Relentless (41 page)

I directed Zazu to move between us and the door by which the hunchback had departed.

The creature’s big-knuckled, thick-fingered hands would be so clumsy with a gun that he probably always chose a knife, as with Clitherow, but using Zazu as cover seemed right to me.

Returning to the subject of her vaunted achievements, Zazu said,
“The problem with culture is that it swings like a pendulum, driven by one theory for a while and then by a countertheory.”

“That’s the same way it is when you’re working on the time-travel problem,” Milo said.

For a moment, Zazu looked as if she might spit a stream of blinding venom at the boy.

But she was too eager to talk about herself to be sidetracked from her favorite subject: “My life’s work is to stop the pendulum from swinging ever again and to maintain it along the arc on which the genius Rousseau set it moving more than two hundred years ago.”

“They say I’m a kind of genius,” Milo told her.

“You are the wrong kind of genius,” Zazu informed him.

“Watch it, bitch,” Penny warned.

“Rousseau was a madman,” I said, “and an absolute monster to people in his personal life.”

“Yes,” said Zazu,
“you
would think so. Shelley, Marx, Freud, Nietzsche, Tolstoy, Bertrand Russell, Sartre—they were all monsters to the people in their personal lives, but that was of no importance when you consider their contributions to the world.”

“All madmen to one degree or another,” I said. “Geniuses, yes, and some of them fine artists. But madmen. And their contributions to the world were … irrationality, chaos, excuses for mass murder, despair.”

“Not madmen,” she said.
“Intellectuals
. They form the opinions of the elite ruling classes. Then artists and writers must, with their work, carry the message of their superiors to the masses. Which you have not done, Mr. Greenwich.”

She went on in this vein for another minute, and I began to think she was vamping, stalling for time to think of a way to deal with us. We had indeed surprised her.

When he could get a word in, sweet Milo said, “Don’t put down my dad. He’s the best dad in the world—and
soooo
patient.”

Ignoring Milo, Zazu Waxx said to me, “With your books, you are pushing the pendulum in the wrong direction, which is why you must be broken, made to renounce your heresy, and purged.”

Gasping as if from exertion and also weeping, the hunchback returned to the room. In his right hand he clutched a butcher knife that dripped bright blood.

As flamboyant melodrama goes, it didn’t get any better than this. But remember, truth is always paradoxical, and always much stranger than fiction.

As tall as she already was, Zazu straightened her shoulders and lifted her head, and became noticeably taller. “What have you done? You idiot, you disgusting lump, what have you done?”

“That was my only chance,” said the son of Shearman. “He’s never been helpless before. He’d never be helpless again. That was my only chance, and I took it, I took it, I took it.”

The death of her son, Shearman, obviously enraged Zazu, but it seemed to be more of an intellectual than an emotional issue. “You cretin. He was a pioneer in the post-humanity movement. The way you were engineered from his sperm cells, you were destined to be the first of a super-race.”

The weeping hunchback regarded her with bafflement. “But I’m not, Zazu.”

“That wasn’t Shearman’s fault.”

“But it wasn’t my fault, Zazu.”

“At least Shearman made the effort.”

Zazu was so slim and her suit so well tailored that I would not have thought she could have been carrying a concealed weapon. Magically, it appeared in her hand. She shot the hunchback in the head and then shot me in the chest.

As I fell, I saw Penny shoot Zazu.

   Lying on my right side on the black-granite floor, I could see Zazu’s crumpled form, which seemed to be all sticks and baling wire tangled in haute couture. Her blood looked as black as the granite on which she had fallen.

My vision rapidly faded, and when in seconds full blindness settled upon me, I heard Penny speaking my name. I was not able to reply, not able to
say I love you
or
good-bye
. I heard from Milo a terrible cry, and I tried to reach out to him, but I had no strength.

As my vision left me, in the same way so did my hearing, diminishing until the silence of a perfect vacuum took me one step farther from the world of sensual delights. I wanted one more time to hear their voices, her laughter and his giggle, but a veil had fallen between me and them, a veil more imposing than a stone wall.

The last smell I remember was the odor of my blood, which at first seemed repellent but then in some way became so sweet that it moved me to tears.

About then the strange thing began to happen. My sense of smell swiftly returned to me, as did my hearing, and then my vision. I saw Zazu’s black blood spurt
into
her through her wounds, and she rose off the floor to a regal height once more. Her dropped gun flew back into her hand.

As I had fallen, so I rose to my feet again. The bullets that had torn through me now retreated from my flesh and raveled backward through the air to the muzzle of Zazu’s pistol.

The hunchback, too, had been reborn, standing with the dripping butcher knife displayed as if it were a precious talisman. He spoke his announcement of murder backward, and reversed out of the room.

And then time flowed forward once more.

“Not madmen,” Zazu said.
“Intellectuals
. They form the opinions of the elite…”

From the way that Penny and Milo looked at me, I knew that we three were the only people in the room who were conscious of what had happened. Even Lassie was clueless.

Because we were carrying the saltshakers that were no longer salt-shakers
.

“—carry the message of their superiors to the masses. Which you have not done, Mr. Greenwich.”

Because Zazu went on in this vein for another minute, we had the power to guide events as they best served us.

I had been to the razor’s edge of death, balanced between this world and the next, and now Penny and Milo looked more precious to me than ever before. My heart labored, and I had to struggle against a great tide of sentiment that would have disabled me.

We let Zazu babble until, as before, Milo said, “Don’t put down my dad. He’s the best dad in the world.” This time, instead of adding “and
soooo
patient,” the boy said, “and nobody’s gonna kill him on my watch.”

Ignoring Milo, Zazu Waxx said to me, “With your books, you are
pushing the pendulum in the wrong direction, which is why you must be broken, made to renounce your heresy, and purged.”

Gasping, weeping, the hunchback returned to the room with the dripping knife to announce the murder of Shearman Waxx.

Zazu straightened her shoulders, lifted her head. “What have you done? You idiot, you disgusting lump, what have you done?”

“That was my only chance,” said the hunchback. “He’s never been helpless before. He’d never be helpless again. That was my only chance, and I took it, I took it, I took it.”

Zazu repeated her speech about Shearman being a pioneer in the post-humanity movement.

“Dad,” Milo said. “The thing is, for some reason, you can’t replay the same moment more than once.”

“Okay.”

Zazu finished addressing her grandchild: “You were destined to be the first of a super-race.”

The weeping hunchback regarded her with bafflement. “But I’m not, Zazu.”

“That wasn’t Shearman’s fault.”

“But it wasn’t my fault, Zazu.”

“At least Shearman made the effort.”

This time, expecting it, I saw her draw the pistol from under her beautifully tailored jacket.

She shot the hunchback in the head, and as she turned toward me, Penny and I shot her, oh, maybe twelve times.

Once more, Zazu collapsed onto the black-granite floor. She blinked at us in disbelief, as if we had done the impossible and killed an immortal.

Her last words were: “You can’t escape. Twelve thousand of us … in the agency. The work … goes on … without me.”

We, too, went on without her.

Penny and I spent a while just staring at Milo, until he became embarrassed, shrugged his shoulders, and said, “See why it would have been so hard to explain when you don’t know the science? It’s a thing you just have to experience.”

Penny and I spent a while longer staring at each other.

Finally, she said, “You know, suddenly a teleporting dog doesn’t seem like such a big deal. She’s as cute as ever, and she’s too smart to teleport into the middle of a forest fire or something.”

My disposable cell phone rang. Only Vivian Norby had the number.

“Hello?” I said shakily.

Hud Jacklight rammed back into my world with his trademark insistence: “I’ve been trying all day. To reach you. Big news.”

“Hud, how did you get this number?”

“Milo’s baby-sitter. Had to twist her arm. Tough lady.”

“Hud, I really can’t talk now.”

“Made a deal. For you, Cubbo.”

“I’m going to hang up now, Hud.”

“Wait, wait. Not
The Great Gatsby
.”

“This again?”

“
The Old Man and the Sea
. The sequel.”

Although she could not hear Hud’s side of the conversation, Penny put her gun to my head and said, “Fire him.”

“That one doesn’t need a sequel, either.”

“There’s a shark in it.”

“So what?”

“Not the old man. He doesn’t come back. The shark. The shark comes back.”

“Fire him,” Penny warned me.

I started to laugh.

“It’ll be the first. A series. Listen to you. You’re so happy. I love happy clients.”

“I mean it,” Penny told me, her gun still to my head. “Fire him now, Cubby.”

Hud said,
“Cullen Greenwich Presents. Sequels to Classics
. Big literary thing. You don’t write them. Someone else does. You just put your name on ’em.”

I was laughing so hard tears streamed down my face.

“Listen.
Ben-Hur
. The gladiator guy? Reincarnated. As a pro wrestler.”

I tried to speak, but I couldn’t. I was convulsed.

“The Call of the Wild
. Jack London piece. This time an alien spaceship. Under the ice. Aliens possess the wolves.”

Between gales of laughter, I said to Penny, “You … you do it.”

“Tarzan
. Not raised by apes. Not Africa. Alaska. Raised by polar bears.”

Nearly hysterical, I passed the phone to Penny.

She took her gun away from my head, spared my life, and said, “Hud, you’re fired,” and turned off the phone.

“This place is creepy,” Milo said. “Can we get out of here?”

I holstered my pistol, lifted him into my arms, and held him tight. The smell of his hair. The smoothness of his boyish cheeks. The fierceness with which he hugged me. I was alive.

In the garage, we didn’t look in the cargo space of the Hummer. We took our things from the vehicle and walked away from the house.

“Should we maybe wipe our prints off the steering wheel and stuff?”

“No point,” I said, the laughter having passed. “Police will never have a chance to investigate. The agency will clean it up.”

Beyond the house, the sea broke on a beach with a sound like war machines or like the laughter of a crowd, depending on how you chose to hear it.

The night was cool, the moon was bright, and the stars went on forever.

   The scenery is stunning where we live now, but I will not describe it.

We reside in a modest house, but beneath it is a secret haven that the Boom family came together to construct.

On the same property, Vivian Norby has a cottage of her own.

I am no longer bald, but I do not look much like the writer whose photos were on my book jackets. Penny styles her hair in a different fashion, has made some other changes, and is lovelier than ever.

Penny, Milo, Lassie, and I use our real names when we are alone with one another, but the rest of the world knows us by names that we chose after much discussion.

Through a series of clever maneuvers involving foreign banks, Grimbald was able to spirit all of our savings out of the country before the people-of-the-red-arms realized we had escaped Shearman and Zazu. Because I’d enjoyed six bestsellers and because the Purple
Bunny books had been earning well for eight years, and because we live simply now, we are set for a long, long time.