Fiction 2, Chapter 23 & Epilog

Chapter 23

"Foul devil, for God's sake, hence and trouble us not;

For thou hast made the happy earth thy hell;"

Richard III, William Shakespeare.

"Jesus, help me," I mumbled.

Morty inquired, "Aren't you an atheist, or something."

"I've been downgraded to an agnostic, maybe a fallen-away agnostic. Hop in the foxhole, fella."

"Some foxhole!" I could hear from his voice that his head was turning around to scan the whole room. The other patient in the room was comatose.

How could I know? I was blind. At least my eyes were blind. I had closed them, briefly I thought, to avoid the glare when I started to fire the shotgun again at Weller and friends. As far as I was concerned, I had never opened them again, and now those so-called compensating senses were kicking in. I could feel stainless steel and starched cotton; I could hear crying, screaming and bed-pan noises; I could smell the stench of all of the above, with an overcoat of antiseptic. It's better than nothing, I guess. It was just as well I couldn't see myself. "Johnny, I hardly knew ye"

"What brings Uncle Sam's favorite nephew to visit poor little me?"

I could hear Morty shrug. -Polyester-

He pressed something into my hand. "McNally heard you were looking for a tape recorder, so he sent me down with one. I didn't mind; hospitals make me feel better about the offices they keep on giving me."

"You're all heart, Morty. Tell him for me, 'Thanks'."

"He'd come himself, but he's trying to get your charges reduced as an impartial police officer."

"How do I look?" Nobody wanted to tell me what they saw, even though most of me was covered.

"Pretty much like you feel, I think," he admitted.

"It must be mistaken identity."

"How come?" Morty knew something caustic was coming.

"You're here to comfort that guy Job __down the hall__ are you not?"

He laughed at the weak joke. "Must be. Look, I don't expect the straight dope on what went on in Holiday Beach____"

"Good thing, too."

"Hey, pal! Give me a break. They're trying hard to bust you bad on that score. It's a Federal case, so the T-men and I are stalling the U.S. Attorney down here. McNally's trying to throw the State of Texas a couple of curves, and keep everything in the family there in Aransas County." The hospital that I was flunking out of, was in Corpus Christi.

Morty was full of questions that day. "What happened after the explosion? What about the car?"

I was anxious to remember that time, almost desperate to reassure myself that it was really in the past; that I had survived it. I also dreaded the idea of turning my thoughts to the past, not because of what I remember, but because of what I will not remember.

"The car; the goddamned car," I exploded. "Yeah, I can tell you something about that. I woke up in the back of the car, at least some of the time. I guess Weller and his remaining boys picked me up, and got his Continental out of there before the cops arrived, somehow. How? I don't know. Weller was driving. He had trouble delegating, I guess. It figures. That saved me from some worse trouble, maybe; although it wasn't a picnic in the back, either. One of the goons kicked me, even though he couldn't really get up any momentum. No thrill, but no great shakes. Then I guess I made a mistake and started moving my left arm, or something, because the guy sitting in back with me jumped on my left hand, I mean really hard. A couple of things cracked."

"Yeah, two fingers and a knuckle," he confirmed. "They'll be all right." A little reassurance from Weiner goes a long way.

"It would be nice," I said sarcastically, "if that was all, wouldn't it? At least they left me the two middle fingers. I couldn't get along without them."

I showed him one to demonstrate. "Jesus, Morty! I was blind. I mean, first I thought it was dark, you know. Then, it had to be a blindfold. Later, after a while, I knew. I couldn't see a goddamned thing." I hoped he couldn't hear the self-pity that I could, although I knew better.

He could and did. "I know. I know it's rough. Hang in there, Ok.?"

It took me a minute but I went on. "Anyway, they were talking about Houston, about heading north toward Tivoli and then cutting across to Refugio." I pronounced the town name like the locals do, "Refeerio."

-Don't ask me why they do, I don't know-

"The goon in front, they called him 'Doc', wanted to toss me out, but Weller wouldn't go for it. The other one, I don't know his name, call him 'Whitey', didn't say anything, and nobody talked to him while I was awake; so I don't know his name, I'm sorry." I was aware of the loss of control and stopped for a few minutes____

___And then went on. "We turned right somewhere near the Sanctuary, and then left. They called it 'the pier.' Weller yodelled in that God-awful voice of his that he was going to pull around the tanks, whatever. They all got out and pulled me out too."

"What then?" he asked.

"Hey, it's not easy, Ok.? Give me a minute or two."

He shut up for a minute and I used the lay-off to change the subject.

"You know, I thought that there was a lady sitting with me awhile, Morty."

"If you call five days, almost straight, a while; then, yes," he said. "A classy lady named Katherine was holding your good hand awhile."

"Where'd she go?" I had barely known she was there but I missed her.

Morty shrugged -polyester again- and took the Fifth. "I don't know. When it seemed like you'd survive, she packed it in, I guess."

"You married, Morty?" For some reason, I had never asked.

"Two and a half times, but who's counting."

It was time to go back to the pier. I repeated, "Like I told you, they pulled me out of the car. I had really screwed up. I mean really screwed up. These guys would have had to pool their resources to qualify for moron, and I was theirs. I know it doesn't make sense, but I kept on thinking that it wasn't fair."

I paused for a long moment. It cost me a bit of my soul to remember the rest, and a lot more to admit to some of it.

"You know, Morty, I still had a knife up my left sleeve, and there was nothing wrong with my right hand. They should have been my meat, minced meat, in close quarters, blind or not."

Morty sounded interested, not just professional, "So why didn't you use it? What stopped you?"

"I didn't even know it was there. I couldn't feel it. I couldn't remember it. I was a victim. I just knew I was helpless. It was a bitch."

"What then?" -Then, what went around came around-

"Then I discovered what some Creole already knows, thanks to me. Unsupervised swimming is a lot more fun. I don't know if they really understood what it was they were looking for. They kept on asking for software, like it was toilet tissue. I was being beaten and drowned for something I didn't have, that they wouldn't be able to recognize if I spit it out of my mouth. After a long, long time they wanted to know about Carey's bearer bonds, too. That's when I lost the teeth, and got the broken nose." The "tissue" had come out "thithoo," of course.

Morty put his hand on my right shoulder. "What about the cutting?"

I shrugged it off. "Give me a break, will you? I don't think the nightmares are ever going to stop."

He relented. "Ok.. How about that break, a turn around the solarium."

"Are you sure I can handle the excitement?"

"Nightmareth, tholarium, ekthitement." It wath getting dithcouraging, even if that wath the leatht of my problemth.

Let me cut to the chase: I'm still blind as of this writing, but there's an MRI, a PET scan and, maybe __an operation scheduled that might do some good__ and aside from the serious risk, can't do any harm. I've been transcribing this book on McNally's tape recorder, while the rest of me is getting well enough to survive it. One of these days I'm going to be able to listen to my lisping on the tape without feeling like a humiliated Daffy Duck.

I still don't know where my Toshiba is. That's academic now, I suppose. Unless I could get a vocal translator -make a note- for it.

There are still charges against me, though they've somehow leveled off from a massacre to "Reckless endangerment." It must have been the caltrops. Those podiatrists have a powerful lobby. The barbecued banker had been blamed on dissatisfied depositors and nobody argued the point.

And I'm lucky to have a sex-life, if you can call it that. I'm still shivering.

I gave Morty some more detail, when we got back to my room.

"Weller had both goons hold me against something, maybe a telephone pole. It was my number that was up, I guess. The one on the left, Doc __who was holding my left arm__ found the Explorer in its sheath. That gave Weller some ideas I've already told you about. I could feel him trying to pull my pants down. I don't remember what he was saying; I guess it's blocked. But, you want to hear something unbelievable? He started singing. He was singing to himself under his breath."

Don't laugh. As I've said, I wear suspenders to hold up my pants. They're under my shirt, and the shirt is worn outside my waistband, not tucked in. So you can't see them. Anyhow, I had a belt on, as well, to carry the pistol holster. Weller had hold of the belt, under my shirt.

"He sounded confused. Every time he'd pull them down six inches or so, they'd come back up like a cartoon." My narrative ground to a halt.

Now I remembered some of what went before that, the part where Weller was telling me in loving detail exactly what was in store for me. And his inhuman, sadistic caresses; I guess that's what they were to him. God damn him to Hell!

Yes, my mind is capable of understanding that the controlled, almost refined application of pain, the frenzy of anticipated blood-lust had no relationship with any ordinary sexuality in his evil, perverted soul. Not unless savagery and agony are genders.

But my own soul was another matter. It felt even more injured, soiled, fouled by that ordeal than my body did. -Roast in peace, Amen; you God-damned fucking animal- If he had not been dead, I would have been happy to take his life from him slowly, with a tweezers or a peeling knife. Or maybe I just would have killed both of us to avoid the pollution.

Whatever!

Morty restarted the conversation with, "So what did he do with the knife, if he was trying to pull your pants down?"

"How would I know, for chrissake?" I snarled.

"Ok.. Take it easy. Then what happened."

"Then? Then, I spit in his face and snap-kicked him. He had one hand on each side of my belt. It wasn't like I needed a jungle guide to find him. There wasn't any chance that it was going to do me much good; maybe just annoy him enough to get it over with. And my shoe didn't quite get him; he was too close. It was more like my ankle, but when your rocks get smashed, it hurts no matter what. The guy on the right let go for some reason, I don't know. I got a slash on my thigh, thirty-two stitches worth they say, but it missed anything important."

"Didn't anybody tell you?" Morty was getting excited from the vicarious action. I don't know why I didn't resent that more. "One of the wise guys had been stabbed in the femoral artery and bled to death. He also had three big, jagged holes in one foot from your spikes. Did you stab him?" he asked.

"I wish. No! Maybe Weller did accidentally, after I kicked him. I did stiff-arm the muscle man holding my left arm, 'Whitey,' I guess. The hand was hurting something fierce. I gave him a Nazi salute with my right, just on the underside of his nose. I read somewhere that it's deadly." I asserted that with all the authority an armchair hero can muster up.

He disagreed. "It's not really, pal. The bastard will recover but he's going to look like the Phantom of the Opera. By the way, he and Weller both had some number-four shot in them. From your gun, I gather. What then?"

"Then," I said, "my foot slipped in the mud while I was trying to get away from the knife and I tripped over the guy's legs. My thigh had been slashed, but there was no way to be sure how badly. I guess I lost it for a while, and the next thing I remember was the double click of a piece being cocked."

-Each "click" could be felt, like a jolt of electricity-

"And it didn't matter anymore. I had been beaten, soaked with water, and my own blood and piss. Blind. And all the other things they probably listed when I was brought in here. That snap-kick was my last shot, my only hope to put him down long enough to find and kill him. Well, it didn't work. After that, I just sort of assumed that I was going to die, you know, and right then I couldn't think of a good reason to put it off any longer. There were two shots, then nothing. You know the rest from McNally."

He was exasperating. "And you don't remember anything else that they had been saying?"

"Morty, if you ask me that again you'll regret it, I swear."

"I can't help it. It's my job." He paused to reflect for a second. "Look! We've dug up a lot of dirt on Salburton from his valet, a guy named Garth, and I'll give you what I can as a trade-off. We still haven't found the software or the supplies, and the three-quarters of a million hasn't turned up either."

I surrendered part-way. "Except for one thing, you know what I know, and that thing won't help you, take my word for it."

He leaned closer and lowered his voice. I could tell from the touch of his breath. "I don't want to bug you, friend," he apologized, "but I'll trade you all the junk we found about Salburton for whatever you can give me. You're dictating a book, aren't you."

"All right, Morty." I sighed. "You won't believe this; I'm not sure I do. Weller said one thing to me after he cocked the gun. That weird bastard told me he loved me. Was it just my charm, you think, or maybe he told all his victims that before the end?" I only had given him a little of the other half, and he wasn't going to get the rest.

My persistent comforter unbent and stood up straight again, satisfied for the moment. "I don't know, but one thing's sure: He was really a eunuch. The rumors were right and he had no balls, according to the autopsy. You might have hurt him, kicking him in the rocks, but none of those rocks were soft and round."

For some stupid reason, that made me feel a lot better.

It was Frick and Frack who sort of saved my life, God help me.

This has been an almost -not quite- humbling experience. Morrison and Harlowe had a minuscule joint task force working on Salburton, and they had his and Weller's plate numbers and auto descriptions as part of their investigation. They had given McNally instructions not to interfere with those autos.

They really didn't know McNally.

Nobody local likes the Feds, any Feds, and the "Beaner" was even more Federal-phobic than usual. It was bad enough that __after eighteen years in what he thought of as a jerkwater town__ his men still considered him a foreigner; no outside snots were going to come onto his turf and treat him like a local.

The upshot of the whole thing is this: When reports started hitting the Aransas County Sheriff's office about Custer's Last Stand at Holiday Beach, the deputy on desk duty managed to scrape up one county cruiser on patrol to dispatch. The Rockport Police were asked to provide an immediate back-up until the other county cruiser could get there. McNally was on call at home and kept control of his people through the radio in his car while he was getting to the scene.

The town cruiser reported seeing a Lincoln Continental heading north on Route 35 from Holiday Beach, just as they were turning off. They had no reason to stop it and they were in a hurry to get to the scene of the disturbance __but the driver did manage to get a partial plate number and reported it to McNally.

Our boy, Lieutenant Steven McNally, had the desk call Tivoli __the next town north by about thirty miles__ and Refugio __not so far north and to the west__ to dispatch a cruiser south and east respectively to meet him in hot pursuit on 35. The Lincoln was to be stopped, if encountered.

It wasn't.

So, having caught nothing in their pincers, they split up to start backtracking turn-offs. It was a long-shot by that time, but that long shot paid off for me.

The pier, only a little way off the road to the sanctuary, was all lit up, and a quick circuit by one of the searchers spotted the Lincoln, a gunman and a couple of bodies, one of which was mine. I didn't know it for a time, till I woke up in here, in fact, but the shots I had heard had not been from Weller's gun.

Not McNally's either; he took the wrong turn-off. The Refugio county squad car also tried a different cross-road.

Tivoli hit the right one and just in time for me. I had only heard the first two shots fired by Tivoli. It had taken five rounds, all hits, to keep Weller from finishing me off. The sharp-shooting officer who killed him was impressed, almost shocked, that Weller just wouldn't go down, and recovered from each and every impact to line his sights up with my body again.

Every impact but the last one.

The T-Men don't have much of a case left now.

McNally, Weiner and I cry about their diminished career prospects every so often. They had been detailed to work with the Office of Thrift Supervision, a new branch of the Treasury formed in 1989. It was Congress' response to the S&L crisis, the usual post-perpetration policy of procuring the pig-pen postern.

A few more months of mishandling all of those political and economic hot potatoes will guarantee that Harlowe and Morrison are made available to be posted to the most abominable desolation available.

Morty is hoping for a second honeymoon with his second and a half wife before he is reassigned overseas. Anything would be preferable to a desk job in Washington, D.C., even __as he puts it__ cleaning up alpaca crap in Peru or going undercover in Tierra del Fuego. He's sure it will be South America because he doesn't speak a word of Spanish, and there's "no reason for them to change their M.O. at this late date."

David came to see me the other day.

I knew Katherine was with him, but hers was the kind of silence I respect. Besides, she had enough problems without having me on her hands. It would have been awkward with all of our roles suddenly reversed, and I think she knew it.

I hope that was the reason.

"Ah,___ah, well, thanks for what you did, you know, for my mom." I could hear his sneakered feet going, "Aw shucks!"

"That's all right, David," I told him. "Your mother was the one who made the sacrifice. You remember that! She was only thinking about your safety when she left, and I hope you know how lucky you are that you're her son."

"Yes, Sir. I know," he answered.

The second order of business was for me to acknowledge a long-standing debt. "I haven't had a chance to thank you for blowing my truck's horn when we got to the trailer. You saved my life, David, and I won't forget it." McNally had given me that information only the day before.

"Yes, Sir." Still there; the old "Sir," with the capital "S."

I found his shoulder with my right hand. He didn't squirm too much, so I left it there for a couple of seconds. "Is everything straight with the police?"

"Yes, Sir. Mrs. Carpenter helped me with that. She helped that lady I was with, Lorna, too. When we turned that computer stuff in to the police, you know, she had a lawyer there so nobody'd bother us, especially Lorna. She gets hassled a lot in Aransas Pass, sir."

"How are you doing in school, David?" This was one kid who would appreciate and benefit from education. I planned to make sure that he'd have a college fund available when he needed it.

"You know, Mrs. Carpenter," the boy sounded uncomfortable; "she says it's Aunt Katherine, but I'm not used to it. She's got me studying, and she's got a tutor for me. Next Fall, I'll be starting the Junior High, seventh grade. That'll be in Corpus, she __I mean Mrs. Carpenter__ says.

"Mrs. Carpenter is a good person, son, a really good person. You stick with her and you can't go wrong."

"I know, Sir," he agreed.

"David, do me a favor. After you get 'Aunt Katherine' down pat, would you give 'Uncle Richard' a try, a few times. See how it sounds. I'm not used to 'Sir'. And use it around your Aunt Katherine. I'd appreciate that. You know; see how she likes it. Oh, and thank her for me."

"Yes, Sir!"

Everything worthwhile takes time.

I was flying north for the surgery, as well as the dental implants I'd need. You know what I think of the lack of dentistry around here. I'm still unreasonably prejudiced about it. It really bothered me that anyone had to listen to me the way I sounded then. I'd be up north for at least three months.

Morty Weiner had by this time been reassigned to Washington, D.C., just temporarily, and he had not been looking forward to explaining things to his superiors, or pushing for the recruitment of a "hacker" to write viral invasion programs. They would naturally be reluctant to let anyone like that anywhere near their equipment, for fear of their own vulnerability. "Who watches the watchman?" There would be strict safeguards and fearful warnings, though my intuition and I gave MacArthur Park less than three months before the CIA would be on its institutional knees.

The "Beaner" saw me off at the airport.

They had taught me a few fundamentals about being blind at the hospital. My left hand grasped the back of his right elbow as we walked through the crowds. The right one held a white cane sweeping the area in front of me, a few inches above the floor.

I was going to pull the last cassette out of the tape recorder, and give the recorder back to him when I walked __or rather was helped__ through the departure gate, so this is the end of the story coming up.

He kept his voice low. "Would you like to hear something funny?"

"I'm already bubbling over, but go ahead and make my day." -I'm easy-

He made a noise halfway between a snicker and a snort.

"The fuel tank that blew on Salburton's van during your little fracas?"

"Yeah?" If only it had been Weller, instead____

"That wasn't the only thing that blew when it exploded. There was a bomb in the van. That 'accidental' explosion of the fuel tank must have set it off. Good thing for you, that 'accident,' wasn't it?"

"You could say so, McNally, assuming the bomb was meant for me."

His elbow moved like he was holding his hands up and out. "Who else?"

"Somebody who wasn't carrying the software he wanted, maybe," I replied. "It could have been that he hoped to get it from me first, and then blow me up. But why not just shoot me, then?"

"Well, that only leaves Weller and his goons," he said, puzzled. "And the survivors don't know anything about any bomb."

"There you go. It might have been the cheapest pension plan he could arrange for the hired help."

The metal-detector station, with its conveyor, sounded close. McNally halted then, saying, "I'm going to miss your bullshit, Quirk. I don't know why?"

"Three months, McNally. Then you get to watch me do my one-eighty days of community service when I get back. Maybe I'll get a police dog for a Seeing Eye, and volunteer for the auxiliary police, who knows? I've got to come back, in any event. My trailer's here. How do you like the book, so far?"

"Not bad, Quirk. Your abrasive attitude needs a little improvement though. And you'd better have your lawyer take a safari through it before you show it to anybody else. At least change the names. It's a good thing that it's so garbled with the missing teeth. That tape could never be admitted as evidence against you."

"That's a good point, 'Beaner.' Just consider anything that contradicts my testimony in court as literary license. And some people do say I'm abrasive, but those are just my friends. They're prejudiced," I claimed.

"I'll bet!" McNally's reply reflected a regrettable cynicism.

But I wasn't finished with the subject. "And what about your friends? The way you keep pronouncing words like 'fracas' as 'fra-cah', McNally, it's a wonder that anybody around here talks to you at all. Why do you and I inspire such an instant dislike, do you think?"

He had a good come-back. "Because it saves everybody a lot of time that way."

Then, after a little hesitation, McNally tried to give me some good advice by asking a probing question. "So what are you now? ____Rambo? ____A psychopath? Five terrorized and wounded leg-breakers think that. A couple of dead ones are not available for comment, and the judge still seems to regret that they shot each other instead of you. Two county cops __the ones still limping around__ think that you're a menace to society. Your ex-girlfriend thinks you're a gypsy mystic; Weiner thinks you're a computer whiz and a fun guy; Harlowe and Morrison think you're a poor sport. What am I supposed to think?"

"You're a cop, aren't you?"

"Yeah."

I gave him an especially innocent smile. "It's simple, then. File me under 'Traveller,' Lieutenant McNally, or file me under 'smart-ass,' if you'd prefer; it's all the same, I guess. And here's your recorder, by the way. Thank you, my friend."

* * * * * * * * * *

-Soony tha fecklies in myjielle's core fortha munya shajook, pawsture-

Watch me smile for the nice policeman, child.

-Awrkers an mawkers ov Travellers graued tha fecklies tu shajooks ar tha munya chat tu nijesh styrick intha reshpoon-

Generations of Travellers have all known that smiling at cops is the best way to stay out of jail.

-An shmarrick munya norch an soony tha loergans shule-

Then, point my nose toward home, and watch me strut my stuff.

* * * * * * * * * *

Epilog

"When a traveller returneth home,

let him not leave the countries,

where he hath traveled, altogether behind him;

but maintain a correspondence by letters,

with those of his acquaintance,

which are of most worth."

Essays, Francis Bacon.

July 15

"I look like hell, Doc."

There was my even uglier mug staring back at me in the mirror.

"It feels wonderful." And it did.

Six days had passed since the first glimmers of light had startled me. For most of a day, the world in front of me had even been upside down. Now my vision still lagged behind when my head turned too quickly, and seconds could then go by before my eyes synchronized and focussed properly.

"You'll have to watch it for a while, Mr. Quirk," I was cautioned. "It's very rare for someone recovering their sight after a brain injury to lose it again, but I don't want you to take any chances. So, take it easy. All right?"

My nose was still swollen, and this was nine weeks after it had been reset, so I'd better get used to it. My left hand was whole again, and I had stopped urinating blood a long time back, so they say. The angry red ladder on my thigh had faded somewhat.

If an operation had been possible, I'd have turned out even uglier than I am, with a head and a nose like the late Telly Savalas. -Sorry, Telly, but it's true- As it turned out, none of my doctors could find a specific traumatic cause for my blindness, so at least I got to keep my remaining hair. Not that it wasn't in there somewhere. But that damage __wherever it was__ was just too poorly defined to be correctable.

They had held out hope. Pretty far out.

Hope happens sometimes and what can I say, but "Thank You."

The life of Conor Mac Nessa came to mind again while my neurologist was counseling restraint. Conor __like myself__ had suffered an untreatable head wound in battle, only to recover a precarious existence. His physician also urged temperance and, only by curbing his passions, Conor calmly lived for seven years longer.

Legends differ in the identification of the harbinger: some say a Druid, others a Roman Consul; still others name an Irish warrior, formerly a captive of the Romans. Most favor the Druid, Bachrach, who offered a supernatural explanation for a terrible series of natural disasters that had occurred throughout Conor's kingdom of Ulster on a certain angry day, and the message brought is the same in virtually all of the stories.

In reply to Conor's impassioned plea to know what had so offended the Gods, Bachrach told of the character and good deeds of an innocent man __one of the many homeless in his land__ a wandering preacher who had been wrongly and cruelly executed by the Romans on the very same day.

Conor Mac Nessa, the pagan king of a pagan land, died then and there, sword in hand, and swearing vengeance for the Roman crucifixion of a righteous man in far-off Judea.

I had better watch my temper.

I'm keeping in touch by telephone with McNally and Stretch. Every time I talk to Stretch, there seems to be another small-time scheme that he's sinking into. The other day he told me about a Yugo franchise he was offered "for nothing down." I advised him to check the deal out with a lawyer.

"That's all right, Dick. It's got to be Ok. because the guy who's selling it is a lawyer."

For some reason, maybe it's Katherine, memories from my childhood in the South Bronx come back to me; memories of two men who owned adjoining shops there.

The bane of their existence in each case was the incompetent nephew-in-law that they were forced, by their wives and conscience, to support with an entry-level position. No matter how badly the nephews screwed up, it was never an exit-level position. No matter what they did right, "Uncle" knew that they would soon make up for it.

Katherine and Stretch come to mind frequently in that way.

Come to think of it, Larry married his stepmother, who had been also his mother's sister-in-law at one time, after his father died, and Sy was her son by that previous marriage and Larry's step-brother as well as cousin, then; so that made him____

Never mind, I probably forget some of the details.

David calls me collect each Friday night at my express invitation. He sounded even happier than I was, when I stopped "lithping," and he also sent me a funny greeting card when I gave him the good news about my vision. He was still a little disturbed the following week about Katherine's reaction.

"What did she want to cry for?"

I let him know that I didn't understand women either, but that sometimes people keep up a brave front when they worry and cry when they can stop worrying. Someday, I'll let him know that it happens to me all the time; someday, when he's a lot older. He's had a tough life, so far. Why disillusion him?

Last week, he wanted to know what I thought about calling him "Dave." The young man's twelfth birthday is coming up in December, and I'm looking forward to being there for it. When his Aunt Katherine is out working at the shelter for runaways, I get a little background on how things are going with her. If it can be swung, that shelter would be my choice for carrying out the community service sentence. -If you only knew, Judge-

If I'm subtle enough, she won't be able to say no to it.

July 29

During my recovery, there has been this conspiracy between my left and right hemispheres.

They like the idea of taking up a new hobby, an especially lucrative and challenging one. There is really a dark side to the Force. So, I've been thinking about the techniques of hi-tech counterfeiting and forgery. So far, I've managed to concentrate exclusively on the problem of how to detect it with an inexpensive and easy-to-use machine. For aesthetic reasons, I'd like my device to weigh less than four pounds, fit into a cigar box and be called the "Baldwin."

I'm still having bad dreams and I might have to get rid of that Tarot deck. Mostly, in the dreams I get burned by a picture card __the King of Pentacles__ and I'm in flames but I don't seem to be aware of it.

Before that, there's a dance with the Queen of Cups, and I get surrounded by a whole bunch of them. I don't mean Dolly Parton's cups. It's more like the Queen of Hearts in normal cards __just as Pentacles are like Diamonds__ and Wands are like Clubs. Of course that leaves Swords equivalent to Spades.

It's kind of eerie, and I wish I knew why the dreams seem more of the future than the past, where they might have made sense.

August 5

Today, I finally got to go through the information that Morty had given me on Salburton.

Except for a videotape, everything in the file was just a copy, even the pictures. Man, Salburton was sick. I wasn't sure if I believed everything that his valet said about him. Some of it's pretty tough to swallow.

But Mac -MacArthur Park, remember? Now, he's Park of the CIA- had found a safe of his stuffed with photos and videos that would curl your hair. When I played some of the tape that featured the Nurse in the stairwell, I realized that Garth didn't know the half of it.

There were also dozens of audio cassettes from Salburton's office, limo and briefcase. Everything had been recorded by the banker himself.

Then __checking over the remaining material__ I came across Salburton's picture and examined it carefully. We had only met once and that was in the dark, more or less. After a minute, I put it on the pile and picked up the next one, of his nephew __Russell Tiddler__ the one I had called "Frizzy." The quality of this photo was poor too, the grainy copies almost recreating the lousy conditions in which I had laid eyes on them both. I put the copies side by side, getting an eerie feeling of deja vu from my nightmares.

The card that was still in my wallet gave me Morty's 800 number, and I left a message for him hoping the PIN he had given me so long ago was still in force; just a short message.

Two days later, he and Mac met with me in Washington, DC for a couple of days, and Mac and I played around with video cameras and computers until it seemed that Morty would go out of his mind. I'm back in New Jersey now, but everything's on hold until a few loose ends are tied up.

August 16

Mac gave me a call today and asked me to come down to DC to make an identification. I didn't waste any time getting there and we had the lab to ourselves this time.

Morty had flown home for a little R&R.

There were two large-screen monitors against the wall, hooked into a complex of computers and video cassette recorders on Mac's desk. The monitor on the left showed an office, its contrast so dim that I knew the system was compensating for a lack of room light. The right one was of an all-white stairwell, the one described and pictured in the file and tape Morty had given me.

After a minute, a panel opened in one of the walls, and a small shadowy figure emerged. It walked over to the desk and did something there. Immediately the lights went on, and I was looking at someone that resembled Salburton's picture, now in full color. The TV coverage in the office came from fish-eye camera imbedded in the ceiling ventilator, Mac said. The monitor on the right was fed by Salburton's own cameras, and gave a more normal perspective to the stairwell.

"When was this, Mac, real-time?"

"Two days ago, eleven P.M."

Salburton got up onto the chair and sat behind his desk, fingers busy on a keypad. Scene by scene the monitor displayed parts of the building, revealing the state of his kingdom.

I could almost feel and taste the thoughts that went on in his mind:

It won't be long. My enemies and their witnesses will die, and new evidence can be manufactured. There's no shortage of creatures like Weller in this world. I'll be the only one left standing....

Salburton frowned when he realized that the lights in the stairwell were already on. Rather than turn them off, he coded the system to react to intruders, and manually examined the scene from each corner camera in the well.

It was really a good system he had. Really good. Mac had taken three careful days to dissect it.

When Salburton reached camera two, that faced the door to the elevator bank, he jerked back from the sight of a threatening figure, and his cheeks clamped tight like a chipmunk with a nut in each one.

Guess who was threatening him?

Me! That's who. I was dressed in a white coverall, so it looked a little like my head and hands were bobbing on their own as they proceeded across the lower level to the foot of the stairs. My image started to climb them, slowly, one at a time.

"Salburton!"

Again. "Salburton, I know you can hear me. Remember my voice? It's me, Quirk. You almost got away with it. I didn't catch on to the switch until now, and as far as everybody else knows, you're still a dead man. Too bad for Russell that he took after your side of the family. If he'd known what would happen after you caught up with him, I think the poor bastard would have shot himself instead."

His rounded features on the left monitor were stamped with petulant rage, and he cried, "How do you know these things? Who's telling you? Who's betraying my trust?"

My face on the right screen just laughed at the last.

"I've come for you, Salburton. That's it; it's over. You'll spend the rest of your life in jail, and it will be some guy named "Bubba" who gets to spank you from now on."

My feet were at the top of the stairs now, and my image turned to face the left door, the one directly to his office.

He screamed with rage, and raced from his chair around the desk to that door, checking the dead-bolt to make sure that it was locked. Then, he raised the lid of the view-port and flipped up the shield covering the activating switch for the acid pumps.

The Chairman put his head to the port, not wanting to miss any of the morbid anticipation __waiting for my dans macabre__ and turned the switch up all the way. The speaker in the door would carry my screams almost directly to him.

He cried, "Where are you, Quirk? It's no use hiding. You're going to wish your mother had killed you at birth, instead of____ Where are you, you goddamn son of a bitch? Wait till you feel this, you cock-sucker." Salburton was slavering. I could hear the saliva sloshing and sputtering in his voice.

"Quirk? I'm going to play with you; play with you all I want. Where are you?!! You'll beg me to put you out of your misery, and I won't; not until I've burned out every nerve in your body. You'll be helpless __your skin on fire__ and I'll slash your cock to pieces. Then, I'll cut your balls off and mash them in your face, you shit. If you have any eyes left, you can watch it. You'll scream with the pain for days __for days Quirk!__ until I pull your tongue out or it's all over." That voice turned into a shriek.

Then there was a high-pitched yelp. Maybe it was laughter; it's hard to say. Salburton was wiping his mouth and chin with a handkerchief, and then went on with his gloating, his voice lower again. He sounded like a kid with a deep voice, making a lewd phone call, with a little hesitation before each obscenity. The banker was almost hopping up and down in his unholy agitation, pounding one fist on the door to punctuate all of the vituperation that overflowed through his mean lips.

Except that no child could ever have had the time to accumulate all the Evil that chained the other, ordinary, decent words into such an expression of atrocity and revenge.

"You want to know something? It's never going to be over for us. You'll take a thousand days to die a thousand times on video, Quirk. It's immortality. You're going to live forever, in pain. In pain!"

Only one thought or feeling persisted in my mind during the time he had left, and it was more of a mood of sadness than any sort of coherent expression of emotion.

No screams would trumpet from the stairwell, nor would he ever find the victim he expected in the view-port. His finger remained holding the switch, even after he turned back to face his desk, startled by the sounds of disco music emanating from one monitor. The switch could not be returned to neutral; instead, it just came off in his hand.

Incredulous, Salburton watched the monitor over his shoulder as my head __mounted over John Travolta's white suit__ bobbed to the Bee Gees. The evil little man glanced once more through the view-port __searching for his next victim without success__ then back again toward the monitor. Just then its disco image evaporated, to be replaced by a body-count message that Mac had filched from Nintendo.

My voice had been recorded and sampled by Mac, but the message conveyed was generated by a tiny computer in accordance with its response to Salburton's actions. And it then articulated the last words that Salburton would ever hear, unless the Devil somehow sings a cappella:

"Hey, Salburton, the song is 'Staying Alive,' and Roxanne sends her regards. If you don't care for the music, just wait a minute and we'll pipe in something else."

Puzzled, the Chairman moved away from the locked door. He hadn't had time to figure it out yet, but that door would now would keep him in, and not just keep everyone else out. His mind was just getting around to wonder about the "pipe" remark, when he heard the hiss of escaping air above him. The pinhole camera in the ceiling caught him perfectly as he gaped at the sprinklers, so far over his head, with growing horror and maybe something else.

I'm not sure what and I'd rather not know.

My arm reached over Mac's shoulder to stop the tapes. "What was your back-up, if he had run instead?" I asked.

He turned away from the monitor screen to smile at me. "My inscrutability's getting rusty. You remember about the janitor's closets and the voice-activated locks, right?"

"Yeah. The one at the elevator shaft?"

"That's the one, pal," he said. Mac then initiated the rewind process on the tape machines and the shut-down procedure on the computer equipment.

There was a growing sense of release within me, and I turned away from my friend briefly. I didn't want to display __even to Mac__ the extent of my relief that Salburton had chosen his own way of dying and executed himself without much help from me.

There were a dozen ways that he could have been quietly put down, but my personal involvement would have cost too much of the little that was left of me. Yet he had to die, as a practical matter. It was simple precautionary self-defense.

-I wonder if my computer surrogate was capable of feeling electronic guilt-

My future path was not __and is not yet__ very clear to me, but for the first time in my life, I felt the tug of destiny. I had to prepare myself for it __healed in body and soul__ if that was at all possible.

It took a minute for me to turn back to Mac and resume our normal cynical relationship with each other. That started when we met and I suppose that neither one of us knows how to stop it. McNally and I are pretty much locked into that too, as though we're afraid that we really won't like each other without our familiar masks on.

"You know, kim-chee," I reflected, "that mean streak was less conspicuous when you were laying siege to 'Ma Bell.' Anarchy is the only ethical justification for this sort of thing."

"Right on, Kemo Sabe."

-Right on?-

Believe it or not, I spent most of the next day in a church. I didn't even notice what kind, or join in any services.

Still, it might have done some good; you never know. Then there were a couple of days of writing soft poetry, no satires, and a few checks to some favorite charities. I'm not sure if there is a God, much less whether I can bribe Him, but it could be worth a try.

One of the poems was a short epic in blank verse about death and redemption in ancient Egypt, called "Sun Boat." That perked me up a lot, of course.

August 24

Today I mailed another recent poem of mine, an Italian sonnet, to Katherine.

A Sociology teacher once declared publicly that I had one of the finest minds of the seventeenth century. Or, was that Economics? I preferred to take it as a compliment. At any rate, it's my kind of poetry.

August 26

Stretch's Yugo franchise fell through, thank God. Now he's talking about a series of courses he might take __on computer programming__ at one of those storefront Computer U's in Corpus Christi. You'll probably be shocked to find out that I encouraged him in that pursuit. Literal minded, naive people are often very much at home in the profession because the real trouble with computers __the thing that drives most people wild__ is that they do exactly what you tell them to, usually at the worst possible time.

With a little guidance, Stretch could fit into the trade just like another spoon in the cutlery tray. I happen to be a fork, myself.

My schedule calls for me to return to Texas in a week's time and there is still uncertainty now about what will happen with Katherine; not just about her feelings, but about my own, as well. I am drawn to her heat with winter's passion even while the summer sings a Northern ballad in my soul, a song that sends a welcome chill through me.

But I realize that she needs David now, not me. She needs time to introduce him to the part of her late husband, Frank, that lives on in her memory. Time to help David become a man. Time to silently share her experience of Frank Carpenter with their son.

No longer a morbid memory; a vivid one instead.

And something more:

This has been a long journey for me back from my former Limbo, and there is no end in sight, even now. Travellers before me have often fled across a landscape of Hell to find safety; yet, there is no refuge that we will accept for long. Instead we must go on, and on.... It's the journey that matters __not the destination__ and all such destinations are only way-stations, except possibly for the last.

These may just be games that I'm playing with my life, even yet. I might not really be ready to give up the safety nets of the system and the protection of the law that Country People know. But at least I have a clearer picture of the options now. I know how it feels to be an outlaw, and also how it feels to be a law unto myself.

-It's like walking the edge of a knife, and it's addictive-

Poe and his bells! There are silver bells and golden bells to overwhelm the iron bells of death and despair. Now, there are brazen bells, as well, that ring out "in the startled ear of night" to me:

higher, higher, higher,

With a desperate desire,

And a resolute endeavor..."

The most compulsive gambler is the one who will not play for money, but for life: the "Knight of Swords" of the Tarot, for example. Or perhaps, the "Knave of Swords." Possibly, the "Hanged Man," or the "Fool."

In the end, all questions are the same question: Who am I?

September 1

There was a Traveller wake, a double, yesterday in Baltimore.

Both bodies had been shipped in from Winnipeg, badly mauled by a bear supposedly. For one reason or another, I've been the one asked to go to Manitoba and find out how on earth two of our own met their end along the northern banks of God's River, not far from Hudson Bay.

I've arranged for a post-mortem of each corpse before burial; though the results will be probably be inconclusive. Both bodies were already embalmed in Canada, and the lab results will have to catch up to me in any event. I still hope to find out whether any of the wounds were caused by biting, and whether the so-called claw marks contained traces of tetanus.

My community service in Texas has to begin before the new year, and David's birthday in December is a must. Still, there should still be plenty of time to take care of this without any problem. In two days I'll be back on the road, this time in a rented van camper. There's a heat wave here, so the trip north will be doubly welcome.

Part of me has died, I know. But what's left of me feels more alive than I've ever felt before!

And Katherine called from Corpus Christi today. Nothing special; just to stay in touch. Maybe I was wrong earlier, and there could be a moral to this story.

-I wilthorry yawen I myjielle grau-

I'll have to let you know when I, myself, know.

The End.

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