saw a dinosaur perched on a large rock. As the creature climbed off, the rock broke open like an egg, spilling health into the swamp. The water through which they thrashed became cleaner, and the trash was no more to be seen...

They're spreading the anti-virus around New York, was Herbie's first conscious thought. They're not trying to kill; they're trying to cure.

But why be so secretive about it? Why not shout it from the rooftops?

Jimi spoke a few words to Kwame. The sky above gauzed over; evening – again, already – approached. Kwame said, 'Nearly there. How are you feeling?'

Nauseous, would have been the honest reply. The smell of diesel had logged a fundamental complaint in his stomach; lightheadedness had become his natural state; and for the last fifty minutes he had wanted to evacuate his bowels, and when he did so he knew it would be repulsive and messy. Something did not agree with him.

4.

The jetty had already attracted five boats. Jimi's vessel pulled into a mooring space and the captain tied his reef knots and whatnots. Kwame climbed onto land quickly; Herbie hauled himself up, like an overambitious fish. Night had fallen. A gentle wind was up. Jimi followed the other two on to land, and the trio entered the nearest cafeteria. While discussing future plans (Herbie passed Jimi his fee under the table) they drank sweet tea and ate fresh hot discs of puffy bread.

It was not a town, or even a village. On the border between swamp and dry land, it was an area of houses and small-town stores. The block was unnamed, filthy; around it, the rain forest lumbered on with the patience and force of a juggernaut. The ground was unpredictable – like sponge one step, like granite the next.

5.

'Do you need to rest?' Kwame asked Herbie.

They were alone: Jimi had gone back to the boat, to return to Bandundo.

Looking up from his third cup of sugary tea Herbie said, 'No. But I need to ask you a question.'

'Go ahead.'

'Are you sure you want to carry on? I'm taking you away from your livelihood; there's not much I can offer. I have no idea what's going to happen next.'

Kwame's eyes sank to the bottom of his glass of tea. They bobbed with the mermaids of sugar grains there; slithered with the Conga eels of stray tea leaves.

'I want to stay with you,' he said simply.

'It's not definite, Kwame. You understand that, don't you? When we go back...' Herbie paused. '...You might still have it.'

'I must try. Or I might as well feed myself to the fucking fishes.'

It was the first time he'd sworn in Herbie's presence; it was more than enough to convince his listener of integrity.

'More tea? Or should we go?'

'Should we go.'

## Chapter 9

##

1.

Herbie and Kwame walked from the cafeteria, west into the thick and brush of the forest. It was midnight. The beam from Herbie's torch revealed wall after wall of foliage, through which the boy did the hacking. Herbie wished he'd taken Kwame up on his offer: a sleep might have been a good idea. For Herbie it was a few meters of walking, then a pause while the boy destroyed some vegetation in their path. A walk, then a pause...

At 3 a.m. they rested; at 4 a.m. they marched. By 4.30 Herbie had developed a stomach cramp; bending double, he held on to the slimy bark of an undernourished tree and spewed copiously. This followed half a dozen five-second bowel movements; explosive, body-weakening exits, which Herbie, groaning, would afterwards toast with a few desperate gulps of blood-warm water. The jungle, even this dark, was like a child's cartoon – not simply brash and electric, but leaving Herbie with the impression he was being laughed at, that he was having his intelligence quantified.

'I have to rest,' Herbie said. His leg muscles burned.

The clearing was approximately ten meters in diameter. Herbie perched on a very low branch and Kwame said: 'No, not here.'

'Yes, here. I'm nearly dead.'

Kwame moved closer. 'I've just trod in something,' he confessed in a whisper.

'Then scrape it off. Let an old man die in peace.'

'No, Herbie. I'm talking about a lot of something.'

'I've smelt worse.'

'I don't care about the smell! Do you think a pigeon left a meter-wide pile of shit?'

Herbie's mind was full to bursting with images of dinosaurs. 'Let's walk.'

2.

'We're lost, aren't we?' said Herbie as dawn cracked.

'A little bit.'

'I see. And when did you think might be a good time to tell me?'

'When we were out of trouble.'

'Jesus...'

'...Herbie, don't be angry. I've followed the directions; we've stayed on the border between swampland and forest. We haven't gone as far as you might think.'

'Now that I can believe.'

'I'll be it's just up ahead, if we go far enough.'

'Equatorial Guinea is just up ahead if we go far enough,' Herbie replied.

'Now you're being silly.'

3.

Herbie took it as a good sign that they arrived at a homestead without being eaten. Wearily they trudged into town and caused something of a stir. It was an area of tree-houses and unreliable-looking fenestrated shacks. Livestock in wooden cages protested against imprisonment; small black pigs head-butted one another in frustration. Around a well a group of youths wearing shorts kicked a soccer ball. Women carried baskets or buckets on their heads, and children in papooses on their backs. Men smoked cigarettes and discoursed loudly. It was a bright clothing operation, and bustly.

'Let's get something to eat and drink,' Kwame suggested.

'And directions. Make sure we're still in the same century, on the same planet.'

'What?'

'Never mind. Just bring me the bill.' Herbie wished his sourness wouldn't creep through his anticipation. After a sleep he'd be okay, but there was no time to sleep; and he didn't want to, anyway, with so many people around who could pick his pockets...

For the natives it was breakfast; for Herbie and Kwame it was a banquet. They had rice, hot bread and heavily seasoned vegetables; not to mention the obligatory half gallon of sweet, scalding tea.

Herbie dashed off to the bushes. He felt better afterwards, despite the fact that with his pants round his ankles he'd heard a snake moving.

When he returned to Kwame and the grinning natives, the boy said, 'Guess what. Half a mile to go. Am I the best guide ever, or what?'

Herbie smiled. 'Your family will be proud. They'll be wealthy for a long time.' In truth, he was concerned this homestead was so close to the clinic. He would have preferred to arrive completely unannounced. How likely was that now?

'Are you a happy customer?'

Herbie saw no reason to upset the child. 'The happiest.'

4.

The clinic sat in grounds of dust and the occasional shrub. A high fence surrounded the manicured clearing, its thorny crown prongs of barbed wire.

'Very welcoming,' said Kwame.

Herbie was prepared to give them the benefit of the doubt. 'It's probably to keep animals out.'

'Or patients in.'

'I thought you were in favor of this place,' Herbie said.

'I'm also a realist.'

Grinning, Herbie adjusted the pinch of the bag strap on his left shoulder. 'Sometimes I can't believe you're only fourteen.'

'And sometimes I can't believe you're as old as sixty.'

'Should I take that as a compliment?'

'Should I?'

They had reached the wire fence. Knowing they would have been seen by now, Herbie accepted the futility of wasting time. He and the boy had to enter as though they had every right to be there.

Kwame flicked up the flimsy catch that fastened the metal-framed door to the wire-mesh that surrounded it. The door opened outward. Herbie stepped over the raised threshold, and was in the compound, Kwame a heartbeat behind him. Out of politesse, displaying respect and commonsense, the boy pulled the door back, slipping his fingers through the mesh to rehook.

The place was quiet. Neither doctors nor patients were using the wet air and dry dust of the yard to exercise, rest, or have a smoke. Unbothered, unnoticed (or so it seemed) they approached the painted wooden stairs leading up to the wide doors. Standing sentinel to either side of the entrance were immaculately tended potted plants, the containers painted the brilliant white of the windowsills.

Kwame opened the door. Like a soothing sigh, the cold air that rushed upon them eased their hearts. They entered. The air conditioning was silent. Kwame coughed and Herbie sneezed. Herbie sucked air through his nose – and regarded the receptionist.

She was young and hefty, her shining ebony skin negating the virgin-white of her uniform. Unforgiving eyes; hair like wire tied up in bunches. She held a heavy fountain pen, and above her head an attitude that would have crushed a weaker neck.

Kwame spoke before she had a chance to. He confessed his addiction to the HIV-2 virus, saying how hard – don't laugh – it was to shake the monkey off his back. He volunteered for the experiment, if that would help cure him.

The conversation was excited. Then Kwame said, 'She's going to speak to someone in authority.' The receptionist murmured into a telephone.

'What were you arguing about?' Something had clearly upset the child.

'It's her job to find out where I'd heard about the treatment.' His face, as readable as a plank of varnished wood.

'So you told her Kinshasa.' With his hands Herbie made come-hither gesticulations, to speed up the tale.

Kwame nodded. 'As agreed.'

'So what's the problem?'

Wincing, Kwame said, 'You are. She says they've been expecting you. They've got a bed ready for you. And the treatment. She says they know you're sick; she wasn't even interested in me...'

'I'm not sick.'

'Did you use me, Herbie, to get you here for the cure?'

'They're lying to her. I don't know why but they are. We're here to make you better.' Nor was this completely true, but Herbie was not in the mood to split hairs.

Kwame turned at the mention of his name. The receptionist held the sink-plunger palm of her left hand over the mouth of the receiver. She spoke a sentence, and the boy nodded briskly, once.

'What did she say?' Herbie asked.

'The doctor will see you immediately.'

'See you, you mean. Or me?'

'...I said you, didn't I?' the boy snapped.

Herbie tried to ignore the hostility. 'I promise you, you'll get the treatment. I'm not sick, Kwame; I've never lied to you yet. Believe me on this, too.'

In his stockinged feet (the boots compulsorily left at a set of pigeon-holes by the door to the very corridor down which he strode) Herbie made his way closer to the heart. Without his boots his ankles felt weak. Room 12. He stopped. He was alone; he could turn back. Open the door. As soon as he did a bullet might obliterate his bowels and leave him in a heap on the floor tiles.

He stepped into an office: a doctor's place of work. A desk; some filing cabinets; on the walls, some lockable cabinets with red crosses on them; in the air the aroma of antiseptic, mildly tempered by the faintest whiff of sweetness.

'Good day to you, Mr Dechtler,' said the grey-haired, balding, white man behind the desk, in accented English, leaning back with his fingers laced together over the lap of his beige slacks. The man smiled.

It was – without question – a politician type of smile.

'Good day, Senor Carreras,' said Herbie, sitting down before he'd been asked to do so – as much through necessity as anything else.

'I can read your mind,' said Matthew Carreras. 'Fancy seeing me here. Well, fancy seeing you here too. You made it. By any chance, do you speak Spanish?'

Shaking his head Herbie replied, 'No. That's not one of mine. I made it? I'm numb. You'll have to explain that.'

'I intend to. And much else besides.' The smile had barely wavered. 'English it'll have to be then,' he muttered. 'First a drink. A toast.' Rather unsteadily he rose to his feet. With Herbie in silence, Carreras opened the top drawer of his nearest filing cabinet. 'My sources tell me you're a whisky man. Correct me if they're wrong.'

'Whisky's fine.'

'A double, I think,' Carreras muttered ruminatively.

# IV. Bones of Time

## Chapter 1

1.

It's ten p.m. and I do not feel very well.

Jerry, the Italian kid, has just left my threshold, virtually panting with the effort of dodging my hostile words, his shoulder blades pinched together. I shouted at him; now I will probably be asked to leave; but I had good reason to raise my voice.

At nine-thirty he knocked on my door – hours and hours, don't forget, after I'd sent him on that errand. I half expected it to be Herbie. I checked through the spyhole. My belly rumbled and I needed nicotine.

Woebegotten, Jerry handed over the plastic carrier bag. Something had gone wrong. 'Why so sad?' I asked, peeking into the bag. 'Jesus.'

The two messages I'd asked the kid to pass on were in there, too.

'You couldn't find the addresses?'

'I found em okay. It's those people don't live there.'

'What are you talking about?'

'The couple – Floyd and Analiese. They don't live where you said.'

'Of course they fucking do. Did you ring the bell?'

'Yeah, I rang it. Some old guy answered.'

'What old guy?' I demanded.

'He said his name's Walt. I wrote it down,' Jerry answered. 'Walt Brydonson.'

The strength went from my legs, surely as water from a faucet.

In case you don't recall, Walt Brydonson was the name of the old black guy who lives in the Harlem apartment that Floyd, once upon a time, called his home.

In other words, somebody had gotten to Jerry.

'Describe him,' I said.

'Didn't see him. He wouldn't buzz me in. But I asked for Floyd and Analiese Acclune – just like you wrote down – and he said he don't know em. Told me I got the wrong apartment.'

My words almost caught in my throat. 'Describe his voice.'

'It was an intercom, man!' Jerry protested. 'I don't know. Black.'

'You don't say.' My tone was unfriendly. 'What about Spencer Thorne?'

'Same shit. He don't live there.'

The last thing I wanted to do was argue with a child, but I could not let my protest go unregistered. 'I was in that fucking apartment with Thorne a few weeks ago. He's got traps all over the walls.'

Jerry shook his head. 'Not at that address, man; not a few weeks ago.'

'Who did you speak to?'

'Guy with a Southern drawl answered the door. He's in a suit; kinda flabby. His name's Wallace Chorning.'

I'd felt this coming. 'Sure it is. And he works in a prison in Louisiana, I guess.'

Heavy thick eyebrows pressed together on the boy's face like mating caterpillars. 'What you talking about?'

'Nothing. And I guess he's never heard of Spencer Thorne,' I said.

Jerry shook his head again. 'That ain't it, man. He has heard of him. He was the apartment's previous tenant. Said he was a real weirdo...'

I laughed. 'Well, he got that right.'

'...though he didn't say nothing about traps.'

'No, he wouldn't,' I replied.

'What's wrong with you, man?' the kid asked in a tone of authentic concern. 'It ain't my fault you're getting your weeks and years mussed up.'

I sneered at him. 'What?'

'Wallace Chorning moved into that apartment two years ago.'

'You're a liar,' I said.

'Where's my money? I don't need this shit. Last time I do jack for you.'

'You're damn right... Somebody got into your head tonight, Jerry.' I pointed a finger and my hand vibrated like jello. 'Someone got you to bring up names I know in completely other contexts. I wanna know how much they paid you.'

He backed away from me, his jacket opening to reveal his toolbelt, like a cowboy showing off his holsters and six-shooters.

'Have you been on their payroll all along, huh? Have you?'

'You need help, man,' Jerry told me. 'You're losing it. You've lost it!'

I slammed the door. 'I never had it in the first place,' I whispered as I raised my knuckles to the overflowing balloons of my eye sacks. With my back against the door, my legs out in front of me, I cracked open the booze and a packet of cigarettes. I waited for chunky fists to pound on my door. The building was quiet as a dumb man screaming.

2.

Dogs that had lost the scent had formed a pack in the mouth of an alleyway, as though guarding the Hades within. The rain through which I walked had confused them and they'd decided to spend the night where they were. One growled at me as I galoshed my way through a puddle.

I sought adventure, excitement and solutions.

I was looking for Dante's-off-Broadway.

I couldn't find it. The rain was in my eyes (that's my excuse). I tramped, I beetled for cover. The 'off-Broadway' part was no problem; I simply could not locate Dante's.

Finally, I was desperate. I'd formed the opinion I needed to speak to Spencer, and also that Herbie would be in the nightclub's crowd.

A patrol car lurked outside a convenience store. What must I have looked like? Waiting in the rain to be noticed (not even at your most desperate do you want to take a cop unawares), I pulled my lapels together and breathed out steam like an engine.

The window went down. The white face, neatly bearded, was wide as my trunk.

'Can I help you?'

'I'm looking for a place called Dante's-off-Broadway. It's around here; a nightclub – but I just can't... you know...'

'Never heard of it.' Not taking his eyes off me, he asked his partner behind the wheel: 'You? No sorry, man.'

'It's a cabaret joint,' I insisted.

'Move along.'

The rain told me to shush – but I couldn't. All I could feel was frustration and the cold. The cop turned to his partner, who said something I couldn't hear. I leaned in closer. The guy eyeballed me. Raising his voice he said, 'I remember it now. Dante's. But I'm afraid you're outta luck. Joint closed down a couple years ago. Sorry.'

3.

I am trying hard to maintain a sense of perspective. If you're wondering (for example) why I returned to this desk in this apartment, the answer is twofold. One reason is, I wouldn't know where else to go. Don't forget: the bills I withdrew originally would have been marked. If I go to some place now and pay cash, I might get arrested. So far I've felt reasonably safe sending Jerry out into Little Italy with a glowing ten-spot because I've been pretty sure he wouldn't frequent the sort of place that would give a damn about a heebied note. Even that assurance, I guess, has been snatched away from me.

The second reason relates to that sense of perspective. What I've learnt tonight, or heard tonight is not as important as it would, at first glance, seem. Be rational, I say. There are always answers; but where the fuck is Herbie to give them to me?

The Italian kid: how I'd like to smack him upside the head. Someone's gotten to him – that much is a certainty – but who? Who told him I was here? I have to see Floyd and Analiese; I have to speak to Thorne. I'll bet that bastard has let me down.

I've come up with a solution to the Dante's thing. The cop referred to a different joint: a prototype for the existing model, or a coincidental namesake. It doesn't matter which. The Dante's I know is around there somewhere, and I'm going to find it tomorrow – before or after speaking with Floyd and Thorne.

How long do I have? That's what keeps bugging me. They know I'm here, so what are they waiting for? They're allowing me to finish but I don't know why.

I hope they're not after Herbie. I hope I'm not bait.

There must be a way of warning him.

4.

6.12 a.m. I have just emerged from the weak and spineless shower. To my surprise/ indignation/ regret/whatnot I was not ambushed in there either; no towel was wrapped around my throat, so soap shoved up where the sun don't shine... I am jangling with nerves, and if you've ever known fear you'll know that is no exaggeration. Silent bells ring every time you move a muscle: silent, but by God you feel the vibrations. All I can do is wait. My role is that of chronicler, diarist, plague-year-survivor: and right now all I have to write about is dead space and no-time. Nothing is happening, and by recording this absence, I am only prolonging it. (Don't encourage it!) Novelists are a spoilt bunch of bastards. They get a lull like this, they ignore it ('another year passed'). Me, I've got to get out there now, warn Herbie; try to show them I'm not scared. (But I've never been much of an actor.) Create. Continue in order to write it down afterwards. For I feel close to finishing, but my ending is not ready. I'm lost, stranded; nothing feels right.

5.

Worse now. It's 5.30 p.m. Would you like to hear about my day?

Feeling like a commando (perhaps a kamikaze pilot is a better simile) I descended the stairs this morning and crept off into the rush. Though I checked over my shoulder every two or three strides, I could not see anyone following me. However, there were eyes on me everywhere: I could feel them. Vaguely wondering if my room would be ransacked while I was away, I searched for a cab. I have a great urge to spend as much money as I can before it's too late. You can't take it with you.

My driver uptown was rehearsing for an amendment to his contract of employment. If his tirade was anything to go by, he was soon to take the role of a city-sweeping politician, determined to clean the streets (in much the same way Carreras once had); either that or, on the sly, he was some vengeful caped crusader, half willing to allow his alter ego freedom. This is what he'd do about the economy. That was his opinion on immigration. Here – have my views on taxation.

By the time I arrived on the Upper East Side I was top-heavy with force-fed information. I overtipped, when what I wanted was to tell him to go to hell.

Beneath the hood or eyelid of a phone booth, I inserted fifty cents and dialed. I waited. The centipedes of sound – the tone – extended, paused for breath, extended, paused for breath. Answer the fucker, I willed the Acclunes.

Too loudly someone said: 'Yip-hello!'

'Floyd?' I put a finger in the other ear.

'Hello-a?'

'Floyd?' – but I knew it wasn't.

'Gonna have to speak up there, son. My old ears got older'n a rest of me.'

'I want to speak to Floyd or Analiese,' I called.

'No, son, those people don't live here. You're the second one to ask me about 'em, though, in the last two days. What's going on?'

The words, when I managed to say them, were shaky.

'Is your name Walt? Walt Brydonson?'

'Uh?'

I said it louder.

'That's me, son. Do I know you?'

I hung up.

6.

Get this straight, I telepathically told a sandwich I had need to hold in both hands with my elbows on the table; you're being worked on. It was lunchtime. At my little table in a little deli, I stared at the pastrami, the gelid flaps of lettuce, and the stop-light red tomatoes. I was hungry but I couldn't eat. The place was too busy; I was scared of who might be in the crowd. Someone looming behind me – the deli loomer – in his raincoat, with his knife. So instead of eating my food I talked to it. Then I broke the conversation. I had a smoke. Quite enjoying the first (of the hour) I had a second cigarette, and very nice that was too. I picked at the sandwich like a geologist his chunk of rock.

You've been worked on.

How? I cast my mind back. They had moved Walt Brydonson from Harlem to the Acclunes' apartment. Did it follow the Acclunes were in Harlem? My sandwich would not give me answers.

On the sidewalk an unexpected Hare Krishna shoved a pamphlet into my hands and a smile into my face. He hoped I'd be blessed. Me too. I walked away, wondering if I'd have time to get myself some Krishna robes and one of those groovy forelock swipe-back deals. I ditched the pamphlet; got some small change ready for the phone.

'Hello-a?'

'Walt! Listen to me, man. My name's Adam Malarz. Do you know me?'

'I don't know you from Adam.' Walt seemed to find this amusing. 'You the guy phoned before?'

'Yeah. Sorry I hung up. You spooked me. I'm cool now. Just a question: you said someone else called for Floyd and Analiese. Who was it?'

'...Look, what's this all about, son?'

'It's important.'

'I don't know. Some kid.'

I would like Walt Brydonson to be innocent. I don't want him to be involved. I want them to have screwed with my head; to have incorporated Walt into this sick psycho's fantasy of abject victimization.

This is what might have happened: but I doubt it. Walt might have been living there all along – in the apartment on the Upper East Side – and I might have been told to believe the Acclunes do. But at what point, if this is true, do I believe my own recollection about my existence? Where do Floyd and Analiese live? Or where have they gone?

When did they get to me? When was I vulnerable enough to accept?

7.

I had difficulty recalling the number. I had worked there for years, rising up through the ranks, but how many times had I had reason to call in? I am one of those workers who is never ill. Over the years I'd only called in sick a handful of times. I could remember the number for the phonemail system easily enough, but I didn't want to leave anybody a message: I wanted to speak to the enemy.

The digits arrived, marshalled, in order, in my head. Dropping a coin in the slot I dialed the direct line for the office McGarhen shares – the one I'd shared with him before my promotion – and waited. On the third ring:

'Good morning. Can I help you?' a male voice I recognized but couldn't place said. It certainly wasn't McGarhen, and unless something awful had happened it wasn't Doris Coolidge either.

'Hi. Can I speak with Eoin McGarhen, please?'

'I'm afraid you've come through to the wrong extension. Let me see if I can connect you...'

The space filled my ears and head. It occurred to me the call would be traced, but I couldn't see why this would be necessary: not now everyone knows where I hide.

'Hello, this is Eoin McGarhen on extension 2345 on January 13,' a recording said. 'I'm away from my desk at the moment but I shall be back around two p.m. If you'd like to leave a message, please do so after the tone, or alternatively, if your matter is urgent, dial zero and hash and you'll be connected to the switchboard.'

Intending to get back to the guy who'd answered my call in the first place, I poked at the zero and then the hash. As the switchboard phone trilled, my body chilled.

What fucking extension had he said he was on?

The operator greeted me.

'Can I speak to Doris Coolidge, please. I understand Eoin McGarhen is out of the office for the morning.'

'I believe so. I'm afraid Mrs Coolidge isn't working for the company at the moment.'

'You're kidding me.'

'She's on maternity leave.'

'I didn't even know she was pregnant.'

'Do I take it this is a personal call, sir?'

'No it's not. Who's taking her place in Mr McGarhen's office?'

The reply sounded a little confused. 'Mr McGarhen has his own office, sir. Mrs Coolidge works elsewhere.'

'...Has Mr McGarhen recently gotten promotion?'

'Fairly recently, I guess. Can I ask who's calling?'

'They've made him Senior Finance Adviser, haven't they?' I asked with (I hope you'll agree with me) understandable bitterness. 'They've given him the job Adam Malarz used to have.'

'No, sir. Mr McGarhen has had the position for the last twenty months or so. Mr Malarz works for him, alongside Mrs Coolidge.'

'Beautiful! So Malarz has been demoted back down to Financial Adviser.'

'Demoted from where, sir?'

'Senior!'

'No, sir; he was never there.'

'Well of course he was! Don't be fucking stupid!'

Dead tone. In a rage I shoved in another coin and redialed the first number. If McGarhen was in my office on my extension (never mind this twenty months bullshit: what would the receptionist know?) I'd speak to the guy replacing Doris: the one who'd first picked up.

He answered again. It was only with some effort I managed to keep my voice level. 'Good morning again. I called a few minutes ago, asking to speak with Mr McGarhen, but I think it was this department I wanted all along.'

'No problem, sir. How can I help you?'

'Would you be the fella covering for Mrs Coolidge's maternity leave?'

'No. That's Julie Blackwell. Would you like to speak to Miss Blackwell?'

'No, that's fine,' I said. 'So you're covering for Adam Malarz's leave of absence?'

There was an infinitesimal pause. Then: 'Nope. He isn't going anywhere,' the voice told me. 'You're speaking to him right now.'

Looking back, with the benefit of a few hours' worth of hindsight, I think I half expected this response. Because I half expected it I wanted it; not for any masochistic reason, but simply because it made me believe I thought like the enemy, learning to predict their moves.

'You're Adam,' I said.

'Yeah I am. Who's this?'

'My name's Adam too,' I answered. 'Small world. We got a lot in common.'

'Sure we have. You been referred to me?'

I told him this question was priceless. This annoyed him. In a brusque impatient tone he said, 'Can I help you, Adam?'

'Yeah. You can give me my name back for a start.'

'Who is this?'

'Adam Malarz,' I said. 'And I'm back in town, pal, so get away from my desk and get out of my life. Who do you think you are? I mean that literally.' I paused, but the impostor didn't take the space. I went on: 'Just a question, Adam – something bugging me. You ready?'

In a croaky voice 'Adam' said, 'Shoot.'

'When I ran away on the twentieth of December I must have left a gap in the organization of the company, and for appearance's sakes I can see the hole would have to be filled. So they get you, Adam, to pretend to be me. This much I comprehend. You've got my voice off-pat, the telephone manner, the whole nine yards. What I don't get is why not stay in my Senior position? Why risk possible questions? Clients I've had for years would be bound to ask things. Did McGarhen really kick up so much of a stink that you, "Adam," had to be demoted?'

My alter ego replied, 'I haven't been demoted; and I don't know what the hell you're talking about, fella. Unless...'

I took it. 'Unless what?'

'Do you mind if I ask you a question?'

'I shot you, so it's your turn. Shoot.'

His voice lowered, his lips moved closer to the mouthpiece to produce a sibilant hiss. I might as well have taken a bullet for the effect and force of the inquiry. After he spoke I took a step backwards and dropped the receiver, where it bounced and struggled on its metal leash like a furious pet.

The question was: 'Herbie, is that you?'

## Chapter 2

1.

Herbie came back from Africa; that much I'm sure of. He had met our so-called Mayor in a clinic in Zaire. Maybe I should keep body and soul together, and finish that one first. If memory serves, I promised I would. That's my problem, don't you think? Starting to let things get muddled. Should stick to my non-fictional guns, finish one section at a time.

Here goes. To Africa.

Darling, darkest Africa...

2.

'No, I don't suppose you could say I believed him from the very beginning,' said Carreras to Herbie, referring to Hussad Jr. 'I'm a scientist, after all; my brain's building blocks are those of logic and proof. Imagine. I'm a student of Biology, I've just turned twenty; too poor for a pot to piss in – hungry – and this guy from Africa tells me his father knows how to kill plagues.' Carreras snickered. 'Would you believe him?'

Herbie had already decided to play down the moment as best he could – automatic self-defense at learning he'd been tricked and spied upon; an anaemic attempt to redress the balance. 'IHeard weirder.'

'I very much doubt that.'

'You sound disappointed.'

Carreras turned frosty. 'I've no reason to be disappointed again, Mr Dechtler. Cast your mind over what I've achieved.'

'What? A political career made of dogshit? A disappearance? Hell, you might impress Elvis, and give him something to worry about, but it doesn't impress me. Fucking Floyd could have done as good a disappearance.'

Quick shake of Carreras' head. 'I wonder about you, I really do,' he said. 'Is it a German thing? This reaction to adversity by turning sarcastic and nasty. Is it? That's what Hussad thinks. You did the same thing in his office, I'm told. You crazy Germans! Typical Little Man Syndrome: always trying to box me in the balls before I get a chance to piss on you.'

'Poetic.'

'Apt. Or it would be if I was someone who did that sort of pissing. You've got nothing to fear from me. I'm Spanish. I was the bastard who got pissed on half his life.'

'The little man who rebelled.'

'Not with cruelty. By raising my esteem in the eyes of others. By trying. It went wrong at the end – in New York – but did you catch what I actually did? Like the book said – a city from dust. Now I'm taking the next step: stamping out a pestilence.'

The younger Hussad had taken his father's secret to New York – but not to blab. To forget about it; study. Back in the homeland, life ambled on.

When Hussad Jr was sixteen, something fell from the sky: of that there's no doubt. It might have been rock or angel; opinions were divided. Leaving a gash of red and orange across the late afternoon sky, something heavy dropped down into the swamps just north of Lake Mai-Ndombe.

Carreras was not convinced it was the same object half-dragged from the bottom. In snapshots, in bullet points, this is what happened:

Object fell. Big splash. No one hurt... And then a strange quality interfered with the texture of the air; sent waves of something smelling of sulphur through the atmosphere. Many insects couldn't breathe it; children got a distant cousin of the Bends.

It fell to Hussad Sr, the wealthiest man around, to pluck this zit from the face of the earth – if for no other reason than he already had the right equipment.

A year had passed. Excavation began. Hussads old and young couldn't wait to start fishing. Volunteers were not slow to come forward; neither were they slow to go away again, clutching their bellies, but always returning for another handful of change – another day's work. Men, children and pygmies explored the swamp, some viewing the enterprise, at first, as a game. Gut rot soon saw to that. As did eyeblinding headaches; chronic nausea; tingling limbs, diarrhea, sore throats and muscular spasms.

Two common beliefs at the time were as follows.

Whatever had landed in the swamp emitted a form of radiation or noxious energy...or had uncovered something already hidden, which did the same.

Complicated manual pulleys were set up; a vast shoehorn dipped into the murk, the better to lever out the stone. The fulcrum alone was made of the shaved timbers of a dozen felled trees. The area smelt of perspiration and sawn bark. When the huge rock was free, the consistency of the air changed again, for the better.

'Can you imagine,' said Carreras, a little cow-eyed, 'the potential to be grasped by people like Hussad? We are indeed very fortunate he was around to do the grasping, even if that grasping has taken many years. Without a... shall we say?... more worldly, more realistic man in charge, the rock and everything it stands for might have fallen into the hands – not literally – of a high priestess, or shaman, who wouldn't have had a clue.'

'So what is it?' Herbie asked. 'Just a meteorite?'

'To the best of our knowledge, yes,' Carreras replied. 'Though just doesn't come into it. What Hussad discovered and what I'm going to market will change our century's reaction to disease. I'll be a hero. A life-saver.' A beat. 'I'll be a god,' he finished.

'Don't let it go to your head.'

'Too late. I'll be a god, and I'd like you, Mr Dechtler, to be my disciple. My chronicler. To tell my tale.'

'Why should I?' Herbie asked.

'Two reasons. One: you'll be privy to first-hand information about the greatest miracle this century will see. And two: because if you do I'll make you well again.'

'I'm not sick.'

'Yes you are. I pulled your record.'

'What record? I'm not even registered with a doctor in New York. I'm German. And I'm never ill anyway.'

Carreras shook his head. 'I didn't say you were registered. But you have been to a doctor very recently.'

'...Are you telling me my blood was tested when I got my jabs?'

'Well done. That's precisely what I'm telling you.'

Herbie looked down at his shoes. Then he shook his head. Indignantly he said, 'Why the hell should I believe you?'

'You can take a test right now if you like. No charge. It seems you're missing the point, though. It doesn't matter if you're positive. I can heal you.'

'Tell me more about the rock. The air was purer when it came up?'

'No, I didn't say purer. Different.' He paused. 'There are different theories for this part. Mine is this: A meteor hit the ground and dislodged a pocket of gases from the swamp. That's entirely feasible. These gases made people throw up but did no actual lasting bodily harm. As time went on, the supply of gases in this pocket...dissipated... and by the time the meteorite had been pulled free the air had cleaned itself, and the two events were pretty much coincidental.'

'You're a scientist,' Herbie said incredulously. 'Why didn't you investigate?'

'More pressing matters on my mind. As I'm sure you can imagine.'

3.

The tragedy of accepting the unwanted...

A young man and young woman go to see their local doctor...

In the sprawling, baking metropolis of Kinshasa, a man named Joseph Shirinda suggests to his girlfriend, Winnie Wasilela, they take a blood test. Suspicions are confirmed and the doctor mentions the clinic he's heard about, to the north of Lake Mai-Ndombe – where those positive are offered the chance of taking a potential cure...

The couple travelled to the lake.

'At this point, of course, nothing was formalized,' said Carreras. 'All Hussad had was some rather confusing data. Hussad the Younger, this is: the scientist, as opposed to the entrepreneur. His father had set him up a small laboratory in this very clinic – I'll show it to you later if you're interested – where he was able to perform some rudimentary experiments. This was before he went to New York to university. He was a teenager; a voracious reader; and he couldn't get it out of his mind that the rock must mean something. Not in a religious or spiritual sense; just science. By this time the rock was half in and half out the swamp's waters, where it still is, to this day. Supported on a submerged platform with stilts going down into the earth. It had no effect on people – no visible effect – one way or the other. It was just a rock. Even so, no one wanted to go near it. Not even Youssou. He was happy enough in his lab.

'He developed a routine of testing any blood samples that came his way, and meticulously recording – at first – the dullest snippets of information. Blood group and rhesus. It was only after several years he could say for sure that people living nearer the lake and the rock had a greater chance of not having the HIV-2 virus.

'As you can imagine, that was heady, but he needed to study. So he combined his fascination with this conundrum with his wish to go to New York...'

'And his father's money,' Herbie said.

'And his father's money,' Carreras conceded, '...and went to NYU. We spent hours discussing the matter. After one trip back to his father, Youssou took a boat out to the rock and chipped away a sample for us to look at together under a microscope. We saw nothing. But while he was here, Youssou discovered something extraordinary.

'Second blood samples from Joseph Shirinda and Winnie Wasilela.

'Of course, the first time they'd gone away disappointed. There was no cure. Their doctor had misled them; acted upon gossip. But the second time, when Winnie showed early signs of complications, their doctor could only recommend our humble workplace again.'

Herbie waited. A ball of held breath throbbed in his chest. 'The second time they tested negative?' he suggested.

'That's right,' Carreras said softly.

'...How?'

'That's what Youssou wanted to know. He asked around. Bear in mind, he wasn't a qualified doctor; rich kid or not, the medical staff looked down on him. No one spoke. He got frustrated. He went to Kinshasa himself to find out what the hell had happened.'

'And what had?' Herbie asked.

'In a word?' Carreras grinned. 'Sex. Sex had happened.'

'...Would you care to elaborate?'

'They took a rowboat out to the rock, at night. They were due for their appointment the next morning. Maybe desperation made them horny. As in: what harm can it do? I have no idea. They took a boat out for the sole purpose of having a fuck on the rock in the middle of the swamp... Kids! But thank God they did. If they hadn't gotten horny I might not be on the brink of being a billionaire.'

Carreras's smile had not faltered. It was almost as though he'd also been present – among the flies and perspiring darkness – and was now easing the memory slowly through a difficult medium, like one of those street entertainers you see pulling a knitting needle out of a balloon without the bastard bursting.

'They were surprisingly forthcoming about their performance,' Carreras went on. 'Basically, she was giving him what every man wants – on her knees while he sat on the crag one up – when she got a bit careless. She bumped her left knee very hard on the rock and gashed it. Bled quite badly. They jumped in the boat and the bleeding slowed down. They got to their room and cleaned the wound. A chip of rock came out with the lather when Joseph washed Winnie's leg...'

Herbie was incredulous. 'A chip of rock saved this woman from the virus?'

'Not the rock itself,' said Carreras, shaking his head. 'What was inside that chip of rock... Herbie, how are you with biology?'

'Bad.'

'That's a pity. I have a Masters, and I'd love the cut of some serious debate every now and then. As it is, I'll just have to lecture.' The reemergence of the smile told Herbie that Carreras was anything but unhappy to do so.

'Youssou looked at the chip of rock in a different way than he had been up to then. He stopped looking at what grew on it and started looking at what grew in it.'

'And what did he find?'

'Life. The chip of rock was hollow! With a crack in it! Try to imagine what this means. A tiny speck of stone, coating – surrounding – an even tinier specimen of life. One speck! And we have a rock that weighs several thousand tonnes out there!'

'What type of life?' said Herbie.

'A few drops of viscous fluid; a clear yellow color; and to all extents and purposes – a creature. It lived a whole twenty-four hours after being taken from its medium, although its genes stopped directing the synthesis of proteins. It mutated; and its nucleotides rearranged. It was like it hit the self-destruct button.'

'Will I be okay without this section of information?'

Carreras held up his hands. 'Okay. Stop me if you've heard this one...' He paused. 'The HIV virus is a retrovirus; its genetic material is RNA – ribonucleic acid. This is converted to DNA, which is what our genes are composed of. Are you with me so far?'

'I'm with you.'

'Good. When the virus's RNA is converted to DNA it's a reversal of our usual cellular process. The DNA can integrate with and take over the DNA of cells it infects. What we had in the rock was a liquid with a changeable DNA script. It matched Winnie's DNA (in its infected state) and started to work its way back to RNA. A retro-retrovirus. Literally shoving the virus along to the place where it came in. And it did it overnight, though this hasn't always happened since. Its DNA is made up of the bases adenine, guanine and cytosine, which are what our DNA is also made up of. The difference is the fourth base. We have a substance called thymine...'

'...And the liquid has?'

Shrugging his shoulders, Carreras said, 'I was tempted to call it Impostine. We don't know what it is; but it's nothing like thymine, as far as we can tell. It seems to be the ingredient to reverse the virus's path...'

Herbie ran a hand over his head. He frowned while a single thought – the distillation of the entire conversation – appeared with clarity.

He's good, thought Herbie. But I don't believe a word of this. He's lying. He's rehearsed the part well, but he's lying.

The science was too crisp, too clean. Listening on, Herbie tried to pick holes in the argument so far and two doubts were more prominent than any others.

The first was the rock itself. It was nonsense: a way of exploiting the natives' indigenous attitudes and superstitions; to give them a sense of the unworldly. To keep them in awe and fascination. Keep them in fear.

The second was the memory of the faxes Bosseke had sent to his hotel. The charts. In particular, the word Believes.

Believes what?

Winnie and Joseph got better, the latter at a much slower rate than the former. The clinic's doctors injected him with a sample of Winnie's blood. After a while he thrived; but that while was a necessary hibernation period for the retro-retro.

By this point, of course, Carreras was in on the joke. It was he who suggested moving the project to another country. They were students at NYU at the time.

A long-distance telephone call went along these lines.

I don't know anyone who'll move to another country and not speak about it. (Hussad.)

Don't worry. There are ways to ensure people don't speak. (Carreras.)

What do you have in mind?

Don't sweat it. There are tricks to do with the mind.

What sort of tricks?

Let me worry about that. Can you get somebody to volunteer?

The plan to introduce the uninfected to America, therefore, had begun long before it had reached any sort of fruition. However, it took Carreras' elected power to swing the immigration and the conditioning.

The fourth son of Winnie and Joseph – called Joseph – grew up into a small, fit, healthy man: an entertainer. Possessed of great physical strength, he would impress people with his skills at escaping from chains, tea chests and jungle vines. His girlfriend, Inio, was his age, and loved him wholly.

Both of them knew about the impostor in Joseph's own blood: the protection he'd inherited from his father's genes, and a sample of which would be transfused into Inio's stream. Neither of them knew how this might alter their futures.

They were told they'd be well paid, and they were. They were told their families would be rewarded, and this happened too. What nobody told the families was they'd never hear from the couple again. What nobody told the couple was they'd have names chosen for them that would never remind them of their true identities.

4.

Apparently, this was where I came in.

I taught them to be new people. Prompted by those towering over me, I gave the recruits a prison to live in and a reason to exist. Singlehandedly I turned the lovers Joseph and Inio into a married New York couple, one of whom would be programmed to sell his blood at regular intervals; the other of whom would be the blood bank, should anything ever happen to the donor.

Floyd and Analiese were born.

'So I'm here to await my rebirth too,' said Carreras, 'at least in the political sense. I made some mistakes, but nobody could fault my good intention this time.'

Choosing not to contradict him, Herbie asked, 'So where's Youssou Hussad Jr?'

'New York. We've swapped. He's taking care of that side of the business now.'

Herbie nodded. 'Tell me something,' he said. 'Is Adam in any danger?'

'No more than he ever was.'

## Chapter 3

1.

Remember that sense of perspective I mentioned?

Trying harder than ever to keep it now. Especially when my mind – that Irish Rover – keeps wandering around the mansion of my memory, looking for hidden passages, lifting up vases and checking their bases for authenticity of antiquity, and poking at the ashes of dead fires with grubby fingertips. It isn't easy.

Returning from today's gallivanting filled me (I must admit) with hope. At the foot of the stairs I heard my adopted name.

'Mr Lewis?'

'Yes?' I spoke to a guy who could have shed a hundred pounds and sill look portly. Darratello. He wears good-looking suits, a tie, and spats; a goatee beard and a stud earring in either lobe. My landlord, though of course since Jerry revealed himself to be a traitor I have formed the suspicion that Darratello is a spy.

He waddled across the reception area, from behind the counter where he sits all day, ridiculously overdressed, watching TV and waiting for people to check in and out. I thought he'd get nasty about the way I shouted at Jerry. He did not. I thought he'd give some clue about what the next step was supposed to be. No. He said, purely and simply, heading for the utility cupboard beneath the stairs: 'Rent's due.'

'I beg your pardon.'

'You owe rent from tomorrow. You paid for two weeks, Mr Lewis.'

'Is that all?'

'Okay, I love you – and you owe rent from tomorrow. Pardon my manners.' He unlocked the cupboard.

'I'll bring it down in a moment.'

'I could come up if it's easier. Gotta clean up some mess on the third floor anyway. Some numb asshole's left broken glass in the corridor. Makes you wonder.'

I lay face down on the bed for nearly an hour, my face as puffy and red raw as uncooked bacon.

They are wearing me down, from high heels to flats. The good news is I realize this; the bad news is, I haven't a clue what to do about it.

A pregnant woman does not go on maternity leave for the duration of her pregnancy, and when I ran away a fortnight ago Doris Coolidge showed no sign of pregnancy, nor had she mentioned the fact. So what has happened to her? And according to the receptionist, McGarhen has been Senior Financial Adviser for over twenty months. Surely she hasn't been persuaded to lie. How could she have known who I was when I spoke to her?

Other things, too. What the cops said about Dante's-off-Broadway; what the guy in Thorne's apartment said about his own tenure there.

I wish these matters were all I had to consider. If this were true, then possibly – just possibly – I could buy it that I had been asleep for a couple of years, in a coma, or imprisoned and then made to forget my incarceration. However, there is other evidence to consider. Walt Brydonson living in the Acclunes' apartment, for one thing; and my namesake at the office asking if I was Herbie.

I travelled back here in a state of shock. Herbie's talent for impersonation had given me an awful idea.

I don't even want to put the words on paper: I'm ashamed of myself.

I thought this: it was Herbie in the office, acting another one in his repertoire of a thousand roles. The frightened mind is desperate: perhaps that is all I can say to justify what little reasoning I'd come up with. Travelling back to this desk I got the feeling I was heading for a supernova of a nervous breakdown. This is what I concluded:

Herbert Dechtler has been lying from day one. God knows if his name is really that; I wouldn't be surprised if he's American – the talent for copying accents manifest in his ability to do a convincing German. Allied to Matthew Carreras for reasons I can't fathom, he introduces himself to me with a bogus story about being a bloodhound, the trail he's on being that of a murdered Polish girl. Did I ever see his passport? No. Even if I had, I now know how easy fake i.d. is to come by, especially for the rich. I have no way of knowing where Herbie was born or why he came into my life.

I've been taken on a guilt trip. I had nothing to do with Agnieszka's killing. How can I get my hands on the Births and Deaths records of Gdansk, north Poland? There was probably no such death.

Working ostensibly alongside, but actually under Herbie, I learnt the truth about my own past... Did I really? That tape I heard sounded genuine enough: the one recorded in Chai's bathroom. But I remember very little about the evening, except for smoking an orange-flavoured tobacco. Though three voices can be heard on the cassette, does it follow three people truly participated? God knows what I consumed while I was under anesthetic. The voices on the tape: Herbie could have done himself and also my soporific monotone. I don't think our voices ever overlap. (I'll have to check that.) Quite possibly Herbie did Chai as well. The tape could have been made any time.

I can see what this means, even if I can't quite believe it: it means the experiment was never about Floyd or Analiese, or Thorne, Chai, or blood. It was about me.

I must evaluate my participation in my own life; authenticate my memories; make my story tie up its loose ends. In the morning (if there is one) I'll regret having written these words. How could I have thought what I did about Herbert, the best friend (soberingly) I ever had? Worse still, how could I commit my doubts to paper?

I've done both and I don't feel any better. A gun would be a good thing to own right now, but what is life without regrets?

My puppetmeister, Herbert Dechtler. The indisputable greatness of the man leads me to think perhaps I should be grateful I was the chosen one; my sense of magnanimity, however, won't quite run to that.

Let's see. This has become my Book of Revelations; my pen is moving faster than my mind (my pen of course has not imbibed eleven shots of vodka on an empty stomach)... The Mayor of New York, our beloved Carreras, need not be involved in any way. He did die. He did not retire to Africa, which I believed wholeheartedly. Those TV advertisements he did really were for the purpose of promoting blood donations. Carreras died because of frailties and design flaws in his blood; and Herbie used my knowledge of this and my professional closeness to the man to fashion a fantasy for me to wear daily. Herbie wanted (it has to be asked) precisely what though? What has he gotten out of the deal?

I had no idea it was so late. It's nearly three in the morning; hours and hours have dropped away, out of sight, out of mind, as simply as my supposedly missing years. I should sleep. I know I won't be able to. Would you? Even though I'm drunk I have to finish the bit I'm writing.

Tapes. I heard a tape on which, allegedly, I spoke of my dirty, entranced past; my complicity in a plot to brainwash the Upper East Side branch of the Acclune clan.

I imagine the other hypnotism sessions to have been similarly erroneous. So I managed to hypnotize Chai, did I, to see if his memory had already been tampered with? How? Truth spills in to drown the lie. Chai acted. When I was in that bathroom with Chai and Thorne and we checked out the latter, he and Chai acted. Herbie never went to Africa, although someone must have been there to send me my letters; I saw the postmarks. Or maybe he did go, but he did not find Carreras, men with tattooed faces, mines, a cure for Aids. This has been about manipulating me, which means Floyd and Analiese have been in on it from the start, and lied to me when I went to their apartment.

Who arranged it? Herbie? Thorne?

Why? To get closer to Carreras? It seems too abstract.

Must sleep now. Tomorrow could be another busy day.

2.

Swiftly, effortlessly, with both parties deciding a receipt was redundant, a sum of money changed hands. I paid in cash; Darratello received with gratitude. It was seven o' clock in the morning. I had to pay for my next fortnight's rent. Good Morning, America – beatific, shiny – blared out of the fat man's thin TV. Bag on my shoulder, I left the building. A taxi cab stopped at my barked apostrophe. In I climbed.

As we lurched away from the kerb I found, for my sins, that the guy spoke English. What was worse, he wanted a conversation.

'The traffic, huh?' he offered.

I was tempted to say something like, Yeah. And the weather, huh? I didn't. I said: 'Can I offer you a cigarette?'

'Don't touch 'em, buddy. Neither should you.' Bracing myself, I feared the worst: a self-important lecture on the responsibilities of one's personal health. It arrived, as straight and hard as an overarm-served tennis ball. 'God rest her soul, my Aunt Sadie she died of smoking too many cigarettes.'

'No shit,' I added, lighting my third or fourth of the day.

'It's the truth,' the guy went on as though his family bereavement bordered on the mystical. His long thin fingers played invisible piano keys on the steering wheel. 'I used to smoke a pack a day. She died. I stopped. No choice in the matter...'

'There's always a choice in the matter.'

He ignored me. 'Very least you're gonna get is a cough sounds like they're digging up the sidewalk.'

'Have you heard me cough?' I asked. I have a profound smoker's anti-cough. I might have mentioned that earlier.

'No. But no offence, buddy, you don't look too healthy...'

'Neither do you.'

'Are you getting your vitamins? Smoking can lead to bad colds, you know.'

'You haven't heard me sneeze either,' I said. 'I haven't had a cold in years.' A lie: I get one every winter.

This seemed to prove some as yet unmentioned point. 'Ah!' he crowed, 'but've you ever asked yourself why?'

'Why what?'

'You haven't had a cold in years. Jesus!' The heel of his hand crunched down on the horn. 'Get out the fucking road, Padre!'

My fingers clawed into the upholstery; my belly rolled.

After a few seconds of calming breaths, my lecturer resumed his services by saying: 'Sorry 'bout that. Where was I? Yeah, colds. Colds are God's way of strengthening the immune system. If you don't get em then it means your body's working on fighting sumpin bigger.'

'I hope there's a silver lining on this particular cloud,' I said.

'Jjust here to speak the truth.'

'No, you're here to drive me to a place I used to live. You're not a doctor. I don't appreciate being told I might have cancer.'

The driver glanced round. 'I didn't say you had to appreciate it; I only want you to think about giving up smoking, is all.'

'Well you've been the voice of my conscience. I think I'll walk from here,' I replied.

'I hope I didn't cause no offence.'

'Pull over when you can. This has been the most stressful cab ride in my life.'

'Really?' He sounded astonished. 'Have you lived in New York long?'

'Long enough. How much do I owe you?'

What the driver started me thinking about, or rethinking about, was Floyd and Analiese. He mentioned his Aunt Sadie. Well, Floyd had had an Aunt Sadie – the flower of one thought fed the wasp of the next – and it was my intention, upon the completion of my garrulous endeavor, to venture – bravely, soulfully, and possibly with disastrous consequences – into Harlem. To go to the apartment I'm now not certain 'Floyd' was brought up in: to see who the hell actually does live there.

Home. Running a hand through my hair I walked up to the doors, and pushed. Mike the doorman, I'd imagined, would take a second to recognize me and would then ask where I'd been and declare it was good to see me, secretly thinking how bad I look.

Wrong. My prediction was barndoor-wide of the mark. Mike the doorman said nothing about how fine it was to see me again because it wasn't Mike the doorman on duty. To a jolt of sickening dread I acknowledged it was a guy I'd never seen before. The uniform he wore was immaculate and his decal said BARRINGTON COLE.

'Hi,' said I.

'Morning, sir.'

'Mike off, today?'

He neither heard nor understood. Quizzically he asked: 'Your cough today, sir?'

Making a show of smiling, though in fact not caring much for another reference to my health, I said, 'No, not my cough. I was asking if Mike was off work today.'

'...Sorry, sir. Who's Mike?'

'Mike Russo. Your colleague here?'

'I don't know the gentleman in question, I'm afraid.'

You could argue I was unwise not to have considered this possibility; masochistic even, leaving myself to uncover all that pain in one instant. I cannot deny the accusation.

'Barrington,' I said. 'Barrington or Barry?'

'Barry to my friends.'

'Okay, Barry; just a quick Q and A. You been at this job long?'

'No, sir.' He looked perturbed; he imagined a potential complaint arising from this discourse, no doubt. 'Five months or so.'

'Did you replace a guy named Mike?'

'I told you, sir: no. His name was Arthur Green.'

A spark of relief flared up. 'I know Arthur,' I said. 'He's sixty.'

'Sixty-two I think, sir,' said Barry. 'He took early retirement from the day after his birthday. When he left I found a few good luck cards in his drawer.'

'Sixty-two, huh? There's hope for me yet!'

'That's right, sir.'

'If vacations like that don't kill me off!' my deceptively cheerful banter went on. 'Just got back from Baltimore. Went on a two-day bender with my brother. I don't normally look this bad.'

'...I guess not, sir.'

I pulled keys out the right pocket of my pants. 'Anyway. You have a good day.' Attached to the keyring was a passport-sized laminated photograph: a security requirement for tenure in the building. The face it showed – smile lopsided, eyes as red as mine actually felt – was younger than I am, friendlier than I could be these days, and had longer bangs than I would dream of owning now. It didn't actually look like me. 'I'm Adam. In Apartment 26.'

Ergonomically speaking, Barrington's posture improved no end: from a lazy slouch to the straight-backed ten-hut of a crucified scarecrow. To me the gesture was candidly hostile.

'You're Mrs Brooker's ex? You're aware of the injunction she's...'

I regretted the line about my fictitious drinking spree – especially if Mrs Brooker's ex-husband turned out to be a soak and wife-beater. It occurred to me at least part of my scarcely narcissistic appearance could be attributed to my hitting the bottle rather viciously of late. A wife-beater I was not (as I attempted to protest right now, my hands on the work station); but a wine-beater I was. Or brandy-, vodka- or whisky-beater. I've been cruel to my ladies lately.

'My name is Malarz,' I explained. 'I don't know anyone called Brooker. I'm nobody's ex-anything, apart from ex-slave.' I knew what was coming next, but I said what I had to say anyway. 'I'm Apartment 26.'

'That's where Sandra Brooker lives, and I'm afraid I can't let you up there.'

Copying his gesticulation I said, 'It's okay, Barry, you don't need to. I've found out what I came to find out. You have a good day.'

There's a space opening up in the rockface of my beliefs.

My admission? Somehow, somewhere I have lost approximately two years of my life. Not in the sense of having had them taken away from me by prison governors or merciless abductors. Nor in the sense of having used them to fight a fruitless battle, or recover from a bed bound malady. No. I do not remember them; but they have passed. They are gone. And trying to catch lost time... takes time.

I writie these words on January 26, two days after going back to my old apartment. Will I be accused of rushing into my stated theory? I don't think so. I've thought about this long and hard. Tell me, do, if you can interpret my data in any other way. In retrospect, I have tried to hide the truth from myself. Like a ghost-hunter in an old cartoon or comedy, bow-backed, carrying a candelabrum, I have reversed, ass first, for as many steps as possible. But do you know what is wrong with this approach? Sooner or later you will always hit the demon or the skeleton. Down it tumbles, an exploded xylophone, rattling; then lies still. I can hear the wind through the jumbled pile of bones. Does it wait for me? Is it like a bomb, dead mere seconds before detonation?

Perhaps the comparison's too much. How would I know? Living in an atmosphere of terror, you lose your sense of scale; you lose your sense of taste.

## Chapter 4

1.

Take my visit to the doctor.

In all honesty, it was an exercise in stupidity to begin with – the very idea of it – but I booked an appointment... I assumed I had started to feel worse simply because of what the cabbie had said, or because of what I looked like.

So, to the doctor... or doctors, I should say: the offices of McLannon Byrne and Mitsobouri. It was like moving into another country. The reception area was black and as a panther. There was absolutely no temperature. I waited. The light was giving up the ghost. I longed for a cigarette and a proper rest.

(I am losing it. Jerry was right.)

Let me try again, and keep things in order. I have to remain as calm as possible, despite how I felt then.

My thumbs and fingertips trod the grips of the shiny pages I read. Articles about dead senators, frothing street gangs, and modern movie heroes I hurried through, unwilling to believe the evidence of my lost two years.

I waited. The year is 1999. When I first knew Herbie it was 1998. I can clearly recapture scenes from 1997, 1996, 1995... Nothing is missing. If my memory went like this: 1995, 1996... 1998, 1999: I'd be suspicious. But all is present and correct; so where has the time gone – and from which part of my life?

The doctor's name was McLannon: one of the big boys. I had never met the guy before. McLannon: the wiry body and its disproportionate rump; the owlish spectacles and protruding nostril hairs; the tan suit.

'What seems to be the trouble?' he said, although I'd already explained everything to the receptionist, Sheryl Ann.

I began. That's when things took a turn for the worse.

Being a coward, my ambition for performances of derring-do had always been meagre and humble. I have no idea if this is the norm. Part of me believes that dexterous desk-slaves dream of cinematic bravado. Extinguishing fires in skyscraping brothels. Ridding the DC10 of the hijackers, and slugging back a manly Scotch after defusing the bomb in the undercarriage. Or, perhaps, simply kicking the bejesus out of the skinheaded motherfucker holding you at knifepoint... I've always been different. So bald has my sorry life been that for ages my hopes for kudos have not, in truth, had much as their foundation. These are two of the bravest things I'd ever dreamt of doing:

Running for a train that is already departing and accelerating, my small case in one hand, my overcoat in the other; and managing by the skin of my teeth to wrench open the old-fashioned door, and pile my body aboard in the shrugging vestibule.

And two?

Using the arc of a swinging forearm to clear the surface of a table; to watch as the clutter descends to the floor; to breathe in the noise, and to regard the leveled warscape of my spent emotion.

Guess which one of these two paltry missions I accomplished while in the offices of McLannon Byrne and Mitsobouri.

Bad news affects some people this way.

I ploughed through the field of junk on the desk-top, my right arm following the whim of combined conceit and terror. My sweep took in the following mines: a pad on which prescription notes had been heiroglyphed, an intercom, a family photograph, three pens, and most impressively (most expensively) a computer keyboard, terminal and VDU. To a deafening crunch and roar, the assembled jigsaw pieces formed a postmodern pattern on the forest-glade shag.

'Mr Malarz!' called my reasonably calm messenger, getting to his Gucci'd feet.

My fury had changed shape; the flame had guttered in a strong breeze of personal remorse. Apologizing, I retook my seat, two hands cupping the chalice of my skull. It was sorrow that took hold of the rest of my body; sorrow and self-pity. Bones rattled. A bomb ticked to the rhythm of my heart.

The sort of harried, troubled knocking you might expect – it met the door panels to the doctor's inner sanctum. I could not have been tenser. Tears lined up.

Door opened. I had relinquished control. I felt the atmosphere stiffen like beaten egg-whites. The good doctor roundabouted his desk-top and the clutter. I thought he would strike me on the back of the neck; I wouldn't have loathed him for doing so.

From behind me, the receptionist's voice:

'Are you okay, Doctor McLannon?'

Not even a beat. What's less than that?

McLannon said: 'Call the police, Sheryl Ann.'

Looking up I was presented with a countenance of undergraduate earnestness. I heard Sheryl Ann retreat behind my back – the whisper of electrified nylons – and in cold disbelief I regarded my aggressor.

'I need a paramedic; not the law.'

'After what you've done you need a lot more than that, Mr Malarz.'

Of its own accord my head shook. 'Is that what you call good bedside manner?'

The voice that replied was as cold and shapeless as the face itself. 'You've just disqualified yourself from that program,' I was told. 'Are you ready to leave yet, or would you like some uniformed assistance when it comes?'

In a motion more problematic than it looked I stood up. My legs were like the curling fronds of a starfish's regular portions. I could've puked. 'And you're not even scared of me,' I stated, 'despite what I just did.'

'In your condition? You gave me shit I'd throw you out the window. I don't care if I am a doctor. No one touches my PC. You're paying for that, chum, believe me.'

I turned my back. 'Check's in the post,' I muttered, and made for the door.

2.

It's January 28. 7.45 p.m. I have just returned from the lobby of this shabby walk-up, where Jerry, passing, presented me with a sour and wary glance, and where I made a call to Information and requested two numbers. One was listed; one wasn't. In an hour or so I will make the one phone call I can and set up the rendezvous. Truly, I wish I'd thought of this sooner. Now at least I've got a bottle of Glenfiddich to help me out. A few cigarettes and a few shots of hooch – and I'll be ready.

I'm also prepared to discuss what I thought I wouldn't be able to yet. After all, my visit to the doctor was only yesterday: and you don't get news like that every day.

How had the examination gone? What had led me to the construction of the futuristic scrapheap? Well, the doctor's bedside manner began with an itinerary and a price list (a tariff): like this. First we'll be doing so-and-so; then we'll be doing such-and-such. He had planned, plotted, trained – to have the abrasive, charmless efficacy of a recruiting sergeant. One blink of his heavily-hooded reptilian eyes after I'd described my 'symptoms' and he'd known what to do; what I had. No question in his mind; only formality, and the need for it, on his conscience. Then he told me how much my tests would cost. He hoped my medical insurance would see me good for all my bills.

'I'll give you my next consultation fee now as well and save me the bother of coming in again in a couple of days,' I told him, despite the charges.

Somewhat flustered Dr McLannon said, 'Mr Malarz, that's not how it works.'

I cut him off. 'Yes it is. I come here, pay a fee, take some tests. Come back in two days, pay a fee, get the results. All I'm saying is, I'll pay double right now and hang about for my fate. How's that? Cut out those two days.'

'Well I don't know...'

'Sure you do: you're a doctor. You know about life and death for Christ's sakes. Do I give you the impression of someone's fucking about?'

'...No.'

'Good. So don't fuck about with me. I'll wait for the results.'

I nearly had him. As a parting shot he said, 'We still can't get them all straight away. Money or no money. Some of these things take time.'

A lump formed in the back of my throat; a tingling had rested on my scalp and was rippling like parachute fabric in a wind.

'Let's just get to the main ones,' I said. 'You can do that for me surely... Now where do you want to stick the needle?'

Another drink, I think. This is the difficult part. Remembering will lead to accepting – at least that's the way round this matter will have to be. I haven't quite accepted it yet, although God knows things seem to be falling into place now.

The blood test. Recent revelations not withstanding, and for all my groovy chutzpah, I very much dislike giving blood: not the philanthropic notion of it, but the mechanics of it. That needle with its disproportionately thick plastic tail; the transparent stomach lining into which my life fluid pumps, assisted on its way by my squeezing a stress-ball, or a tube like a nun's primer dildo. One hates giving in to the donation, but once it's begun... how quickly can you pour away a pint? You can't pull out the plug; imagine that arc of red – that spraying loop of life – as you attempt to put a hole in the dam. One lies in silent suffering.

We talked. Support groups? Could it be he was unaware of to whom he was speaking? Support groups my hiney. Therapy. For the right sort of money I could have a nurse visit me at my home when I got... really sick.

I'm a relatively young man, I complained. This can't be happening. McLannon asked me how old I was. I told him. The look on his face said it all; he had plainly taken me for a much older man. I ran a hand over my head and stared in amazement at the harvest of tiny grey hairs my reaping provided.

'I have to ask this,' said Dr McLannon, obviously loading more ammunition into his bomb rack. 'But do you... have any idea... who.' His pauses bespoke his discomfiture. Had he done this before? 'Do you know who it was?' he asked. 'You have a... a certain obligation to tell them, I must advise you.' He waited, testing the pulse of the moment.

Tears stung my eyes. My head was numb; my lungs screamed for a fix. Anger rose up like a tide. Did I know who it was?

The last girlfriend I'd had was the one I ended up getting murdered: Agnieszka Pull. And we didn't have sex.

'This has to be a mistake,' I stated defiantly. 'I haven't for ages.'

Nodding his head McLannon made the mistake of incorporating the phrase incubation period into his next sentence, flatly gainsaying my declaration of reasonable health. He was the doctor; he'd read the code; and could I pay on my way out.

I stood up. In the manner previously described, I rearranged his furniture in lieu of doing the more manly procedure on his face.

Now it's said. I think I should reward myself with a few more glasses of whatever I bought from the liquor store this morning.

Fuck the phone call. I'll do it tomorrow.

## Chapter 5

1.

In the half-light I said, 'I'd like to play pool.'

'No shit.'

The response might well have been anticipated; there was no other conceivable reason to be down here in the gloom.

The cue hire fee was alarming, but so am I these days, so the ape and I had a shock apiece. In the planned city of intersections and patches of green – the lanes between the tables – I might have gotten lost, so far was my allocated table from the orangutan's booth. I negotiated crossroads and arrived at Table 26. There was virtually nobody in the place (it was only mid-morning); this seclusion seemed redundant – but welcome. I was meeting somebody here.

In the black plastic triangle I placed on the baize I organized the numbered balls. A noisy rearrangement. Just to prove triangles cannot last, here was I to obliterate the formation with one hard strike of the cue-ball. I took the break; balls span, ran and wriggled; none went down. The table's overhead light reflected in crescents on each of the spheres.

I sank a 7-ball. Leaving the tatters of my war campaign for a second, I walked back to the ape. Explaining who I was here to meet, I directed the guy to point him my way when he arrived. I moved to the side of the hall, where a forlorn Hispanic wiped the surfaces of a miniscule bar. Addressing me only with his eyes (no words) he saw, perhaps, the sort of fuel I ran on. To a barman all drinkers must have a look.

Though the rendezvous had been scheduled for 11 a.m. it was only a quarter of. I was early. Morning or not, however, 'Jack Daniels,' I said; 'make it a double. No ice. And a draft, 16-ounce.' It's a bit late now to be living the ascetic existence of a monk. So I'm drinking a bit. So what? The barman went about his task with the grim determination of a toilet-cleaner. He undercharged me and I didn't tip.

I smoked. I drank. I waited.

Of course, I should explain how I got here. The first step was calling the number Information had given me. Floyd's number hadn't been listed. Thorne's had been.

The phone rang as I held my breath. To my astonishment that Brooklyn accent answered the call.

'Is that Spencer Thorne?'

'Sure is. Who's this?'

'Adam Malarz,' I said.

'...Sorry, who?'

I said it again. For reinforcement I added: 'I was in your apartment once, about two years ago. With a guy named Chai. You had traps all over the place...'

'Still do. Yeah I remember you.'

'Spencer, answer me one thing. Do you still live in the same place?'

'No, man, I moved.'

'Did a guy named Wallace Chorning buy the apartment – the old one?'

Silence crept toward me, broken only by a freezing tone of voice. 'How the fuck would you know that?' he asked.

'We should meet,' I said.

'I asked you a question.'

'And I made you a proposition.'

'You can shove your proposition, I think you might know where.'

'Don't be belligerent,' I replied; 'just listen. Something bad's happened to me. I've lost some time and I don't know where. My head's been fucked with; as far as I know it's the year it should be, so that means my missing two years have been camouflaged by memories I can't even authenticate...'

Thorne interrupted. 'Man, I'm not with you,' he said.

'You are. You will be. You always were. You're part of my triangle, Thorne, whether you like it or not. When was the last time you heard from me?'

'Is this a trick?'

'No.'

'About two years ago.'

'They took two years from me; I just want you to help me rebuild them.'

Pause. Then Thorne said, 'Okay, I'll meet you. How much?'

'Name it.'

'Five hundred. Cash.'

'Okay, cash. Where?'

'Do you know how to play pool?' Thorne asked me.

2.

At first I thought: No, it can't be. I squinted into the gloom. The face getting closer was not familiar – but I could see Toupe in there somewhere. I couldn't remember what Thorne had looked like. Surely not this skinny, this unhealthy. There was something grotesque about Thorne's disintegration.

Half a mile from the simian in his booth of cues, I leant against my own stick with a cigarette in my mouth. The bourbon had gone down in one Moby Dick swallow and I was halfway through my second beer; the buzz spread like smoke over water.

I hoped he was in character. Thorne wheeled himself closer.

Chair-ridden and ancient, Thorne scanned the darkness for a telltale wave of the hand. His eyes held my face. Suddenly I didn't want to meet him at all, but we had seen each other. Childishly I almost ducked below the pocket-line. Instead I regarded the breadth of his shoulders and his head, as hairless and smooth as the cue-ball I poked.

Thorne pushed down on the wheel rims. Like a crab in a labyrinth of rocks he moved chunkily in straight lines between the tables; he was a meter or so away. At which point he glanced up and said something along the lines of what I'd both dreaded and expected.

'I'm here to meet Adam,' he said. 'I got a phone call. You two together?'

Had I really changed so much? My fingertips and toes tingled; blood hummed between my ears. I bit the bullet.

'Adam couldn't make it,' I replied. 'He sent me in his place. My name's Herbert Dechtler. Yours is Spencer Thorne, though I've only seen you as Marcel Toupe before now.'

'I hope it was a good night.' Thorne was plainly suspicious; I pray I was not so plainly terrified.

Needing to take my mind off what I had just confessed I asked: 'So you don't perform anymore.'

He opened his arms. 'Not many avenues for performers in wheelchairs. Besides, the place closed down and I've got other things to do now.'

'Selling traps?'

The voice had a note of pride in it. 'Mail order all over the country,' he said. 'I travel to give demonstrations anywhere in New York state.'

'It's good to know the work ethic is alive and well in Manhattan.' I smiled. 'So do you still do jobs?'

'If the money's right. You mean, something like Adam paid me to do two years ago?'

'We'll talk about that in a moment,' I said. That question destroyed me. Cigarette in hand I had to sit down; I was now at eye level with Thorne. His face, disheveled, as wrung out as a dish-cloth, asked me if I was all right. I could only just hear him through the jabber and white noise. Quickly I forced myself to search for a possible explanation: events had been so disruptive they'd made me appear to be Herbie's age, hence unrecognizable to Thorne? No. I didn't buy it. I didn't recall his face either – not really – and I got the impression Thorne isn't one to forget facial features. A million pages ago I said something like I wished I looked as good as Herbie – back when I thought I was Adam. But I'm Herbie; I must be in my sixties, and I'm sick. It was Adam's appearance I admired; his twenty-years-junior physique I wanted.

I'm Herbie – and now the air tastes different.

Though it was only half-smoked I crushed out my cigarette. 'I have to see Chai and get him to peek in. Does he still live in Chinatown?'

'You're starting to babble. Let's deal with one thing at a time. The money.'

Of course: keep it on a professional level; minimize his reasons for betraying me. I produced, as covertly as possible, a roll of ten-spots. Dead presidents folded in the padded coffin of my lined and fleecy jacket pocket. 'Here.'

'I don't need to count this, I hope.'

'No you don't.'

Thorne put the cash in the back pocket of his jeans.

Having given him the cash I decided I was within my rights to ask what had happened to put him in a wheelchair.

'Long story. Do you wanna shoot some pool? You paid for the table.'

'Why, does that thing have a raised-seat facility? How you gonna get in position?'

Thorne took no offence. 'Takes me longer to take a shot, but I bet I can whup you. Ten dollars.'

'Yeah okay.' I experienced the sense of localized shame I'm sure I would have experienced if I'd ever been to a carnival freak show. The prospect of watching this chairbound lunatic playing pool was like waiting to see the Human Skeleton, the Mule-Faced Woman or the Two-Headed Chinaman.

Thing is, apart from looking older, and much thinner, there was nothing visibly wrong with Thorne. No stumps where his legs should have been.

'Oh Christ,' I said to this addicted donor; 'you've given away your legs.'

Thorne positioned the chair with expert precision at one end of the table. 'Like the song says, ain't nobody's business if I do.'

I stood up. 'But why, Thorne? What do you get out of it?'

'Money.'

'You don't do anything for the money,' I countered. 'You do it because you like it. What I can't understand, and what I should have asked you when I had your mind wide open, is why you like it.'

'Ask me now.' So saying he did a remarkable thing: his hands on the end of the table, Thorne pushed down with his false legs and pulled up with his heavily-muscled arms. The result was grotesque: he slumped on his belly and elbows over the cushion of the table. Clear to me, although he still had the use of his upper legs, there wasn't too much strength remaining below his hips. Thus balanced he herded what balls he could reach into an arrangement.

'Wanna hand me the triangle and roll them balls to me?' Thorne was already out of breath. I did as he requested while waiting for his response. Thorne got all the balls into the triangle and then sighed and toppled backwards into the chair, which rolled half a meter, shocked into sudden momentum.

'Why do I like it?' Thorne mused. 'Herbie, it's like this. Human beings are complicated. And I'm not talking emotions and motives. I mean the bodywork. I'm adopting a minimalist stance; seeing how much I can do away with.'

'An experiment?' I asked, incredulous.

'Could say that.' Thorne seemed pleased by my description, as though he'd never before considered his life in this way. His breathing returned to normal. 'Consider art,' he suggested. 'Great works of art – I saw this on TV once. Picasso, those guys...'

'I'm standing in a pool hall at eleven a.m. talking Picasso to a guy with no legs. Do you wanna drink, Thorne?'

'No, wait; hear me out. I don't know dick about Picasso, but that thing got me thinking – you can apply it anywhere. Take an animal in a trap; legs fucked by the spring and bolt. One of your more intelligent beasts, not given to cardiacs at the slightest whimper of pain. Tthinking, "Shit. How'm I gonna get outta this?" So he contemplates life without his legs, okay?'

'This is bullshit.' Nausea bubbled in the cauldron of my gut. 'I wanna drink.'

'Drink in a second. Just listen. I conducted an experiment. You can buy rodents at any pet store, right? I turned my apartment into a menagerie; kept em in cages and glass tanks with ventilation.'

'You're a sick man, Thorne.'

'I watched their little faces during the moments after the trap snaps shut on them. Man, the wisdom I saw, you wouldn't believe. They understood; they looked up at me like I'm the Angel of Death. They'd never given a shit for me before. So anyway. I started to free 'em from the traps. Give 'em a small tank each to kinda lick their wounds in. Bear in mind, the legs are fucked, okay?'

'Fucked legs,' I muttered. 'I can handle that.'

'You wanna know why I didn't put 'em back with their brother and sister rats?'

'Bullying?'

'Exactly.' Thorne seemed delighted. 'Humans and animals can't stop riling the weak. So I tried to build up their confidence; I'd put in a couple of locusts with a recovering rat – and nothing else for him to eat. You know what? Fucked legs or not, ninety per cent of those rats caught the locusts.'

'Ninety per cent. How many times did you try this?'

'Plenty. Then when it was the right time I put 'em back with their comrades, the healthy rats. Did I ever see some scuffles, man! But the same thing applied, more or less. They fought tooth and nail for acceptance, and quite often achieved it.'

'So what's your point?' I asked.

'The crippled rats didn't need their legs to go about their ratty business,' he said. 'If I'd left them in the traps and fed them they woulda died. The trap equates with death. Give 'em a reason to go on and what's left becomes stronger. Like with me.' Thorne indulged himself in a repugnant tally of all that was missing from the natal early model of himself. 'Even the tip of this finger,' he concluded, holding aloft his left pinkie. 'Though I didn't get no money for that. That was my own lack of care.' He smiled. 'So then I thought about kittens and puppies, and making 'em strong for adulthood...'

The hand I wasn't using to hold my cue I held up. 'Please, Thorne, don't.'

He giggled. 'I had to turn the stereo up real loud sometimes.'

'Thorne. For Christ's sakes...'

'Okay. All I'll say is, I'm stronger now. My brain is... incandescent.' I had certainly noticed an improvement in his vocabulary, if that stood for anything. 'If you can get out the trap, the wounds become your strengths. Which is where, I guess, you come in.'

'What do you mean?'

'You haven't invited me here to wish me Happy Birthday. You're in a trap, right; something about losing two years of your life?' He said it as though I'd misplaced my car keys or forgotten a phone number. 'Speak. But first use that walking stick to get this game going. There's a ten-spot riding on it.'

I spoke. I broke. I smoked.

## Chapter 6

1.

Dealing with disease is a full-time occupation.

My brain is my only ally, and so I have to keep it clean and tidy, like a home in the hills I haven't visited for some time...

Because I have it. It's in me. I feel ill but not sick; and there are a few matters that need attending to...

It's January 31.

Have to get me some of that infected blood.

2.

I should finish off matters with Thorne. He certainly finished off matters with me, more or less. Over games – frames – of pool we snuffled and truffled among the garbage of our collective memory, picking out dead food in order to assemble a halfway decent meal, with plenty of protein. It wasn't easy. We were in that subterranean warren for three hours, long after I'd intended to make another call. We drank some drafts. Well, I did, anyway; Thorne was on nothing stronger than peach juice, which I was truly astonished to learn they had. We talked. As we did so, Thorne won the first game and the ten dollars; then he won the second game and a further twenty (double or nothing); then the unpriced seven challenges after that – rifling in astounding breaks of five, six, seven balls at a time, the pockets swallowing with glottally gulping finesse.

My mind was not on pool; but playing pool acted as a sort of safety valve: it allowed me to incorporate what Thorne said into the mythology of my existence.

Herbert Dechtler: that's who I am: infected Herbert Dechtler. Not Adam Malarz. The rooms in my head need sweeping and redecorating.

According to Thorne, this much is true:

Approximately two years ago, Adam Malarz hired Thorne to do the business with Floyd and Analiese. Only my head has altered things slightly. The part about where Analiese was born – Valparaiso, Indiana – was fine and dandy, but I was way off target with regards to Floyd. In fact, I had it in reverse. Born of wealthy parents on the Upper East Side, he now lives in Harlem, in a grotty shoebox, with his wife. Thorne chastised me for thinking otherwise. Through a chuckle he inquired: 'Do you really think a nightclub performer can afford to live alongside the millionaires?' I didn't want to get into the whole story with Thorne.

Thorne took Floyd to the Upper East Side, where afterwards the latter wandered around, quizzical.

'You went into the apartment with Analiese though,' I said to Thorne. 'Describe it.'

It was what I had in my head: good furniture, CDs.

'So you took Floyd to the Upper East Side...' I recapitulated. 'I tried to get into the apartment the other day; it's an intercom thing. I couldn't get close.'

'Yeah, but two years have been and gone. Weren't no such thing back then.'

I feel like a mother bird, building a nest for her family: collecting scraps and pieces of straw, and weaving them together with spittle and hope.

Truth is, I wanted to catch him out.

'Tell me how you exited the building after you spoke with Analiese,' I demanded. I thought of those two policemen – A and B – one up the stairs and one in the elevator. Every question I posed seemed to make Thorne stronger.

I'd gotten it wrong: it was rich to poor – but I wanted the story substantiated – doubly. 'I'm going to make a phone call shortly,' I said. 'In the meantime, are you up for a trip to Harlem?'

'I guess.'

3.

'Can I speak to Adam Malarz, please.'

'Yeah, this is Adam.'

'It's Herbie.'

A pause. Then: 'I thought so. Man, what happened to you?'

'Scheisse. That's what happened to me. Can you talk okay at your desk?'

'Sure. I'd given up on you.'

'I don't doubt it, Adam.'

'What the hell was I supposed to do? I thought you were dead! By the way, you sound funny. Have you been drinking?'

'Can we meet?'

'You tell me. Is everything cool?'

'Was it ever going to be cool again?'

'...No.'

'Then you've answered your own question.'

'How many subjects is that we've covered in thirty seconds?'

'Too many. Let's start again. How are you?'

'I'm sick.'

'What do you mean?'

'The opposite of healthy.'

'Same old Herbie.'

'No. Not the same old Herbie. Not in this head he's not. A meeting would be a very good idea. We have a lot to discuss.'

'Okay. Do you want to come to me?'

'Not really. For old times' sake, how about Monica's?'

'The coffee shop? Sure. You're obviously still aware of the directions.'

'I can remember them like it was yesterday.'

'It was, you know, in some ways.'

'Don't confuse me.'

'What time?'

'Eight o' clock?'

'Eight's fine.'

'Are you sure?'

'...I'm positive.'

2.

I had the afternoon to think things through. I can picture Thorne driving Floyd into Harlem, but I realize now – my picture is too vivid. Even if I had been the one Thorne told, the image would not have been that clear. And I wasn't: I know that now. Much of my information is second-hand, following meetings with Adam. I can see Thorne and Floyd in the car, but they're going in the other direction, toward Central Park. Having watched countless films and documentaries in my apartment in Berlin, I have visualized my memories – the accounts of the eye-witnesses – into a movie. What I know about the streets of Harlem is from where I've been and what I've seen as a relentless traveller. Floyd's fear on that night – well, maybe it was my own, transplanted. Like fishing lines cast at precisely the same time at opposing diagonals, my memory of Harlem has twisted around what I know about the evening.

Do I have a chance?

Floyd's fears – his paranoia – must be mine; or at least shared. I feel what he feels so acutely it can't be natural.

Being Herbie – that I'm Herbie – I have no choice but to accept. But I have a question. Why the hell can't I speak German? Or French?

I shouldn't be doing this. Reader, it is but the afternoon; it is four-thirty. In three and a half hours' time I have an important meeting with an old friend... and on top of all those drafts I had at the pool cave, I have just poured a vodka. Would you say I had a problem? If I was a liver I'd divorce my body. I'd divorce my ass.

There are no guarantees, but I do have a supposition. I think I must have started writing when I came back from Africa. But what the hell have I been doing for two years? Where have I been? And, if applicable, with whom?

How much of me is me and how much Adam? I feel as though I know him very well too; much better than any human has the right to know another. Our heartstrings twang to a similar tune; our pulses blithely syncopate.

3.

Imagine my surprise. If drunkenness is a journey, I'd hit the end of the line. I was out of it. Wrapped up in warm clothes and a blanket, I shivered cross-legged on my bed, a bottle of Jim Beam between my thighs like a science-fiction penis. I was numb. I was due to meet Adam in forty-five minutes' time.

Then someone knocked at the door.

My automatic reaction of course, especially in my state, was to assume it couldn't be for me; that the sound had carried strangely and another door had been rapped upon. Then the knocking came again.

Feeling the weight of the world on my shoulders, I rose.

Scared? I guess so. But let's face it: fear's currency has devalued over the last two years. I placed my right eye to the spyhole, the bottle of hooch in my left hand. Though I couldn't see much, I could make out the salient details.

Suits. Two large men in black suits, with white shirts and groovy ties. No chance they had simply knocked on the wrong door: men in suits do not come to this place at all.

I sighed heavily and opened the door. I was ready.

'Can I help you gentlemen?' I no doubt slurred.

They looked like tanks; they looked like Volvos. For a brief instant I entertained the notion they spoke no English. Then one of them decided to get the business side of things out the way.

'Herbert Dechtler?' the one on my left said. His face was blurry but there was something familiar about him.

'I guess so.'

'Your presence is required.'

'By whom?' Then hot on the heels of these questions I thought of another as I squinted into my visitor's face and regarded his crew cut. 'You wouldn't be Eoin McGarhen, would you, by any chance?'

Maddeningly the guy smiled. Of course, I have never actually met McGarhen. My impression of what he looked like had been formed by conversations with Adam. This blind date, however, proved me not to have been far off.

He nodded once. Turning to the other I asked, 'And who would you be?' Through the smudged binoculars of my drunken haze I attempted to piece together the information. This baboon was, I regret, less familiar; I gave up before I'd started.

Shaking my hand, he introduced himself: 'I'm Fishburn. Jacob Fishburn. I'm the guy who first taught Adam to teach Floyd.'

'You're Mr X. I know your name.' Perhaps that sounded a little nasty. They looked at me in a way I did not want to be looked at: unsympathetically. I wanted sympathy.

'Get your coat on,' said McGarhen; 'it's fucking freezing out there.'

'Actually, I've got an appointment in half an hour. Could we do this another time?'

Snorting, Mr X said, 'What do you think?'

The super gave me a funny look as I exited the building: in the presence of these two men in suits all his fears had come true. He could see right through me, which is more than I can do. I got the impression that this would be the last time I saw the apartment and the tenement. I wanted to say goodbye to the super. I wanted to say sorry to Jerry.

Thoughts froze in my head; the air hit me like the worst sort of blast from a freezer. Drunk as I was, it was no protection from the chill; I hoped we wouldn't walk far.

I saw our mode of transport straight away. Incongruous does not do it justice.

A brand new, black and shining limousine. Windows like onyx.

'Don't tell me,' I said, 'I'm the chauffeur.'

Mr X muttered, 'We should be getting extra for this guy's backchat.'

I decided to fight the demon and stay quiet. But Mr X's sentence helped a little to confirm some theories. Mr X, apparently, had never met me; neither, it seemed, had McGarhen. Just one more brick in the wall spray canned with the legend that I had been programmed while in Africa.

I got in the back. Along the seat from me was an old black man wearing very thick spectacles and a shabby suit. He didn't turn. My guides got in the front and McGarhen started the engine. Glass separated them and us. Several blocks passed by before anyone spoke.

Even then it was me. 'Wanna tell me where we're going there, pal?'

'To my apartment.' The voice was an odd compound of New York and something richer and darker.

'Geographically I mean.'

'The Upper East Side.'

The revelation drew up slowly. 'Pleased to meet you finally, Walt.' I tried not to sound drunk; my tone was jovial. 'Must say I'm relieved you're not a pimp for the buffoons up front. Unless you are, of course. You are Walt Brydonson, aren't you. Or am I just drunk and making silly connections?'

Walt smiled.

On this occasion I must admit, from what I'd taken from Adam's stories (in turn, what he'd taken from Spencer's account of that night with Floyd and Analiese) I'd made the picture of Walt inaccurately. I hadn't seen him quite as jowelly as he was; nor with his pate so virtually hair-free, only a thin hedge around the field remaining, narrowing into a pair of pointy sideburns.

He turned my way. Nodded. 'In Manhattan I'm Walt. And I don't suppose I'll be going back. I love it here.'

Back where? 'What about me? Will I be going back?'

'To Africa?'

'To Germany. Home.'

'This is your home now,' Walt replied.

'But am I German? I need to know the truth about myself. I have no recollection of the German language.'

Walt shuffled forward on his seat and leaned toward a black box like an aircraft's flight recorder, but larger; designed to blend in with the dark interior. He opened the door and light spilled out.

'Would you care for a drink?'

A fridge. Crammed with miniatures and cans of soda; on the bottom shelf were crystal tumblers and taller glasses for cocktails.

Somebody had spiked what I'd already drunk. Somebody had spiked my life. Desperately I attempted to take this in. The word Africa stirred up a suspicion and a memory. I hadn't even heard the question.

On the purring journey uptown, through the evening gale and the clots of slow-moving traffic, I now thought of what I once had imagined Herbie had said but now realized I had heard for myself. The speaker was Matthew Carreras, in a swampland fixture in Africa: 'Youssou lives in New York now,' he'd said. 'He takes care of that side of the business these days.'

Even drunk, I could make the link.

Walt Brydonson was Youssou Hussad Jr.

'A drink, Mr Dechtler?'

'I'll take a Scotch.'

'Good choice. I'll join you.'

The two henchmen up front conversed, their mouths moving silently. Bright lights from oncoming traffic tried to spear through the dark glass. It was like being in a movie theatre, with the volume turned down.

Youssou or Walt prepared the drinks.

'Do you mind if I smoke?' I said.

'I'd rather you didn't. I'm an old man and my lungs can use every minute of clean air they can get their hands on.'

I smiled. 'No, I don't think you heard me correctly...' this said while taking my cigarettes from my jacket pocket. '...I said: Do you mind if I smoke?' As I placed a filter between my lips, I tasted familiarity. Staring my guide in the face I lit up. There was silence. I exhaled, thereby colonizing part of his world; the smoke crept across the ceiling like a dispersing swarm of lazy insects.

As a victory it was small, but I felt as though I'd gained something.

Handing me a glass of Old Grouse, Youssou/Walt said, 'You'll be wondering why I came to get you.'

'I'm wondering more if you have any peanuts to go with this, Walt. Or do you prefer Youssou.' I took a sip of my drink.

'No peanuts. And I've told you: in Manhattan it's Walt. But well done.' I could tell he struggled to stay calm. 'A few drinks and a conversation. That's all I expect.'

'Would you like a cigarette?' I asked.

'No thank you.'

'For your monkeys?'

'No thank you on their behalf. Mr Dechtler, I'm surprised you don't want to get on with this. You did a moment ago.'

'But that was before the booze arrived,' I replied. 'Perhaps I'd be more eager if I knew what this was.'

'Okay,' said Walt. 'Are you sober enough for this?'

I grinned. 'Pal, I'm never gonna be sober enough for this.'

'Fair comment.'

## Chapter 7

1.

Youssou Hussad bought the Upper East Side apartment in Walt Brydonson's name when he was a student at NYU, forty-two years ago. The records are correct: Walt owns the place. He bought it knowing the project he and Carreras had in mind might eventually necessitate a refuge, a hidey-hole – call it what you will.

It's the sort of place I've always wanted. It's a masterpiece. Entering, you tiptoe for fear of your footfalls disturbing a priceless piece of art or shattering a glass ornament.

The sofa nearly swallowed me; I could have fallen asleep. When Walt next spoke it was to offer coffee, which I accepted. He called out to an as yet unseen presence I'd heard moving behind the scenes. Then he sat on the sofa with me, relaxing back.

Having fallen in love with New York as a student, Youssou had moved back here permanently two years ago, when Carreras 'died'. They swapped places. He'd told me in the car it was where he intended to finish his days. I had sent Floyd and Thorne here, on that night two years ago.

All of a sudden I felt ticklish; something strummed my fibers. I quickly recognized the sensation. Not to worry: only guilt.

Walt droned on. I interrupted.

'Excuse me. Enjoyable as this has been – illuminating even – I made a date for eight o' clock tonight. I know he won't've hung around all this time, but I should at least call to apologize and reschedule. He's extremely pissed off right now.'

Walt frowned. 'He is? You're certain.'

'I know Adam very well. Better than even you would have thought.'

'Fascinating.'

'I don't want him mad at me. Right now I can sense his irritation. Soon that irritation will be rage.' I stood up, the colors of the room mixing, rinsed together by my addled brain. 'So – fun as this has been, a friendship is more important. I'll see you.' The effort of placing one foot squarely in front of the other became my next task. Indeed, so absorbing was it I failed to notice – or give credence to the fact – McGarhen and Mr X were moving into my beeline for the door.

No conversation needed. McGarhen did the deed, plainly and emotionlessly: one tightly balled fist into the booze-soggy swamp of my belly. The air in my body rearranged itself. I bent double. It felt as though I'd been crippled.

A voice from the sofa made me turn back to Walt while I clutched my stomach and hauled air into my lungs.

'Herbie. I am not here to provide information for you twenty-four hours a day. I'm not the Yellow Pages. Fuck Adam. You have a rare opportunity to find out everything you need to know, so I strongly suggest you get your ass back on this sofa.'

Quasimodo-style, I made it back to my seat.

'You want to tell me, don't you?' I asked. 'You want to get it all off your chest... Is it guilt? Fear? What?'

Walt replied, 'I have to make sure the story gets told correctly.'

'Your part of the story, you mean! Jesus! What sort of vanity is that? You're as bad as Carreras – trying to make yourself look good. Why didn't you just pay someone to write the fucker?'

'What writer has your insight?' Sighing loudly Walt laced his fingers together. I had one cigarette left; the biological compulsion to smoke it was one with which I had no truck. Flame flickered from my lighter, and then I said:

'I'm not a writer. I'm a listener. I collect stories, not tell them. Adam's the man you want.' I laughed. 'I won't do it. I wouldn't do it when Carreras asked me in Zaire, and I won't do it for you now. Two years have passed, Walt, but not in my head. I've got the same opinion as I had last week.'

Did they know I was already doing precisely what they wanted me to?

Walt took a sip of the cappuccino McGarhen had brought him a second or two earlier. I'd gotten one as well; it cooled on the table in front of me, the surface froth reminding me briefly of the scum whipped up by a boat's progress through a swamp.

'You might change your mind when you hear what happened to you in Zaire, after you met Carreras. I won't believe you if you tell me you're not interested.'

'Okay, I'm interested. The last thing I remember was being told everything by Carreras – everything that put him in a good light, that is.'

'There's no other light to put a man like that into.'

'He told me I was infected. Apparently I still am, so I'm not sure I even took his offer of the blood cure: the rock.' This was, of course, a bluff. I hadn't believed in the rock then. I don't believe in the rock now. The rock in the swamp is their convenient way of explaining things. Justifying their actions.

Daintily licking cappuccino foam from his upper lip, Walt nodded. I thought of Adam, waiting at a table in Monica's All-Night Bistro. Damn but he was gonna be pissed.

'Yes, I heard about your tantrum in Dr McLannon's office. Don't worry; we sorted that one out for you. As for the Impostine cure... you took it all right. You took too much.'

I reminded myself, over and over, like a litany:

They're lying. There is no Impostine cure. There is no medicine.

I took that further.

Dr McLannon lied to me too. They had him. They'd told him what to say.

I am not sick.

I drained my coffee cup and told Walt I needed to use his bathroom. The mirror showed me an alarming blonde wash in my eyes; I looked terrible. Running my hands over my head I collected tiny hairs that looked like iron filings. Under the faucet's gush I washed them away and then I spent ten minutes rinsing my entire head – kissing the sink's porcelain – trying hard to sober up. In the process of doing so, I was violently ill – again, in the sink. Perfect. I spent a further five minutes forefingering the hole in order to make the oil-and-water mixture go down the drain.

According to Walt, this is what happened to me after Africa.

I went back to JFK, from Kinshasa. Met Adam. Also took the time to execute a few investigations. For instance, I went (two years before I sent Jerry) to Thorne's apartment. I had no idea someone followed. In the time I'd taken to return from Zaire, Thorne had moved out and a guy called Wallace Chorning – a Southern boy – had moved in. That's where I got the name from. You see, I've made a few errors in this account: on the day after the night Thorne first went to see Analiese, she did make some inquiries about her brother Sam, in jail. This much I know from Marianne Clack. But she didn't speak to anyone called Wallace Chorning; that was (I know now) my own dressing. How many other things have I got wrong? All I'm sure of is, the information is in me – and that's what they want, one way or the other. Perhaps I should write the fucking thing after all, ho-ho. Perhaps I should let them know I'm up to speed; nearly finished. Currently they think I'm considering the proposal.

I am the most comprehensive store of knowledge, so far. That's what I'm expected to share. I'm supposed to write about how great Youssou and Carreras are for having saved my life. They want me to talk about the antidote in the blood systems of New York. But it's not an antidote. There's no such thing. I don't know what it is, but it ain't a cure. They want to give it to everybody.

I went back. Protected from diseases I may have been on my first trip, but this wasn't true of the second, according to Walt. Where, on the first, I experienced nothing worse than gastric catastrophes – the five-second squat – there were gangs of diseases awaiting my return, with yellowed fangs. For the speed with which diphtheria attacked me, the plane might as well have been an incubator. Diphtheria passed the baton neatly to sleeping sickness; which in turn led me into a spell of Yellow Fever.

All this on top of the HIV. Thanks a lot.

I was very, very ill. I spent whole days dreaming, with no idea of the real world surrounding me. Walt thinks (or says he thinks) the dreams were my mind's way of protecting itself; the shields against stark reality. Saying little that made any sense, people worried me. And I took my first dose of the sticky liquid in the rock, apparently begging for it – demanding it.

(Bullshit.)

Perhaps it was because it reacted with the other medicines currently in my daily cocktail, or perhaps (as Walt supposes) my blood, fighting too much at the time, was not responsive to this strange and alien DNA. Either way or any other, it didn't work. The blood tests I had taken for me showed the presence of the antibodies that bravely soldiered against the Trojan Horse of HIV.

Walt asked me to bear in mind I have HIV-1, the virus first identified in the U.S. in 1981. Not HIV-2, prevalent mainly in Western Africa, against which the Impostine cure has an eighty-five per cent success record. They'd assumed it would work on me too, but it wouldn't. Staying there for so long was good news for the medical staff of the clinic; being bedridden and fever-drenched was nigh-on a miracle. Imagine a better guinea pig! Their task was to cure me, recording how doses affected my chain of maladies.

After eight weeks in a hospital bed, I apparently started to mutter. I talked a great deal about Adam. They used this state of somnambulistic clish-ma-claver to extract information. The problem was, half the time I talked about Adam – again, Walt thinks (and I agree with him this time) in an attempt to avoid an overload in my brain. Adam this, Adam that.

Did I want to be Adam?

Did I find, among the clean cool air of the hospital, among the bandages, drips, the paramedics in paradise, a love or infatuation for Adam?

Who knows what I thought? (They do.) All that's certain is, I started to adopt some of his characteristics. For the first time in my life, in my lucid moments, I craved nicotine. I took on his smoking problem. (Whose problem is the booze?) Convincing myself – to combat the illnesses – I was in a better place, living Adam's life, which I also exaggerated and improved. Promotions; acts of derring-do...

It was either madness or the sanest thing I've ever done.

Two years is a long time to invent yourself in the image of your idol.

On returning to New York, after two years of confusion, I was someone else. Not quite Herbie; not quite Adam (no, nowhere near Adam. Adam in name only). A shadow of my former self, you might say. I had a very real sense of the past in my head, but my faculties had rejected twenty-four months of pain.

It's possible they interfered with my head; I've considered it. I certainly considered it on leaving Walt's apartment. However, I'd stopped considering it by the time I stumbled crying into the street, breathing like a two-tone alarm.

There was a personal matter pressing.

I was late. I was late. For a very important date... Putting thoughts of Africa behind me I stood at the roadside and semaphored for a cab. Eventually one gave me the time of day, or night... For the first time in two years I entered Monica's All-Night Bistro. Adam was no longer around, but I sat down anyway; ordered Guatemala Elephant-bean coffee and a piece of cheesecake. What I really wanted (what I didn't want) was a Scotch. Waiting for my midnight snack I looked around at the herbivores, bent over their pastries in sullen preoccupation. The place had changed, and I don't just mean the decor. I had a cigarette in my mouth; its baptism of fire approached, the hand edging nearer, as if in slow motion.

The voice scraped the grease from the inside of my skull.

'No smoking!'

It was the voice of the lady bringing my coffee and pie: Loretta.

'I beg your pardon?' One of the great things about Monica's had always been that it encouraged smoking. 'What can this mean?'

'We have a non-smoking policy.' She had dealt with people like me before. She pointed to the sign on the wall – the usual capitalized red letters.

I blew out the match. 'Any law against sucking the thing?'

'We'd rather you didn't.'

At length I put both cigarette and match into their right places. Afterwards, I stared – almost in wonder – at the black scalp of the dead match in the dimpled bowl.

'Okay,' I said. 'Now I wonder if you can help me. I'm late here to meet a guy who looks like a younger version of me. Did you happen to see him at all?'

'Seen a lot of people on this shift.' Judging by the attitude, the attempt to smoke was clearly held against me. 'I'll go ask Julie. She's the boss.' A few minutes later she came back, holding a grilled breakfast which she flying-saucered to a nearby table. It was midnight; outside there were stars in the sky. Thought of breakfast made me nauseous. Loretta said, 'Julie thinks maybe she seen him. Was sitting in your chair actually; kept looking at his watch, drinking like a thousand cups of coffee.'

'We always used to sit here,' I whispered.

'What's that?'

Louder I said, 'We drank coffee. On the run. Can't wait to see him again.'

'All right.' She sounded unsure. '...Can I get you anything else there?'

'No. This coffee's good.' Enough to remind me of times gone by. I finished the cup, had a refill, ate my pie, then undertipped and walked a few blocks. The air was cold; it made my nostrils ache.

I fed a quarter into a slot and dialed Adam's number. He wasn't in or wasn't answering, and he'd forgotten to turn the machine on.

Before I knew it, I was on East Houston Street – nearly back at the apartment. No point getting a cab. Walking along, I read the think-bubbles of frozen breath I produced.

They had two years to do what they wanted, and this was the best they could come up with? A paranoid, neurotic heavy smoker with no family, friends or roots? It didn't seem worth the effort. I didn't buy it. My head had spin-rinsed the dirty linen of my memories, leaving them tangled and clingy; but easy to unfold, given patience and assistance. They had not, in a sentence, done enough.

I turned the corner into Broome Street, thinking, Could it just be about writing? They just want someone to make them look good? If that's all it is...

I am to provide the revelation – but I won't. Do you hear me? I won't do it. I won't be bought anymore. These words are my generation's reaction to disease. But that's all they are. I don't want them to be used to help crown a king.

2.

Two nights have passed. It's nine p.m. And for the first time in ages I have a guest in my room. A woman.

She knocked on the door and when I went to answer it, I didn't even bother to check through the spyhole.

Like a diamond in a bed of dust, there was something unattractive overcoating her beauty. She was gorgeous, but a veil of something distorted my view. Her hair was messy; she wore a long grey coat, into the pockets of which she had thrust her hands. She carried no purse.

'You've ruined my life,' she said simply. 'It's time I ruined yours.'

It was Analiese Acclune.

'You'd better come in,' I said softly, sniffing: in the last two days I have started my annual winter cold. A bit early. (Or is it Adam's annual winter cold I'm thinking of?)

Her hands remaining in her coat pockets, Analiese leaned against the door. I recognized what was distracting my attention away from her gorgeousness. It was sadness, pain, anger; it was grief.

'Why have you done this to us? I don't even know you,' Analiese told me. 'Except you used to call yourself Paul Lewis and you were hassling my husband for an interview. What possible reason?'

'Have a seat. I'll do what I can,' I replied. 'Take off your coat.'

For a second or two she didn't move, which made me more nervous. Seems like yesterday, of course, but truly it's been two years since Adam saw this woman in Marianne's apartment. I still think that one was me, though deep down I know I was in Africa. I didn't get back that first time until December 24. Then after meeting Adam I went back in early January.

'Apart from when I pretended to be a journalist,' I said, 'have we ever met?'

'No, I don't think so.'

'What's my name?'

'Herbert Dechtler, I guess. Except downstairs they think you're Lewis as well.'

'A necessary precaution. Will you please sit down?'

Removing her hands from her pockets, Analiese showed me what she'd been hiding.

'Put that away,' I said, 'you won't need it. I'll be good.' I sat down on my chair, shaking with numb exhaustion.

Analiese quivered too. Paradoxically, producing the weapon had made her less sure of herself. She had both hands on the butt.

'Really – I won't bolt,' I tried to assure her. Very elegantly she sat on the edge of the bed. Analiese gave me the worst sort of accusing look.

'Did you send that man to our home?' she asked, attempting to keep her voice level.

'Thorne? Yes. I gave him some very specific instructions.' I was worried. 'He didn't overstep the mark, did he?'

'You asshole. Being in our presence again was overstepping the mark. Can't you understand that? I don't think you have any idea what you've done.'

'Probably not. What happened?' I asked.

3.

Mid-afternoon, two days earlier, Thorne took a ride into Harlem: in his chair. Hold your breath in admiration, in astonishment; the mad bastard gave his arms and shoulders the ultimate workout. From downtown to Harlem: it must have taken him hours. It would take me all day to walk it, and I have no problems with kerbs.

Somehow, Thorne negotiated the stairs; the tenement still has no elevator. Analiese says he was in the chair when she opened the door, so he either dragged the thing up behind him, or some Good Samaritan assisted his ascent. He got there. Analiese opened the door to the length of the chain, and looked down. Thorne said hi. Analiese slammed the door.

Seconds later, she opened it again. Her face – so identically framed between door-edge and door-jamb – had a look of psychopathic caution.

'Hi, Analiese,' said Thorne. 'Can I come in?'

'What the hell do you want?'

'That's no way to greet an old friend. Open the door.'

'What do you want?'

'Open the fucking door, Analiese. Do I look like a threat?' He indicated the chair. 'Stop wasting time.'

Staggeringly, this approach actually worked; either that or Analiese saw the futility of sending Thorne away. Maybe she knew he'd only come back again – next time, perhaps pissed off. She let him in.

Both Acclunes were present; both had been hunted into this corner.

Only one, however, turned defense into attack. Only one, with temperature at boiling point, stepped forward to meet the wheelchair; only one struck Thorne with a swooping open-hand across the face...

'He lost it,' Analiese murmured. 'I've never seen my husband even remotely violent. Distress unlocks it. He gave Thorne a boxing match while I tried not to cry.'

'You're smiling now,' I observed.

Analiese shrugged. 'Maybe I was then too. Maybe they were happy tears after all. Who cares? Floyd tied him up using stage chains.'

'I don't wanna hear the rest.'

'Let's just say he squealed like a rat. Until we gagged him.'

'So where is he now?'

'At the apartment. Floyd's watching him, then he's gonna meet us both at Adam's apartment. The four of us got some talking to do.'

I sighed. 'Do I have time to write up what we've just said? Should've taped it.'

'What are you writing?'

'You'll read it one day. I'm close to the end, I think; you're in it. I just want to make sure I'm right up to speed... you know: in case.'

'In case what?'

'You've got a gun, Analiese.' I left it at that.

She smiled. 'You've started to believe in your own mortality. Tell me how it feels?'

'Hard to say. A gun's been in my mouth for years.'

'I don't understand.'

'Doesn't matter. Are you going to shoot me with that?'

'Well, I'm not going to tickle you with it. Write your book and then we'll go.'

'Okay.' I turned away from her and faced my pile of pages. Talking to myself more than to her I said, 'I bet he's angry with me, not meeting when we said.' I'd tried to get him by phone a few times but he hadn't been in and had still forgotten to turn on the answerphone, so I hadn't even apologized.

When I started to write this bit I was so excited to meet him again; now I'm like a dog with a new toy – frantic, ecstatic. I can see his apartment accurately, mainly because I once broke and entered while pretending to be a Baldygram.

I know which drawer holds his important things. Like his passport: at which I must have a look. Despite everything, I need to be sure; need to know there are no stamps for Zaire on those crispy thick pages. I still want to believe he went and I didn't, though God knows that would throw an extra complication into the plot.

This thought led to another. 'Will you do me a favor?' I asked. 'When we go out, let me buy a book on the way.'

She was confused. 'Stores are closed,' she replied. 'Besides, we're not talking about leisure time on the beach here. This is serious.'

'I know. There's an all-night place in the Village. I just wanna swing by and get a book. Any book...but it must be in German.'

'Why?'

'I have to read the words to see if it's still in me. My mother tongue. I've suffered too, believe it or not. They scrubbed me of my identity. I was born and raised in Berlin.'

'You don't sound like it.'

'Exactly. A dictionary. All I want's to see if the words stir anything. I want to remind myself of my early past.'

4.

So we come, I suppose, full circle. This blank page is the carrot to the donkey of my imagination. As I write, Analiese is on my bed – not on the edge, but right back with her shoulders against the wall. Clearly she does not expect me to run. With the gun in her right hand, she is smoking using her left, flicking ash on to the floor. Who cares? Between her legs she nurses a large tumbler of cheap supermarket Scotch. If I'm lucky she'll get drunk and fall asleep.

I've got to bring this to a satisfactory conclusion; but there isn't one. It's a mystery with the last page torn out. Infected blood rides the medical pathways of this city, like hoodlums on joyrides. Infected with what, I have no idea. We have to bomb the blood banks; a suggestion I suspect would find some favor with the lady who waits.

We must raze the hospitals; level the clinics. Every doctor, nurse, dentist, and paramedic – screened, tested, accepted or shot.

There is nothing to do except begin from scratch.

5.

I wonder how long she intends to give me.

When I looked round a second ago she raised her eyebrows and asked: 'Finished?'

'How am I going to write the last part?' I said. 'You're going to shoot me.'

Analiese shook her head. Through a sigh she exhaled smoke. 'If all goes to plan I'm not going to shoot you. If all goes to plan you're going to shoot me. Do you have a cigarette?' she asked, squashing out the existing butt on the wall. 'I'm all through with this pack.'

Tossing over the box in front of me I said, 'Help yourself,' and I got back to work.

6.

The good news, I guess, is that two years ago we managed to spook Walt Brydonson. More specifically, Floyd did. I snatch comfort from this. When Adam got Thorne to get Floyd to go to the apartment in Harlem – that part, as we've discussed, is wrong in my memory. It's wrong. But Floyd did go to Walt's Upper East Side apartment, and subsequently scared the hell out of the old man. My addled brain might have garnished the scene, but the facts remain the same. We took Floyd to meet his Maker; his African Daddy. Floyd's appearance scared the shit out of Walt. Old bastard (he smiles about it now) – he was obliged to employ the half-blind, half-deaf, fully mad routine I detail in the early pages of this document. It's not much for a guy to get excited about... but whatever gets you through the night. It was the first time Walt had had his position questioned, and even if Floyd didn't recognize him, and even if the incident alerted Walt's people to our presence – I don't regret it. I need that small comfort; you wouldn't believe how much. No; I don't regret frightening Brydonson. I might have created his hearing aid and blind-man's spectacles; but his fear I had down cold.

## Chapter 8

1.

'Hi, honey.'

Analiese to Adam's new doorman; a guy named Martin.

'Ms Acclune,' Martin said in greeting; 'go right up.' Man barely gave me a glance. Martin went back to his book as we got into the elevator.

'So how did you do that?' I asked. 'When I lived here – or thought I lived here – a gnat couldn't get in without security clearance.'

'It's all done with mirrors,' Analiese replied.

'Seriously.'

'It's magic. Isn't that what a lady in my profession is supposed to say?'

'Analiese...'

'Okay, Adam told him I'd be coming back.' She was tetchy. 'While I was here a few hours ago he buzzed down and said, let her in when she returns. Satisfied?'

The elevator doors opened. The aroma of the hallway – flowery, sweet – was familiar. I could feel Adam moving about inside – because it was what I would have done too. When she rang the bell, or knocked on the wood, Adam would jump a little.

Analiese, however, had no intention of doing either. From the coat pocket not concealing the gun she pulled out a bunch of keys.

My chest felt warm. It was panic, snuck up on me again. If I knew Adam (and I hope to Christ I do – he's all I've got) he would never have given this woman, or any woman, all his keys.

Analiese stepped into the apartment. Soft, slow jazz piano music floated out, and riding the notes was an unusual aroma, which clashed with the floral air-freshener of the hall. The lights were low; as my nose wrinkled up, my eyes tried to spear through the gloom. Having stepped to my side, Analiese closed the door. She didn't bother to lock it.

'Where's Adam?' I wanted to know.

'In the bedroom.'

As I approached the closed door, I could feel Adam's heartbeat, out of sync with my own. He was sick too: that was it. Bedridden with the virus that would eventually take me, if I did not get some more of Floyd's anti-virus in my system pretty soon.

My hand trembled on the handle of the door. 'Adam...' And I pushed it wide.

Nothing on earth could have prepared me for what I saw. The light in this room at least was perfect... Now you've probably noticed a deterioration in my calligraphy; tonight it is not the result of the bottle. My whole body is shaking; it is polluted with alien chemicals that I have no idea how to process.

Adam was in the bedroom. On the bed, propped up against pillows. His eyes stared at me, and his mouth was loosely open, like that of a fascinated child. Bar a pair of boxers and some gartered socks he was naked.

The blanket that covered him was that of his own blood. Exploded from his body via the football-sized hole in his sternum.

She had shot him.

The stench blocked my throat. I fell to my knees, gagging.

Behind me Analiese said, 'What do you think?'

Slowly I turned. The barrel of the gun was half a meter from my face.

'Don't shoot me...' I whispered.

'I told you: I'm not going to shoot you. I could've done that anywhere. I brought you here to show you. What do you think?'

I dared to glance at her face, hoping that she wouldn't be offended by such a direct address. 'What do I think?'

'Good shot, huh? Bless him, he thought he was having sex with me. Look at him.'

I drooled, frowning, virtually soiling my pants.

'I said: look at him.'

Quickly I turned back to the corpse. The hole was ragged, uneven, with layers of skin folded in on one another like the petals of some ghastily crippled rose. Surprisingly there was a lot of black in the wound.

'When I shot him he had a hard-on. God knows where that went.'

I turned to her again, but this time she wasn't going to allow me such a privilege.

'Look at the bastard!' she shouted.

So this was to be my torture: to face a murdered friend with the smell of his stale life fluid in my lungs.

'For pity's sake, Analiese,' I said quietly, 'why did you do it?'

She paused. 'You can ask that? You have the nerve?'

'This is the end of my story,' I said. 'I need your words. I need to know!'

'I told you: you ruined my life. Adam confessed. Now it's time I ruined yours.'

A few seconds swept by. I kept imagining Adam would get up and walk: the eyes held such light. 'What do you have in mind?'

'Why, what do you?'

'You're the one with the gun.'

'Not for long.'

Nothing would sink in, but for the moment that didn't matter, for my captor wanted the floor a bit longer.

'Quite the tattle-tale he was, your friend,' she went on. 'So Floyd and I are from Africa, are we? I'll be! Weren't enough bringing us to this country, away from our homes, but you had to brainwash us into accepting these sad existences...'

'Wait! I didn't bring you anywhere. That wasn't me. What did Adam say?'

'All sorts of shit,' she replied. 'By the end, sitting there with my gun pointing at him and his cock pointing right back, he blamed you for all sorts of things. Trying to get himself off the hook. Pathetic. You tell me your side of things.'

A pause. 'Before I do, I want the truth, Analiese: is Floyd really meeting us here?'

The answer was immediate. Good job I was still on my knees, facing away from her. 'Floyd's dead.'

'...Was it... was it you?' I stammered.

'I should shoot you in the back of the head for saying that. I loved my husband.' For the first time a trickle of emotion leaked through. 'He did it himself.'

I hung down my head; my skull felt heavy. 'Oh Jesus, I'm so sorry.'

'Two years ago was too late for sorry. You have no idea what Thorne did to Floyd. Not physically: not pain. It was all mental. He made us doubt what we thought we knew.' Though I couldn't see as much, I had the feeling Analiese had lowered the gun. 'It caused a few cracks in our marriage. I started to drink more; smoke. And Floyd's lost – let's say – a lot of the lead in his pencil. He couldn't even be confident with me, in bed, but on stage he became an absolute fucking disaster. For the first time in his professional career he got booed. Dante's fired him. He had a major bust-up with Marcel Toupe over something. Floyd had gotten scared of his own traps. We had no money; less than before. And though I was starting to forget about Thorne, I realize he was always in Floyd's head. He was scarred.

'When Thorne came back into our lives two nights ago, Floyd couldn't handle it. This morning he took himself down to Battery Park with a sack of his stage-chains.'

Shaking my head I said, 'No. I'm sorry. He drowned himself?'

'Yeah. Not much your apology'll do about that.'

'Guess not. But I mean it.' Throughout the next address I felt I was talking as much to Adam as I was Analiese: talking to the mouth of his stomach. 'I started this. Two years ago, and this time as well, moving into people's lives like a bad scent. Because of Adam, Agnieszka Pull is dead; but because of me, Floyd and Thorne are...'

'And me,' said Analiese. 'And who the hell is Agnieszka Pull?'

'Doesn't matter. I'm not going to shoot you, Analiese.'

'Beg to differ.'

'You can't make me.'

Her laughter tinkled; her chuckles were filled with balloons of light. 'You're so sweet,' she said. 'Do you really think that? You obviously haven't been paying attention. We can do it one of two ways. Either you can take this gun and shoot me, or you can listen while I shoot myself, and then put your fingerprints on the gun. Either way, I don't want to live anymore. I'm just a shell.'

'So am I,' I interrupted.

'That's your problem. Floyd's gone and he's not coming back. And sooner or later even a piece of garbage like Thorne is going to be missed. Probably by his rats.'

'What did you do to him?'

'We can probably claim it was an accident,' she told me or herself – I'm not sure.

I braved the wind of Analiese's stare.

'Get it through your head, sweetheart. We're both gonna walk out of here and rebuild our lives.'

'...You bastard. I've lost my husband.' With a guilty click the safety was released. 'This time I'm not going to put on the silencer. Let whoever comes come.'

I ignored her. 'I've lost my best friend.' I hated saying it but I said it: 'We're even.'

'He wasn't your friend. He lied about you.'

'He was scared. Besides, Floyd lied to you ever since you came to America. Only difference is, he didn't know it. Go on – shoot me, Analiese. If that's what you really want, do it. Just don't make me wait.'

'You're a shit. Turn around.' Again I faced my friend – for the last time, I couldn't help thinking. Goodbye, I mouthed.

The bang was astronomical. The whole room jumped in fright: even Adam. The overhead light dimmed; a flouring of plasterdust fell from the ceiling.

But... no pain. Only a ringing in my ears. My held breath explored my body to discover where I was hurt most.

Then I heard the thud of collision. 'No...' I breathed, turning. She'd collapsed back against the door, a very bloody halo printed large around her open-eyed head. I swore. Guts rolled. The mess of her was catastrophic... One bullet. Her face was washed in a fresh coat, shining and stinking; from the position on my knees, even, I could feel the warmth of her passing. A wave slithered up the beach of my belly. I upchucked.

'Analiese...'

I was weak... and wary. Had to get out the bedroom. The gunshot echoed in the air, and even that was loud enough to have an eavesdropper. I swore again, scrambled up to my feet. Get out, get out, get out... But there was a body – beautiful or no – blocking the door. To move her I'd have to touch her. Couldn't risk that. I tugged on the doorknob; with the weight against it, it opened a fraction. Tugged harder: Analiese's body jerked as though she'd be given a shock. A trickle of something vile leaked from between her lips.

'Move!' I shouted. Adrenalin had its fingers in the pie of my composition, stirring and flicking away my substance. Disgustingly, I felt the desire to steal some of her medicinal blood. I shook my head. Folding my arms so I wouldn't have to touch her, I dropped to my knees and nudged her. No shift. Again, with extra force, my arms still crossed like a mummy or an asylum inmate.

Panicking had made me careless. The dreadful alteration to my equilibrium made me giddy – as I lost my balance and toppled forward. My hands reached out to break my fall, but nonetheless the damage had been done. Half-sprawling on top of a recent suicide, inevitably I'd gotten some blood on my clothes. I got up, whimpering, clawed my fingers round the edge of the door; this time, with Analiese less strategically placed, the door pushed her to the side. I escaped. The air was thick; my lungs flexed.

I don't know what made me think of Adam's passport. Selfishness had made inroads through my desperation, but to reiterate, I simply had to know.

He had a bureau in the main room. As quickly as I could I rifled through it, leaving fingerprints galore. There were small drawers and secret compartments; I pulled out and threw to the floor headed stationery, a pocket camera, travel brochures, house insurance information, his employment contract, a cinema guide, pens, ink cartridges, undisposed-of balls of trash, a woman's bracelet, a cigarette case, a photograph album, a dictaphone, some mini-cassettes, some candy wrappers, a cheque-book...

Passport. Pocketing the article, I ran across the room. I opened the door – and was startled by Martin the security guard. What must my face have looked like?

'Hell happened here?' he asked warningly. 'I heard a shot.'

'She killed herself,' I stammered. 'And Adam... She was going to kill me too.' I tried to sidle past him.

'Did you call ambulance?'

'Please get out my way.'

'Not going nowhere, chief, not till the cops say so.'

Retrospectively this might have been a good idea: to wait until the law arrived, explain my story. All I thought of then, however, was blame, my act of theft, getting charged; worst of all, I considered not being able to finish this story.

So I ran.

Surprising Martin with my agility and strength, I pushed him out the way and made off down the hall. A shout followed, but no footfalls. I hit the stairs. Nearly tripped and flew down, managing in the last second to grip the balustrade and steady myself.

The outside cold, into which I burst, the door banging, was a tonic. Though it did very little to squash the memories of what I'd seen, at least it gusted away the scents. I might see Adam in my dreams until I die, but at least I won't have to smell him.

## Chapter 9

1.

So it's over. I need to rest.

That's not really true, is it? Floyd, Analiese and Thorne are out of my life – but by rights it should have been me disappearing from theirs. I'm the jinx. I'm the intruder, or one of them at least. I have left a trail of bodies behind me. I traced a murder story all the way over from Poland; I have collected my share of other tales. But with these three I'm not the reader, scanning and analyzing by turns for information. I'm the writer. My perseverance wrote their individual destructions.

2.

Adam's gone too. We shouldn't grade our feelings in moments like these, perhaps, but I can't help it. I feel his loss the most. I miss him. What's worse is, I'm responsible – again – albeit indirectly. The authorities will blame me, after they've found me. Could be prison's the best place for me now, though.

3.

Did I really say over? This is where my new life begins! I should explain (for posterity) my current situation: I am back at my rat-hole apartment, doing my best to write as much as possible before I hear that inevitable knock on my door... Only it seems there isn't anything left to write. Last night I saw my best friend with a hole in his stomach, but here are new words to match my sickness, my guilt, my confusion.

My hands shake. I don't know if it's from shock or from my withdrawal from booze. It must be the latter; after all, I've had plenty of shock of late, but I haven't had much withdrawal from booze.

Lie down for a while. I feel sick; my belly won't keep anything down. True enough, all I've tried to far this morning is what I had lying about the place – half-eaten chicken drumsticks and cold fries like fingers of polystyrene. Even my cigarettes taste different, for the worse.

Now what should I do about funeral arrangements?

4.

4 a.m. Addendum.

What should I do about publishing arrangements? I realize now, I never really expected to finish this manuscript; though I'd tried to deny it, I'd always expected to be killed, and for these words to be discovered on a day that would shake the world by its ears. Of all strange things, I need an agent. In the morning I'll consult the Yellow Pages.

On a different matter, how would you say I'm faring up without the sauce? I miss it too, though not as much as I miss Adam. Abstinence is not all it's cracked up to be. (What is?) For example, when I stop writing in a few minutes there will be no chemical signal in my brain to tell me to go back to bed. I'm wired. Alcohol loves me, and was always soothing my brow. I suppose I need an alternative. My cigarette consumption is now up to sixty a day, and sometimes, without booze, it's a struggle to finish that last carton. The penultimate and ultimate cigarettes are like reaching the plateau after a climb up the mountain. When I get there I feel so relieved that I almost want a cigarette to congratulate myself.

Must stop.

Can't stop.

I've just lit another cigarette – to toast the new day. The flame has brought back an old idea: to burn this manuscript. I'm thinking about it; reduce the damn thing to ashes I could toss out the window. Spoil their plan.

No, you're right. I don't suppose I will either. I'm too weak.

5.

'One question,' I said to the mouthpiece. 'Yes or no. Did you fuck with my mind while I was sick in Zaire? Yes or no.'

Walt sighed. 'What does it matter now?'

'Yes or no.'

'Yes,' he said.

I was in the lobby. 'Why?' Herbie stressed. I stressed.

'That's two questions.'

'I'm gonna burn down your fucking village. Why, I said. Why? Just tell me why.'

The line rattled; there was a pause. I thought Walt would hang up on me.

Youssou might have. Walt was too nice a guy... I hoped.

Walt sighed again, and softly I said, 'Please, man. Why? On top of everything else, just... what reason?'

In a few short sentences he told me.

'Thank you at least for that,' I said and hung up.

6.

Last night I dreamed the sidewalks turned spongy. It was a hot summer's day and the windows of buildings cried with sunburn. Taxis slithered. New York was silent. I walked through crowds of faceless people, suited, my calf muscles stretching with the effort of trudging through glue. I started to doubt that large extinct birds would swoop down and bite off my head; in this dream that wouldn't be how I died. I passed along, though, in search of that answer – to know how I was to go.

If I hadn't had that dream three times in the last five days, I might not have taken it as a sign or omen for what happened to me this morning. Call it sleep – it was as close as I get to sleep these days. I was 'sleeping': wrapped in the wire wool of fear-charged muscular breakdown. Muscular. Nothing mental about my nights anymore; the body might switch off, disentangle itself, with remarkable perturbation, from the strongman's hold of consciousness – but for my brain there's no such respite. Nor do I expect there ever to be again. Forget sleep; meet 'catnap', get acquainted with forty winks. Not even booze helps. (Oh, I've started again.) It knocks me out, eventually, but it doesn't knock out the terror; that still plays Postman's Knock on my eyelids, rapping hard and then running away as I open them up so I don't know quite why I'm gasping.

I constantly feel sick.

I was sleeping when I heard two raps on my door. While it's true many drink to forget, I've realized I drink to remember – remember what life used to be like. But in drinking to remember I always forget one thing late at night: to get undressed and get under the covers. Unfettered by the need to make myself presentable, then, I was at the door in a trice, almost eager for the first punch of the day.

Darratello. Well, I'd already paid the rent for the month, so what hidden extra was I being charged for now?

I opened the door. Christ knows what he saw in my smile.

'Telephone.'

'Oh, thanks.' Well this should be good, I thought, ambling behind him toward the stairs. At the bottom of the flight we parted, Darratello turning on me the full beam of his suspicion. He hasn't been the same since McGarhen and Mr X walked me away... The heavy black receiver dangled down. I picked it up.

Not much would have surprised me; but this did.

'Hello?'

'Yo, Herbie.' A black voice; young, fresh, soulful.

'Who is this?'

'Yo!'

'Yes yes,' I said. 'Yo to you too. Now speak or I'll hang up.' Last thing I wanted was to be yo-yoing with a yo-yo. Then a terrible thought struck me.

It was Floyd. Floyd was speaking to me, having altered his voice by a notch, a twist. As always, I tried to play down the moment.

'Rumors of your death must have been greatly exaggerated, and all that,' I said.

A laugh. And the fruity voice countered: 'Well, think about it, Herbie. Why the fuck should I be the one who dies? If that honor belongs to anyone, it's you, baby blue.'

My brow crinkled up like overcooked cheese. Baby blue?

'I thought I was talking to Floyd. I'm not, am I?' I asked.

'Nope.'

Words and lumps struggled in my throat. The strongest had survived after all. I needed a drink – badly.

'Shall we play the guessing game?' the voice said in my ear.

'You're Thorne.'

'Bingo! And guess what. You've just been given a life sentence of personal harassment,' said Thorne. 'This is where it goes up a certain creek for you.'

'Christ. Explain.'

'We won't be meeting again,' he began.

'I second that.'

'But you'll be hearing from me quite a bit.'

'Oh joy.'

'You see, I've been having words with the Acclunes. Lovely couple, by the way.'

'Don't get showbiz on me, Thorne.' My tone was less than friendly; adjusting my stance so my back was against the noticeboard on the wall, I felt the tack-heads and the edges of taxi-cab business cards in my shoulderblades; was aware of the small audience I'd also attracted... Darratello and Jerry.

I mouthed an apology and turned away from them.

'They outbid you, baby blue,' the lunatic said. 'I'm their puppy for Christmas now.'

'Explain,' I repeated. All evidence had led me to the conclusion that Floyd was still alive. 'Start with what happened when I sent you to their apartment in Harlem.'

'You could say... Floyd kinda lost it. Guy went batshit, man. Fucking cock-a-hoop. Starts shoutin', bellowin'; fuckin' wheezin' like old man. I just wanna get outta my chair and slap the motherfucker back, you know?'

'Then he tied you up.'

'Yeah, and kept me two days! And made me talk... Don't know why I'm smiling!'

'I know why I am,' I said.

'I'll ignore that. You've caught me at my most cooperative,' Thorne said. He sucked in an enormous breath. 'Anyhoo. Long and short of it is, we struck a deal.'

'Why did Analiese tell me Floyd's dead?'

Behind me, feet shuffled uncomfortably.

'To pay you back. Maybe it was silly. Do you wanna know the real good bit? It ain't that I'm gonna be bothering you now till fuckin' Doomsday. The good bit – the irony – is... Adam Malarz is paying! What do you think of that?'

'I don't believe you.'

'Gospel. Analiese – well, you've seen her. Wet dream material. She goes round to Adam and guilts him out...I wish I been there. Goes on about what a nightmare he'd made of their lives, all that. Wants money. Compensation., He agrees. I don't know what the figure was but me, I'm a pricey mind-whore. So there were plenty of zeroes involved... The funny thing is, she didn't tell him what the money was for. So not only did he give away a substantial whack, but that same payout is being used against you. It's almost poetical. And he thought he was getting a fuck out the deal. A fuck with Analiese; can you imagine? I'm told you like black women.'

'By who?'

'Analiese.'

'And how would she know that?' I demanded.

After two seconds Thorne said, 'What we got here is a collective subconscious. That's what persecution and fear do to a group of people. Tune 'em in to the same wavelength.'

'She blew his stomach away,' I said. 'You could smell his ruptured bowel when you opened the door to the apartment.'

'His ruptured bowel, huh?' Thorne mumbled in rumination. 'New one on me... Anyhow, she went to see him the night he was supposed to be meeting you. You didn't show. He was pissed, by the way. She waited for him outside the building, in the cold. Add to the guilt trip. She's a very determined lady.'

'Cut to the chase.'

'...Well, that's about it, to be honest with you. Introducing myself, in my new role. Professional Irritant. Professional Ass-flea. I'll be here when you least expect it.'

'Thorne? I suppose now's as good a time as any to tell you, but I really don't like you very much. I never have. If I had more guts I'd come round and set you on fire. Do you understand me?'

Thorne laughed. 'Herbie, I wouldn't have it any other way. You're a piece of shit and that's the sort of remark I expect from a piece of shit. So long.'

'She's paid you. You don't need to do this.'

'Now that wouldn't look very professional, would it? What if she wants me for future assignments.'

Seeing a beam of hope in a very black tunnel I nonetheless made a complaining sort of grunting noise in the back of my throat. 'Holy fuck!' I said. 'She's dead, man! She's gone! She ain't gonna care about the quality of your work! She killed herself!'

Thorne's reply was, 'She ain't dead.'

Labored breathing of growing excitement accompanied my contradiction. 'I was in the same fucking room! I saw her!'

'Did you? She told me she ordered you to watch your friend. You heard a bang and you saw a lot of fake blood, sucker. Case you've forgotten, her husband's in showbiz. How difficult do you think it'd be for him to get one o'them exploding cartridges?'

'Is?'

'Is what?'

'You said: is in showbiz. Not was?'

'Is. She lied to you too, man. How does it feel to be thought of as such a shit?'

'You tell me,' I whispered. 'So Floyd's alive, Analiese's alive. What about...'

'No. Analiese really shot him. Fake blood wouldn't smell like that.'

'Oh Christ... I don't know what to believe...'

'Believe this,' Thorne replied. 'When the springs of my trap shut on your legs you're fucked. Do you understand me? Fucked. Have a nice day now.'

7.

I sat on my bed with my head in my hands, thinking not of Thorne's threat but of Walt's explanation.

'Because you're a trouble-maker, Herbie. It's as simple as that. We don't like you. You rock the boat. We wanted you to be more like Adam. He's known a part of the situation for two years now, and what sort of waves has he made? Hardly any. He knows how to keep his mouth shut. And you don't. You just don't, Herbie. So when you started talking like you were Adam, we didn't exactly dissuade you. Or they didn't, I should say.'

'Thank you at least for that,' I said and hung up. But what was I thanking him for: his honesty or for giving me a chance to be someone else?

I haven't got time to go back through these pages and check dates. The year is 1999. I'd thought I first met Adam in 1998, but it must have been 1996. I stand corrected. 1996 was when it all happened: Carreras died (except he didn't); Adam got promotion (except he didn't). Memories have been withdrawn and deposited incorrectly.

How high up does the conspiracy go? How many people know about the blood in the veins of New York? Ask Walt, or Matthew Carreras, when eventually he resurfaces, hoping insanely for a hero's welcome. The two of them have lost sight of reality much worse than I ever did. And perhaps, after all, I'll be around to observe their downfall. And of the others; however many (and of what rank and position) there may be. I'm not so paranoid anymore. People like Walt are this city's real crazies, and knowing this has helped me no end.

8.

Something grubby about counting money; something that makes you wrinkle up your nose and rub your hands. Or maybe it's counting lots of money, which I did this morning, that does it. The chemicals of greed and knowledge course through your body... And I suppose, on balance, I'd have to say it felt good. It was certainly a revelation. Not since I'd withdrawn my glorious bounty had I had much cause to consider as one lump sum. I'd spent a little here, a little there; nowhere near as much as I'd imagined. Which pretty much sealed the drum of my latest, last intention.

In five minutes' time I shall leave this bucket of shit of an apartment, and head downstairs to say goodbye to Mr Darratello and Jerry. This is way overdue. I'm going to finish the cigarette I have just lit (portentously, perhaps, the last in the carton) and hail a taxicab.

I can't say it hasn't been fun.

I'll direct the driver to take me to JFK. Be a good boy and not smoke in his cab. I'll overtip, whether or not I get there. Yeah, even if the cops stop us halfway I'll make sure to drop a fifty in the guy's lap. For the hassle, if nothing else.

...Into the throng and bustle I will glide. Oh, Kennedy: that microcosm – that world of strange voices and faces. Even extraterrestrials will some day arrive in America via JFK; with their alien suitcases they will face the scrutiny of the three-hundred pounders, with their date stamps and knuckles... But damn it – I'm going the other way, though truth to tell, JFK should be more like home than anywhere else. Where waiting has never felt so pure, so adrenalized; where the bars stay open twenty-four hours... Still: I'm going the other way. If I can. If I'm allowed. I'm leaving. And anyone's let out...

Without a passport? you'll be asking. No. Not without a passport; with one – though not my own, wherever the hell that is.

With Adam's.

Very few people look good on their passport photograph, but Adam's picture looks nothing like him, for the worse. Plus it's in black and white, which is obviously good news... Or am I flattering myself? I do not look well and that's a fact. Back when I thought I was Adam I wished I looked like Herbie. If I still thought I was Adam and I looked at me – or someone who looked like me – I wouldn't wish to look like that person. Then again... that's wrong, isn't it? When I started, the picture I had in my head of Herbie was Adam's, and he does look better than I do. So perhaps the envy is valid.

The point it, I look like an older brother of the guy in the passport.

And what have I got to lose?

I'm leaving; they'll probably not even glance...

9.

The passport, by the way, is unstained. Unlike me, our Adam has hardly been anywhere. But that doesn't bother me. What I found extremely disturbing when I flicked through the pages was a small piece of soft card that fell free and somersaulted to the ground like an over-confident high-diver. A boarding pass. Two years old. Delta Airlines' flight to Honalulu, and the thing was dated 20 December 1996. You'll realize, of course, what this means. He went. Adam actually went on the vacation he'd booked. Did not run away from his office and from spies. That whole part I've made up. Adam and I did the things that have been documented – up to the point where I have him dashing from a taxi and holing up in the crappy apartment that I in fact inhabit.

He carried on. Worked. The adventurous side of Adam's nature ended shortly after I returned from Africa the first time – when we met to bring each other up to speed. I returned to Africa; he returned to the office, where he heard not another word from me for two years. Adam didn't get promotion, after all; that was something I built into the fantasy – to give him something, no doubt, you know? To strengthen him.

Adam learnt to live with it. When I phoned his office he knew my voice, so they can't have chipped away that part of his memory. Hats off the guy, I guess – he worked out that the best thing to do was carry on quietly. Maybe that makes him stronger than I. He died with his thoughts, imagination and memories his own. We shouldn't belittle that. Goodbye, Adam.

Goodbye.

10

I've written longer than I intended to. I should go. I will leave this manuscript, and hope Darratello finds it. It's out of my hands. I won't publish this, or even try to. What Darratello does with these pages is his own affair. Other lands are calling me – and, I've just realized for the first time – other stories. The bloodhound's nose, after all, does not stop twitching. I have done what I can, except make myself better, and there's no time for that. I will work until the sickness is too great, and it smothers my ambition. I will struggle. I will fight.

And where am I going? I'm not sure. Vacancies permitting, I will take the earliest flight to either Zaire or Berlin: that's my choice. I will not be heard of again, unless I'm caught; then I might make the papers. Sure as hell, I'll never write another word as long as I live. As I told Adam two years ago, I'm a listener. He was the writer, or the one with the literary aspirations that as far as I know (and tragically) he never acted upon.

I want to go home; whichever home has a flight leaving earlier. To listen to the blood, pulsing through the veins of a different country; to smell now unfamiliar breath in my face, and feel new bones beneath my feet.

I must stroke the hearts of aliens, and compare them to my own.
V. Coda

The airport was clogged with the usual flotsam.

I bought a beer. It was my third purchase of the half-hour, and the second most expensive. Topping the list for cost was my ticket: not to either of the places I mentioned before. I'd bought a ticket on (of all things) Air Kuwait, flight KU910 – to London Heathrow. It was the only flight available to an English-speaking destination at such short notice; due to board in twenty minutes' time. At the desk, the moustache writhed – either in delectation or suspicion – at the folded readies I handed over to pay. Yeah, that was one ugly broad. (Joke.) He handed me the ticket, and at the bauble emporium I purchased the cheapest of my new acquisitions.

A postcard. Miss Liberty, looking sulky on a lovely summer's day. Torch aloft. Water the color of sapphire.

Dear Walt, I wrote.

Call it childishness; hysteria. I couldn't help gloating. In quarter of an hour I would get on a plane (a dry flight, would you believe?) to a city many miles away. The in-flight entertainment would be entirely in my head. I intended my postcard to Walt to be the very last thing I ever wrote.

...Prisoners and sleepwalkers muttered on their way between this point and that. Waiting rooms and exercise yards. I sighed into my fizzy beer. I had no idea what to say to Walt, now that the moment of revenge had come upon me.

No, not revenge.

Relief.

If that.

The TV monitor told me what gate to go to. This is it, I thought; I'll write the card in the queue in the boarding lounge. Before that, though, I had to get through a passport inspection and receive my boarding pass. I'd left this bit as late as I could – partly out of fear of rejection; partly because I figured (probably erroneously) that the closer the desk people got to the departure time, the faster they'd have to move customers, to ensure the flight got away on time.

Two Arabic people – one party – stood before me at the Check-In.

I should've done this earlier, I thought.

I hope all balding white people look the same to this guy. He certainly looked chipper enough, conversing with the couple. Maybe they knew each other.

Out of instinct, I looked over my left shoulder.

Men and women dragging suitcases and small children – slaloming and waltzing around one another.

I looked forward.

I looked back again very quickly – within the same second. Something had snagged on my attention.

'Yes, sir?' I heard. The Kuwaiti honeymooners shuffled away with their trolley of baggage and their tennis rackets.

'Sir? Can I help you at all?'

Like Moses, I waited for the sea to part once more.

I'd seen him, Goddamit!

'Sir?'

Nerves.

I smiled. 'Yes.' I faced the desk and presented my ticket and Adam's passport. I sweated. I crushed the Liberty postcard in my left hand. I had to calm down, not keep looking over my shoulder. The check-in guy was going to get suspicious.

Again, I looked behind me. Crowds. Noise filled my head.

The check-in guy was taking too long. What was I thinking of? Adam and I looked similar: nothing more.

'Is this an old photograph, sir?'

'Very old. I should have it updated, I guess.' Panic tugged at my gut.

'Yes, you should. This doesn't look very much like you, I'm afraid.'

'We all change.' I glanced over my shoulder: I hoped it might look like a nervous tic. I knew it didn't.

'Is there a problem, sir?' the man asked.

'The plane's leaving, I thought.'

'You've got plenty of time.'

'I'm a very slow walker.' I felt my eyebrows pinching together. 'So give me the fucking boarding card.'

Perhaps it was the ice-from-its-tray coldness of my tone that convinced him. Or perhaps he simply didn't want me dropping dead in front of him.

With a dip of the head, like a Samurai warrior, he set about the task with his computer. Attempting to concentrate on his words, I resumed the glances over my shoulders.

'...a non-smoking flight...'

'...aisle or window...'

There! The black suit; the Navy-boy hairstyle.

'Shit!'

It was Eoin McGarhen.

I sprinted off, immediately nudging a child whose automatic response was to wail.

I had to get out. Find a taxi.

My shoulders kept bumping people. A lasso of curses lashed out and circled me. Indeed, it might have been this that brought me to my knees. But no: it was Eoin. He'd caught me. He'd linebacker-tackled me, and down we went in the scrabble of rage.

Something clicked in my left knee.

I wriggled like a landed fish, thrusting an elbow into McGarhen's determined face. He yelped; blood squirted from his right nostril. I almost managed to throw him off. I tried the move again, and got him one across the chin.

By now I was sitting up and McGarhen was lying across my lap as though desirous of a good spanking.

Realizing I still had the postcard in my right hand, I pushed one of its corners into McGarhen's left eye.

Once more he yelped. He clutched his face. In the second it took him to compose himself I managed to boot him off my lap, and slide backwards on my ass.

I got to my feet, turned...

'Where do you think you're going, fuckface?' asked the guy named Mr X. He socked me across the jaw. I stumbled to the right, bells ringing.

Where was security?

My kick to his groin was badly aimed, but I got his belly instead. He swore, but he wasn't floored, or even deterred. From his holster he removed a gleaming hollow-point revolver. 'Another move, fuckface, and your head's clam chowder. Got me?'

With a sigh my shoulders slumped. 'Why don't you just do it? Why prolong everything? What more do you want from me?' I begged.

McGarhen climbed to his feet, behind me. 'If my eye needs an operation I'm gonna personally cut your tongue out.'

'You might as well,' retorted. 'I'm not gonna lick your boss's balls. I'm not gonna do what he wants.'

Mr X was quick to contradict. 'Oh yes you are.'

\---
'Wish you were here,' I said, handing over to Walt the unfinished postcard. Miss Liberty? Bullshit. I was as trapped as ever. 'I was going to send this from the departure lounge.'

Walt sniffed. 'But you didn't even buy a stamp.'

`'Thought that counts. You've been watching me the whole time, haven't you.'

'Yes.'

'So you followed me here.'

'Didn't need to,' said Walt. 'We were waiting. London surprised me, I must say.'

'But how did you know I'd come here and not La Guardia.'

Brydonson turned to face me as our car – the panther limousine – purred on. He gave a twitchy shake of the head. 'Haven't you got it yet, Herbie? Because we told you to come here.'

'When? What are you talking about?'

'The last time we met. In my apartment.'

I remembered no such instruction. Then again, I'd been spectacularly soused. Now my lungs were getting fidgety. Without asking for permission (I knew the answer would be no) I pulled out the last survivor from my raft of cigarettes. Lit it. Silence hung in the back of the car as effortlessly as did my exhaled smoke.

Finally I said, 'Don't recall. You told me to go to JFK?'

Walt nodded. 'And then we told you to forget we'd told you.'

'Ah! You mindfucked me.'

With a raise of the eyebrows the response came: 'In a manner of speaking.'

Twitchy. I was sobering up too quickly. In an agitated tone of voice I said, 'You know what I mean. You hypnotized me. I'm an old past master at that old bullshit.'

'No, Herbie, we didn't hypnotize you,' Walt replied.

'Then what?'

'Would you like a drink from the fridge?'

'Yes, scotch. Then what?'

'You surprise me, you really do.' Walt acted arch. 'Just what do you think you've got through your veins, Herbie. What the hell do you think we've given you?'

'Where are we going?' I asked, a little bit drunk, twenty minutes later. I'd been trying to memorize the journey. But that's a difficult thing for passengers to do – in a state of shock. My memories tell me that I've been many places, but I don't recall ever driving. Do I know how to drive? Adam hated driving, but knew how; he paid a fortune to let his vehicle hibernate in its underground cocoon. Personally, I don't know one gear from the next. Rootless people don't need to.

We'd been following the coast for some time, having passed signs for Long Island and Long Island Sound. Bridgeport? New Haven? I'd never been up here before.

'Do you dance, Mr Dechtler?' Walt asked.

'I frug. Why's that question amusing? Or relevant?' I wanted to know.

'Because I'm taking you dancing.'

We'd turned inland. Even inside the back of the limo, with its carefully controlled atmosphere, I was sure the air had developed a new aftertaste. The water's bite and salt had both evaporated. Now, the pressure was greater. I imagined the blackness of the night to be thick with airborne insects.

'Dancing?'

'You'll see.'

Very little traffic. How far had we come? We were a space shuttle now, gliding through a monochrome lunar landscape.

This was a territory called Negative. All life forces had imploded upon themselves. A gutted chapel; abandoned warehouses. Streets, here and there, stuffed with houses rather than apartment blocks, all blind with extinguished lights.

I'd be dancing on another planet.

I finished my miniature. 'I should tell you, Walt, I boogie a lot better on a belly full of booze.'

Walt smiled. 'You don't need to ask, Herbie. Have the whole fridge if you like. We're well aware of your dependency.'

This annoyed me. 'What dependency?'

'Think about it.'

'Shit,' I whispered with a tiny bottle of whisky in the palm of my hand. 'The one you gave me.'

'Correct. Not me personally, but-'

'In Africa.'

'Yes.'

'You bastards. Why?'

Walt was almost grinning. 'Think about it. I'm not going to give you the answers.'

'Then who is?' I asked.

'In this case you mean what is.'

'The dance we're going to?'

'Correct.'

I was quiet. I broke the seal on the miniature, and instead of pouring it into my warming glass, I slugged the fucker down in two gulps.

'I've got it,' I said. 'So you can control me better.'

'Something like that.'

'Just tell me one thing. Confirm it for me. I haven't got a virus, have I?'

'No you haven't. That was all set up.'

'To keep me scared.'

'Yes. But that's two things.'

'Fuck you. I deserve to know,' I shouted. 'The rock in the swamp was a hoax. Right or wrong?'

'Right.'

'You have not discovered a cure for anything. Right or wrong?'

'Right.'

At this point, Mr X, in the front passenger seat, turned round and stared through the dividing glass as he might at an ugly reptile at the zoo.

I paid him no mind. I was on a roll.

'You started the rumor that you'd got the antidote, and got people to volunteer for your treatment. Right or wrong?'

'Right.'

'They thought they were being cured, but really they were putting themselves under your spell. It's a control mechanism. That's what all those references to Believes are in your father's files, at the Tippu mines. The volunteers. They believe they've been cured, or whatever you tell them to believe. Right or wrong?'

Walt sighed. 'This is more like it. Right.'

'And Floyd has it and you brought him here to spread it around...'

'Right.'

'... and you gave it to me in Africa. You made me forget them...'

'Yes.'

I couldn't help grinning. I reached for another drink; the chair creaked. After opening the bottle I raised my index finger to Mr X, who observed me, twisted in his front seat.

I asked Walt, 'How does it work?'

But at this he clammed up. 'You'll see,' was at first all he'd offer.

'At the disco?'

'I didn't say disco; I said dance.'

'At the dance, then?'

'Yes. You'll see.

\---
Wailin' Waylon's Texas T!!

As incongruous as a radioactive blemish in the middle of someone's back, the building stood alone, its nearest neighbours armoured industrial warehouses. It looked like an aircraft hangar; like a stetson. An enormous cowboy hat, there in the wastelands outside New York City.

'You're kidding me,' I said.

An all-surround parking lot the length and breadth of the Boston Marathon. Hundred and thousands of cars and pick-ups.

The neon advertisements of the place had been bad enough; to discover we were actually going in...

'You're kidding. Line dancing?'

'Very good for you, apparently,' said Walt as Mr X slid the car into a space.

The walk to the building's front doors was a dislocating experience: a pre-credits sequence to the building's main feature. Men wearing cowboy hats, waistcoats, chequered shirts, and denim trousers – sometimes inside their Cuban-heeled boots. Big belts, and thumbs in the loops. Pretty women, prodigiously made-up; brown suede minis, more boots. One I saw had a sheriff's badge pinned to her blouse.

We walked slowly: Walt was having difficulty, using his cane. I said, 'Just assure me of one thing. They're not all gonna speak in Southern drawls, are they?'

Walt's reply chilled me. 'They'll speak any damned way we tell them to,' he said.

'Howdy,' said God in his country and western paraphernalia. Or at any rate, he was as tall as God – if I believed. Way up there, with his booming voice, greeting everyone who'd been past the meretricious spastic at the pay-in counter with a friendly word, a blond moustache, and a bone-crackin' handshake.

Walt was first.

'You have a good evenin' now, Mr Brydonson, y'hear?'

'Will do,' said Walt, shuffling onwards.

Behind me, Mr X nudged me forward.

God and I shook hands. 'Welcome,' he said. 'Howdy.'

'Jesus,' I replied – and walked into the noise.

A band was playing live. I detest country music. I'd only been inside two minutes and I'd already heard the word 'tumbleweed'. But the loud volumes weren't the worst. It was the all-encompassing other-worldliness of Wailin' Waylon's Texas T. I hadn't entered another U.S. state; I'd entered another dimension.

Huge. It was an alternative timestream in which not only had the West won, but it had proved itself impervious to the passage of time. Everything was brown; made of wood, made of leather. Open-fronted souvenir shops sold t-shirts emblazoned with legends like I WAILED AT WAYLON'S! Cowboy boots were on sale, as were bolo ties, Bowie knives, shawls, hats and rings.

Kids in cowboy get-up rode electric bucking broncos and falling on to padded, air-filled plastic.

And millions of people danced to the music.

I exaggerate. But the dancefloor was colossal, and packed with shimmying, stomping bodies. Every movement – every smile – ruthlessly coordinated. Every twist, every thrust – the result of hours of tuition. Their handclaps were pitilessly accurate; their knees were raised, shaken, lowered – all as one.

We sat outside a bar. 'I find this frightening,' I told Walt. 'I've always been frightened of group energy,' I continued to shout in his ear.

'That says more about you than them,' he replied, his bottom lip brushing against my earlobe. I shivered.

Our waitress looked like Jane Mansfield. Her name, according to her badge, was Sindy-Sue... I was last to order. 'What's the strongest thing you have?' I asked.

'Call-a-Cab, or an Electric Cabbage, pardner.'

'One of each. He's paying.'

The latter was so-called because of its luminous day-glo green color. Creme de menthe, vodka, lager and cider in a 16 oz plastic beaker. It tasted of liquorice. It took me five minutes to drink.

The dancing continued. Hand-clap, stomp, twist-around, butt-shake... There had to be more to the evening, I was starting to think. I lit a cigarette.

There was.

'Fuckeroo,' I mumbled, and coughed loudly through a cavernous mouth that now tasted of toothpaste.

Here he came, toward our table (which was meant to be a tree stump); he was weaving through delighted pilgrims and pale riders, acknowledging raised hats, smiles – and shaking hands cold from glasses of chilled beer.

Fucking politicians.

A grin on his face, he sat down: Matthew Carreras. Sun-bronzed and dressed in a modified version of the Lone Ranger costume. No hat; no mask. He'd grown a goatee since last we'd met.

'Carreras.'

'Hello, Herbie. What do you think of my hideout.'

'It scares me,' I said honestly.

'Good. Maybe we're getting somewhere with you, after all.'

'You're not going to make me dance, if that's what you're getting at.'

Carreras wrinkled his nose. 'Small potatoes. I could get you on that dancefloor before you could say Jack Robinson. Let's not fuck around. You must have put some of this together by now. But just out of interest, what is it you hate about line dancing?'

I exhaled smoke into his face. 'The pathological interdependence,' I told him. I took a drag. McGarhen, with his red and puffy eye, and Mr X, were pretending not to listen. Walt leaned forward so as not to miss a word, and I more or less had my tongue in Carreras' ear as I said:

'You found a way of controlling people. A control drug.'

'Close enough. Youssou's father, in fact, discovered it. It was Youssou and myself who thought of how best to exploit it,' Carreras said.

'You got people to go to that clinic. If they already had the HIV virus you told them you had the cure and then you brainwashed them into believing they were fine after you'd passed it into their blood. And people who were already fine, you controlled in other ways. Hussad the Elder said something about keeping all your workers satisfied. That's what he was referring to. They'd all had the stuff put into their blood, to keep 'em pacified. Correct?'

'So far, so good.' Carreras raised a hand a few inches to get the attention of Sindy-Sue. He ordered a Miller Lite. He'd already been drinking.

On stage, as if to add insult to injury, someone was playing a dulcimer through the latest violinic caterwaul.

Handclaps.

Stomps.

Bodies in perfect synchronicity. A choreography of minds.

I started on my Call-a-Cab. He's got these people in the palm of his hand, I thought; they were expecting to see him tonight, and here he is. Floyd started it all off, getting the drug into the system. Then, as far as everyone was concerned, Carreras died: but then there were those TV advertisements in which Carreras appeared to urge people to sell their blood. That was how, after two years, he had however many disciples as were shrugging and stamping on the dancefloor.

But what was he going to do with them?

'It works as an inhibition-suppressant. A localised anaesthetic for the faculties of reason and normal behavior. It cuts out your ability for logical response.'

'I get the picture,' I said. And I did: 'You're recruiting an army, aren't you?'

'Yes. You know why. Because all I ever wanted when I was Mayor of this poisonous city is to do good. And people laughed! Herbie, I didn't drag myself up from being a second-rate Spanish citizen to being a Mayor just to be laughed at.'

'It's insane,' I said. (Walt gave me a worried look.) 'You'll never get away with it. Can't you see that?'

'I'll have my revenge if it kills me.' Carreras' tone was heavily accented, and spicy with Spanish venom.

'I need the john.' What I really needed was some fresh air.

'I'll go with him,' McGarhen told Carreras and Walt.

'I can hold it myself now...' walking off.

McGarhen followed me nevertheless.

A kid sat astride a hitching post; as I walked toward him he pulled a toy gun from the holster on his hip and shouted 'Bang!' as he pulled the trigger.

I clutched my chest and playfully staggered a few steps.

The kid smiled.

So did I. The little bastard had just given me an idea.The door to the commode had a gunslinger on it, arms poised for a double action draw-and-shoot. In I went, holding the door open for McGarhen, who said, 'I'll wait here.'

I had to sober up. I splashed water on my face – or faces, if the mirror was to be believed. It made me drunk and cold, which was a step in the right direction.

McGarhen chaperoned me back to the table. Sindy-Sue hovered. I beckoned her over and ordered a Coke. 'Anything wrong with your Call-a-Cab?' she asked.

`It'll be more like Call-a-Hearse if I drink any more tonight. I'll never wake up again. A Coke's fine.'

Carreras was getting a little bit tight himself. His eyesight wandered; he was checking out some of the cowgirls.

Before I made my bid for freedom there were still a few things I needed to know.

'So you two,' I said, 'are going to lead a charge. Against who?'

Walt shrugged. 'City Hall? Whoever gets in our way...'

'Who knows?' Carreras added. 'In a year's time, the whole damned city might think as we think. That would be the achievement.'

'And you'd be cock of the walk.'

'Precisely. I'll make this city red with shame.'

I chuckled. 'Yeah, I used to have that ambition.'

'We know,' Walt interrupted. 'We've read your manuscript. Fascinating. The way you come to terms with the fact that you're not Adam after all.'

'Adam's dead.'

Carreras drained his beer and held his glass up for another.'Yes, I was sorry to learn that. We always got along. And he knew his place in the world.'

'Unlike me. The loudmouth.'

'Ah, but a talented loudmouth,' Carreras went on, 'which is how we know you're the right man for the job.'

I shook my head. 'I thought I'd made it perfectly clear,' I enunciated. 'I ain't doing it, pal. Not dick. Got me? Just open your fucking ears, jackass!'

Walt slapped his palm down on the table; the collection of glasses rattled as the onstage drummer's cymbals crashed. More synchronicity.

I'd pissed Walt off. In Carreras' umbra as he was, I'd assumed such a performance unlikely. But... 'I will not have you talking like this, do you understand me? I won't let it happen.'

'Chill out!' I said, raising my palms.

Walt wasn't finished. 'Do you know what we could do to you? Show him, Matt.'

'Show me nothing, Matt; I apologise.'

'We were going to anyway...'

Carreras nodded. 'Sindy-Sue?' he called. 'Get me the microphone, would you? Be a doll.'

I looked around. Some people were glancing our way.

Sober up! I demanded of myself. I checked that the kid, fifty meters from us, was still sitting on the hitching post.

'...lonesome highway...'

'...six lanes of heartache...'

'Jesus,' I said. I downed the Coke. I wanted another. Damn it: what had I expected? Do it drunk, I told myself.

Carreras had a microphone in his hand. The band played.

\---
Over the din Carreras said, 'Attention, everybody. Boys – keep going.' He pointed at the band. 'Listen up.' He slurred slightly. 'Grab your partners.'

Commotion: the rigidly strict choreography had been shattered. Immediately the Nuremberg rally had become an unruly, sightless mob. I wasn't frightened. Not as much as I was in awe, at any rate. I couldn't resist wanting to know what would happen next.

They'd responded at once to the sound of Carreras' voice.

A bloodbath or an orgy, I thought.

As it turned out, my lesson was to mix the two, albeit in miniature. Carreras instructed all of the women on the dancefloor to take a bite on their partners' necks.

The cowgirls went up on tiptoe. Bites were taken: some were dainty nips, as might be given in moments of passion; others drew blood and tore flesh.

'Enough,' I said to Carreras. 'I believe you.' Now a stranger occurrence developed. A few women were crying and saying 'Oh my God'; one screamed. I hadn't considered the possibility that there might be visitors to this place who had come here but had nothing to do with Carreras. People out for a good time.

Carreras seemed calm. 'Lock the doors,' was all he said into the microphone by way of response. 'Go back to dancing. Forget about the bites. Band – start a new one.'

The sleepwalkers woke, and for a few seconds there was obvious disorientation. It looked like a clearing full of gibbons after a distant gunshot. Disgust; confusion.

The singer said, 'This one's called "Break My Heart But Don't Do It Tonight." A-one, a-two, a-one, two three, four...'

The return of thunder.

Now the doors of Wailin' Waylon's Texas T were locked. No sweat. I'm getting out of this fucking place. But first – Walt was talking to me:

'You see?' he said. 'You can't disrespect this, man. I won't let you.'

'Why don't you just suck his cock and be done with it?' I asked.

Walt – old man Walt; Uncle Walt – punched me on the nose. The shock hurt more than the blow. I felt a trickle of blood.

'Okay, okay,' I said. 'I'll do it. You want a biography of Carreras in which he smells of roses, correct?'

Carreras interrupted. 'You make it clear I want people to sell their blood because I'm spreading around the HIV antidote. You can gut your own manuscript for the best bits; it's in the car you arrived in tonight, outside.'

'And when you've got your New York City army – your zombies – what then?'

'A New York State army? An American army?' Carreras' eyes shone. He handed the microphone back to Sindy-Sue. 'The sky's the limit. I was born for greatness, Dechtler; the sooner you realize that, the better our book will be.'

'But why me?' I wanted to know.

Walt took this one. 'Because you understand death,' he replied. 'Because you're a bloodhound. You're tenacious and you never give up. Because you can write. But mainly because you've been in this for a long time and you know it inside and out.'

'Don't feel like I do,' I interjected.

'You've studied death for many years, Dechtler,' said Carreras. 'We've been in your head; it's a torture chamber. You understand the impulse of revenge. You know what I'm feeling. More like me than you imagine. Now go and clean up your nose and I'll get you another Coke. Eoin, go with him.'

Obviously not wholly appreciative of novelty, the kid who'd 'shot' at me before was still astride the hitching post near to the toilet door. 'Bang!' he shouted at me again with his toy gun raised.

'Missed,' I said.

'Did not.'

Eoin waited outside. I filled a basin with cold water and splashed my face. A cowboy by the hand-drier yodelled on his cellular phone, apologising for some fishing trip he couldn't go on. I splashed again. I wanted him to leave; it would make life easier.

Or would it?

The cellular phone.

Plan B.

I walked back to the door with my face still wet. Took a series of deep breaths. Then I flung open the door; this in itself knocked McGarhen off-guard.

'Quick! Come in!' I shouted. 'There's a guy having a heart attack!'

I turned away from McGarhen and took strides toward the cubicles. Pointing at the guy by the blower I said, 'Hang it up, buddy, and call an ambulance.' I bent over slightly and said into an open-doored cubicle, 'Don't worry, man. Help's on its way.'

McGarhen was two strides behind me, but he got closer than I had to the cubicle door. He was bent over as well. I don't think he'd even realized his mistake when I pulled the door back hard so that it cracked against the top of his head. I did it again. And again. McGarhen dropped to one knee. He reached inside his jacket. With both hands I took hold of his head and pushed him forward. Gravity was on my side. McGarhen's forehead connected sharply with the edge of the toilet bowl. I banged his head down again; an ugly gash appeared along his hairline and connected to his puffy eye like a streak of lightning stabbing through a cloud. McGarhen groaned.

Once more, for luck.

Bent double, I plucked from inside his jacket his gun, and from his pants pocket his car keys. I had never fired a gun in my life: if memory served.

I backed away, squeezing the car keys. They dug into my swollen flesh.

'This is for Adam,' I whispered. Dangling the keys from the ring that I slipped on to my little finger, and holding the butt of the gun in both hands, I fired. The so-called 'kick' of a revolver has been greatly over-emphasized. I hardly felt a thing. And quite possibly the same could be said for McGarhen, given the speed the devastation took... Such was the slump of McGarhen's body (as if he were praying to the Lord of Lavatories) that the bullet entered his body between his shoulderblades and then shattered the underside of his jaw. His lower face splashed up against the cistern and toilet walls.

The noise was horrendous, and echoing.

I turned the weapon on the other user of the facilities.

'The phone,' I said. 'Give me the phone. Don't make me ask twice.'

He handed it to me with his arm shaking.

'On your knees.' I stuffed the phone into the pocket of my pants.

'Don't shoot me...' he pleaded.

I wondered if his fishing partner on the other end of the phone line was getting a load of this.

'On your knees or I'll shoot them away, so help me.'

A blubbering mess, he knelt.

I ran for the door. Could it be that no one had heard the gunshot? I'd expected to have to blast my way out. But the band was halfway through an up-tempo tribute song to the late John Denver. The line dancers clapped..

I ran to the kid playing on the hitching post. He couldn't have been more than five. 'Remember me?' I said. 'Bang! But this one's real, okay? Come with me and don't make a sound.'

His wet eyes didn't blink.

Holding the weapon in my right hand I carried the non-struggling child, clutched to my left side.

A few gasps exploded to either side as I made my escape. A woman screamed. That stirred up even more of a brouhaha. I was a shark in their water – and I had a child. Oddly enough, the attention from others upset the kid in my arms more than the gun had. He started to sob. I didn't have the heart to tell him to shut up.

'Come near me,' I screamed, 'and I'll blow his head off!'

People backed away, even God, whose arms were raised. I was at the entrance.

'Open it,' I said to God.

I glanced into the ticket booth. The woman had picked up a phone. I shot at the glass and it exploded into her face. She screamed.

'Open it, I said!'

The giant was about to do so when (as if from the heavens themselves) came Carreras' voice:

'Don't let him leave!'

\---

The air was charged. Worse than static. The atmosphere felt like a swiftly-acting poison. Looking up I saw that God's pupils had dilated. Either he was spellbound or in love with me. I didn't want to take the chance. I shot him in the stomach – a far smellier wound than shoulderblades – and like a sawn redwood tree he fell. My ears rang.

The kid was panicking; writhing. I took up vital seconds unlocking the door and opening it. There were cowboys and cowgirls right behind me. A cowgirl tried to put her arm around my neck from behind. As cooler air from outside rushed in, I swung around and cracked the gun-butt into her right temple. She flinched and toppled. I ran out.

A stream of pursuers behind me.

Halfway to the car I understood that the kid was slowing me down. Cruelly, I guess, I dropped him. He'd served his purpose.

I sprinted, my old heart pounding. Cold air in my face. Vision blurred and streaky.

The car. McGarhen's. The limousine.

The keys were still dangling from my little finger. There were five to choose from. Alcohol sloshed in my belly; I felt sick. I had blood in my left eye, I realized: God's injury.

I tried the first of the keys.

Fired the gun at a cowboy two meters from me. His chest laughed open; he flew backwards into the next closest chaser, giving me another moment to play with.

Second key.

My hands shook.

How many bullets had I fired? How many did a gun have in the first place?

Third key. It rattled and scraped against the lock before going in. I opened the door. I'd made it. But as I sat down, more dead-eyed Old Westerners were upon me, with the ferocity of wolves. They all had exactly the same face. Arms tried to drag me out; fingers scratched at my eyes. A nail hooked my bottom lip and split it open.

Having placed the gun on the other seat, I started the engine.

I picked up the gun and without even looking, pulled the trigger. Hot blood fell over my scalp and neck. I threw the car into reverse, revved, and took off. There was a simultaneous contact, but I didn't slow down. There were still arms in the car with me, their owners punching and pulling. But by now I could scarcely experience the pain.

I engaged first gear. Slammed down on the gas. Like skittles they scattered before me. By the time I'd reached the end of the aisle I'd got the clock up to fifty.

A shot rang out; or maybe it was the ricochet I heard. Either way, the lid of the trunk popped open, its lock presumably blasted to hogshit. Another bullet made a waterfall out of the rear window; shards of glass fell on to the back seat.

The following rally of shots was by far the worst.

Mr X had cut through lines of cars on foot, and now he stepped out in front of me, fifty meters up ahead.

At first I didn't realize it was him. Even though I'd yet to put on the headlights, the parking lot illumination was sufficient to show me there was something in my way. As I sped closer, his clothing was the giveaway: he was the only person around dressed in a normal dark suit.

My foot went down hard on the gas.

'Plough through you...' I remember muttering.

Mr X raised his weapon. There was a beeline between the nozzle and my nose. He started shooting. He stood in the middle of the aisle, perfectly still. One shot. A second's pause. Two shots...

The bullet smashed the windshield. Bits of glass grew like measles on my chin and forehead. The pain was horrific.

Three shots.

The slug entered the top of my left arm and punched out through the back of the seat. I screamed gibberish.

I ducked down below the level of the dash and with my right hand tried to hold the steering wheel steady.

When I felt the solid thud of impact, I sat up again, my eyes crawling with beetles of blackness. Don't pass out... I squinted through the spiderwebbed glass. I let my hand leave the wheel and I rammed my right forearm into what remained of the windshield, to clear my vision.

The air revived me a little, but I still don't know how else I got from there to here.

I drove for miles.

Before long I was heading west, vaguely. Driving too fast; driving dangerously.

I could hardly see. Or breathe: the pain came in red waves.

I had to get to a hospital.

I had to get to a newspaper. Or a publisher. That reminded me... On an open stretch of road, I stopped the car and went round to look in the trunk. Carreras hadn't been lying: my manuscript was there. They'd even put it in a box for me.

I slammed the trunk shut but it wouldn't stay closed. Fuck it. More gas, I thought. The first stop for this purpose had been an hour into my escape. There, at a Texaco near Bethlehem, bleeding like a stuck pig, I'd bought gas and candy. I started to sober up, and the agony was worse.

Pain or no pain, it was here I made a 911 call to the cops.

Hours on, with light filtering into the sky, you could have rung the blood out of my shirt. Explain that one away. Using the stolen cellular once more I dialed 911 again. I repeated my message – that Wailin' Waylon's Texas T needed immediate investigation; that murders had been committed there – and then I gave my name. 'I called earlier,' I said; 'I'm not a crank. Make Carreras say "Punch your partners" and the watch the fights begin. He's controlling them. And me, too.'

I got the feeling the switchboard bitch was humoring me. 'So why did he let you go?' she asked.

'He didn't let me go.'

'He could have said, "Come back here".'

I was stunned. It was true.

I disconnected.

White light in waves; in tides.

I was washed ashore, and awoke – in a hospital bed. It was morning; or at least it was light. I half expected to hear the dreadful, mournful cries of seagulls.

My steady blinks formed a rhythm and a level of exercise which seemed to please the rest of my body. I could have stayed like that for a long time indeed. Drifting. Going nowhere.

Then, I became aware of somebody else breathing in my room. Or cell. I didn't hear it exactly; I simply knew that someone else was close by.

They'd got me.

When I opened my eyes again, the other breathing was louder. Nearer. I couldn't focus properly, but the shape was a woman's.

Analiese.

'Welcome back to the land of the living,' she said.

Not Analiese.

'Why can't I see you properly?' I asked.

'Your right eye's fine. We'll wait and see about your left. You got some glass in it.'

I nodded my head. Somehow the state of my health did not seem relevant... Reality in curls of water; the solid made liquid. They'd drugged me up. I forgot to ask about my bullet wound. I started grinning.

'How far did I get?' I inquired instead.

'Indianapolis,' the woman said.

Relief and pride: equal measures. 'Not bad.'

'Sorry?'

'It's where Analiese was born. Or where she was told she was born. Well, the same state, anyway. It was really Africa...' I was happy to babble on. I was the wet-brained Village Idiot, after too many glasses of Pa's Big Jesus.

'That's right,' my visitor said, moving closer.

I frowned. 'Do you know what I'm talking about? You must be a dream. They've given me some pretty good shit here...'

'I'm not a dream. I'm a cop. Been reading your manuscript for the last two days.'

'I need to finish it...'

'You will. You can have a xerox of the whole thing.'

Trying again (with more success this time) to focus, I said, 'Any recommendations for good sanatoriums gratefully received.' The brown one-dimensional plate that had been her face resolved itself into a nose, a set of thick lips on a narrow mouth; her hair was coal black and had been straightened. The mouth smiled.

'I'll see what I can think of. For now – my name's Sandra Heaney. I'm a Sergeant.'

'Herbie Dechtler. I'm a pain in the ass.'

'Evidently. But let me get one thing clear, Herbie,' Sandra said. 'Just for the record. Are you saying it's all true. What you've put in the pages?'

'So help me God,' I replied.

'Everything?'

'Yes.'

'Even that you shot people?'

I paused. 'Even that I thought of using the last bullet on myself.'

'That's not in there.'

'Well, I haven't written the last bit yet.'

'Oh. Of course.' Sandra exhaled. I liked the way she did that. 'This is some very weird shit you've gotten me involved in, I hope you know.'

'I'll make you a lieutenant if it kills me. Did you go to Wailin' Waylon's Texas T?'

'The New York Police did.'

'And?'

'Nobody there. But there had been – and recently. They even tried to clean up, but Forensics found stuff that can't be Super-Shined away. Blood, for example.'

'Infected blood,' I muttered. 'Good. But it doesn't really matter, does it? They've already won. All they've gotta do is get to me and order me to write the book. I'll have to. From now on, I won't be able to watch TV or listen to the radio. Just in case. Subliminals.'

Sandra told me, 'No one's going to get to you. We're on the case, Herbie, I mean it. Your papers don't give us any addresses; you were keeping them all in your head, I guess. Just pass 'em over. We'll talk to everyone you mention.'

'Won't stop Thorne getting to me,' I sulkily contradicted. 'But that's different. That's personal. He's unstoppable...'

'Not for us he ain't. Relax now. You're safe.'

I sighed. I thought about sitting up, but decided against it. 'The manuscript,' I said, '...the contents will become public knowledge. Give it a few days and everyone'll be talking about Carreras. He's won. The stuff's already in the system. Today, New York; tomorrow, New York State. And so on. It'll just be a bit slower for him this way. He still gets the cheese in the end. They tried to stop me getting away, but it doesn't matter to them I succeeded. You said it yourself: they vanished. It was like they were never there. How the hell are you going to find them?'

'Herbie, listen to me,' said Sandra. 'Do you know the name Ray Eddison?'

'No.' A feeling of helplessness and sadness poked into my wide, calm sea... The last thing I wanted was quizzes. 'Should I?'

'You've shared something in the past, the two of you. The recent past, that is.'

'Shared...' I began, bewildered.

'A cellular phone,' Sandra continued. 'It was his you took. Do you know how we know? Because cops can get hold of this sort of information, that's how. We did just that. Ray Eddison. Lives in Queens. An auto mechanic. And you better fucking believe it, Herbie, we got a watch on his house. Okay? He takes a walk down the street for a pack of smokes? We're with him every step of the way. He's goes to work? We see what he has in his sandwiches. And that's how we'll get to Carreras. Because the next time these people meet, for whatever reason, we'll be there – and the New York police will be there. 'Cause we're gonna straighten this out, Herbie, you listenin' to me? Maybe you think Carreras ain't too bothered if you get out. Like you say, you're gonna tell the story. But I'll bet you a month's salary he didn't know you took somebody's cellular phone.'

I closed my eyes as Sandra said, 'This'll all be fixed. Relax now.' For the first time I started to believe her... I thought of a room of collected blood. In I went, with the stolen gun; but this time I had an infinite number of bullets. I began shooting at the supplies. Like balloons they popped and gushed and gurgled. I was naked and I started to dissolve in the fluid...

When I woke, a copy of my manuscript was on the bedside table beside me. There was also a fresh ream of paper and three pens. The blood would be destroyed, of course. What I wrote might make the authorities do it faster. To finish my story became my new obsession. Obsession has no natural end.

THE END

