The Shaft (52 page)

    Losing. As though Michael had been misfiled.

    That was how the gentle lying had begun. Survival fibs, non-toxic, offered up for the preservation of her own sanity.

    She would indicate via assorted conversational subtleties that she was seeing someone, thanks for your concern, and yes, he was very nice, and then she would change the subject.

    She fantasized itineraries for her imaginary dates, lending her parents just enough detail to make it sound real and offhanded. She knew how important details could be from all the newspapers she scanned and culled. Who, what, why, where, when and how all in the first paragraph. That was the sign of good reportage.

    Lately her mother had begun pressing for more facts. She stored everything and never forgot anything.

    Amanda held a latent fear of turning into her mother. Running to the opposite extreme was just as lethal.

    No longer could Amanda's dream date be a mystery man. Mother would want a name in short order. Amanda would have to invent one soon.

    She drew a quick breath of surprise. There was a black cat on her front porch. Its fur was caked with snow. It spotted her and somehow got to the porch. Tunnelled, perhaps, avoiding the storm like a submarine avoids surface gales.

    She made the decision to let it in in an instant. It would die out there.

    She threw bolts and undid hook latches. She was not prepared for how cold it actually was outside her door, away from her fire. The wind tried to hit her in the face with her own door and the temperature was arctic and frightening. The cat wasted no time jumping inside, and Amanda had to shoulder the door shut against the wind. She feared for the etched glass, which had misted over from this brief episode. If the storm door was to implode, that would be the end.

    She locked up, hoping everything would hold until the storm abated.

    The cat parked itself by the fireplace and began its licking ritual.

    'Hi, kitty.' It did not see her as a threat. 'I bet you're hungry.' She brought it tuna from a single-serving can and some milk. It cleaned up, and purred when she lifted it. They rubbed noses like Eskimos.

    'Guess you're going to want to hang around, now.' Amanda knew what people said about cats, once you let them inside.

    It was a male. She didn't know exactly what had compelled her to check.

    Clearly there was little to do with this day other than staying close to the fire, making a nest of her comforter which her new cat would no doubt share, and curl up with more tea, some movies, maybe a fat, sleep-inducing novel which she could also page through in search of names to give to her fantasy beau.

    When she found the name, it was direct, studious, classic. An American name. A normal name, though a touch academic in its full form. Yes.

    She dozed off on her couch, feeling like she had actually accomplished something for the afternoon.

    The cat was still around, making itself at home, when she woke up.

    Camela was asleep.

    The argument that had flooded into the wake of Bash's leavetaking from Rapid O'Graphics had been ugly and persistent. Certain details Bash did not wish to share, such as Jamaica, her whole story, and Jonathan's fate as reported by her, hung between Bash and his fiancee of record. Cammy wouldn't let go until she found out everything.

    And if she got the whole unrated narrative… well, that was an LSD nightmare waiting to burst, wasn't it?

    Camela was asleep, and so Bash felt safe in pulling from hiding the huge automatic pistol he'd kept from the wrestling match with Marko. He kept it hidden in his garment bag, along with two thousand dollars Jamaica had given him at the Bottomless Cup after they were done talking.

    God, but she had been on the ball. She had walked him through nearly everything, from the looney-bin cartoon of events within Kenilworth to surefooted first aid in the coffee shop's bathroom.

    

    

    The gun was an Auto Ordnance.41 Action Express loaded with Ultra-Mags. Quite the deadly mouthful, this gangster hardware. Bash had purchased a box of cartridges and spent a lot of late-night time working the action, checking the parts, loading and reloading the clip. The heft of the gun in his hand was awesome.

    He had the phone number of Jamaica 's machine but knew it was useless. She was long gone.

    The money, she had told him, was for helping out. And because he was a friend of Jonathan's. Bash still wasn't completely sure how to track that.

    'First time I've ever paid for a man,' she had laughed. 'Money, I mean.'

    He had smiled because he did not want to appear stupid. Feeling the energy transfer from someone like Jamaica could be unsettling enough.

    He put the gun on the coffee table and finished his fourth Quietly beer of the evening. It was after midnight. He got so little time to himself at home, nowadays.

    He had informed Camela that Jonathan had just left. Up and split, no note and no goodbyes. Chicago wasn't in his lane. Camela asked if he had gone back to Texas to make up with that woman, that Amanda, and Bash lacked the energy to add his own spin to that story.

    When he lifted his Magic 8-Ball from the stereo rack, it advised him to go fuck himself.

    His gaze was drawn back to the automatic. He had colorful thoughts of a world where everyone routinely packed pieces like this one. What they once called the 'underworld'.

    He put the 8-Ball back. It wasn't funny tonight.

    He toasted Jonathan with his beer. It wasn't the first time. The good humor had been beaten right out of him.

    He moved to shake his special snow globe, the one Jonathan had liked so much. When his fingers touched the glass he decided to let it be.

    The snow did not stir. The little corpses stayed buried.

    

    

    Chicago is Hell, and the car is as red as blood.

    Jamaica maintains a steady fifty per on the southbound 57. Chicago is no longer visible to the rear despite the flat terrain. The thunderheads of oncoming blizzards shroud it, cerements for a city of the dead.

    The Missouri state fine is a memory, itself indistinct.

    Jamaica is a good driver. She checks the rearview as needed but has not looked behind her, not once.

    Somewhere between the tailpipe of the Vette and Cicero, three unloaded handguns are oxidizing their finish in a bank of snow. Grass will cover them in the spring and eventually they will submerge in the loam. They will retain their shape for more than a century. No one will ever find them. Her fast throw has worked better than all the evasion in the world. Some of the bullets she has scattered will ultimately be collected by curious children. The rounds will be harmless by then, curios for bookshelves, mystical pirate booty.

    There are no weapons in the car. There are no drugs in the car, though Jamaica swears she can smell coke.

    Ghost cocaine, perhaps, working tricks in her head.

    Jeffrey Holdsworth Chalmers Tessier has given Jamaica a business card filled with scribbled phone numbers. Maybe someday, she thinks. He has mentioned Louisiana, East Texas, points south. Sounds like a good direction to her.

    Going down on America. She laughs at her own reflection.

    Each mile carries her farther away. She sheds the chrysalis of her Chicago self.

    The town names en route are quaint and amusing. Metropolis. Mound City. Cairo. Marked Tree. Truckers in cafes want to know where she's from. Motel clerks smile like old Norman Bates himself, and ask if she is traveling alone. What's a nice girl…?

    Jamaica is not a nice girl. She showers alone, without fear.

    Such amateurs in the boonies. It is all pretty amusing.

    Bodies will be discovered, she thinks. Wants and warrants for her, and for the car she drives. Maybe by tomorrow. Don't trade it. Abandon it, as planned. Give it a Viking funeral in some swamp. After one more day. Right now she needs the distance. Sometimes you could run away from your problems. Outdistance them.

    It saddens her to think of Jonathan. A nice guy. Considerate. All the right knobs and options, and utterly wrong for her. As an unrequited scenario it is a comfort. That delicious taste of never-to-be-finished life biz. He did not deserve what happened to him, but he had died doing, taking action, making a commitment that would matter in anyone's reckoning.

    She will not cry
oh woe
for him. He would not want that, she is sure.

    She wonders whether any of his sperm Ungers somewhere inside of her. A microdot of his life. She knows better, and does not cry woe. She weeps for a few miles, to the sad songs on the radio. She is entitled.

    Now and then she pretends his spirit rides in the car next to her.

    As for Cruz, Emilio had murdered him the moment he had debarked from Florida, hadn't he? Emilio had killed him long-distance and then shown up in time for the climax. The good parts. Rosie had shoved Cruz out the hatch with no chute. Jonathan had tried to help and had been unable to save him. Cruz had been a dead man as soon as Jamaica had first aimed her potent eyes at him.

    So much blood. Cruz had thought he had heard a ghost. Now, for all Jamaica knows, the job is his. That brick of coke had been more important to him than anything. She recalls the look in his eyes when he'd fetched the kilo. The look, after they'd waded through the carnage in apartment 107. That hunger living in his eyes. Jamaica knows now that she had been swapping looks with death, walking.

    More death waits, back there in the snow. Death is patient.

    She imagines Jonathan in the suicide seat as she drives. His outline is like crushed ice in a clear cup from which the drink has been drained. Bump it and the shape falls to shards, held in concert by its own fragile surface tension.

    He looks at her. Just looks.

    Now there are only his eyes, next to her. Green, like her eyes. Growing dimmer.

    Jeffrey Holdsworth Chalmers Tessier had a look in his eyes, too. Not how he could take advantage of her. Not how he could lie to her. Not a lust for guns or drugs or power or vended sex. More a look of hurt bewilderment. Determination lumbered by confusion. A darting need for escape, for a change that would make a loud and lasting noise… the kind of noise that obliterates interference, and lets you hear precisely once more.

    … the sort of look Jamaica has come to recognize in her own face. Time for another name change. Adapt or eat lead. She thinks of Jonathan again, and chooses her new name. Just like that.

    And maybe someday she can phone up Jeffrey Holdsworth Chalmers Tessier. Shock the shit out of him. Start something, once she's filed the sharp edges off the breaks she's making right now.

    Soon. For something they both would be needing.

    Low beams to cut the snow. State fine to Arkansas. One more down.

    She has her smile back. It is her last smile as Jamaica. Her lips still bleed.

    Soon.

    
PRINCE SIRKI

    
who never loses, ever

    
I want my stone to read:

    
NOT DEAD-JUST RESTING MY EYES

    

    

    

    During completion of The Shaft in April, 1988, I had the singular honor of meeting Edgar Froese, front man for Tangerine Dream, and thanking him for the unique and elemental music that has helped me push so many projects to completion. I'd like to reiterate that thanks here, in print.

    Credit is also due Jeff Gelb of Radio & Records, for comping me to all the LA shows of Tangerine Dream's '88 tour; my foreign musical wizards Klaus Beschomer [Germany] and Alwin Boon [Holland]; Lonn Friend of Rip Magazine for the Butthole Surfers and D.R.I. discs, and to Tim Murphy for the mood tapes - much are music by bands you've never heard of. Trust me.

    Custom special thanks to Craig Spector for the 'Kong #1' tape, and to Larry Rapchak of the Chicago Light Opera for tapes of his original compositions 'Bifrost' and 'Mystic Promenade'.

    

    

    Multifarious thanks turned up to eleven are due the Splat Pack, Jessie Horsting, the staffs of Midnight Graffiti and Outer Limits Bookstore [where Jess organized the first splatterpunk autograph party to replace the one that fell through in San Francisco because of the big quake], Nancy Cushing-Jones, Lauri Rodich, Michael Mann, Ellen Datlow, Beth Gwinn, Brian King and Stuart Swezey of AMOK, R.S. Hadji for his erudition, Jon Lester for the skulls, John Scoleri, Greg Goth, Michael Rapoport, Lorraine Howell of People Are Talking, John Stanley, Julie Manfull, Jo Fletcher, Deborah Beale, Debra Richardson, Robert and Elly Bloch, Stephen Jones, Philip Nutman, David Sutton, John Gilbert, Lydia Marano and Art Cover of Dangerous Visions Bookstore, Sheldon MacArthur of The Mysterious Bookshop, West, the Skipp Religious Bookstore, Mark Volman/Howard Kaylan/Joe Steflko [
you bet your sweet ass I am!
], and the estimable Mr Poe.

    Special thanks to Melissa Singer, Anna Magee, Eleanor Lang and Tom Doherty of TOR Books.

    
The Shaft
could not have been pulled off [
ha!
] without the support and help of my many editorial champions and publishing paladins: Jim and Elizabeth Trupin, John Jarrold, Abner Stein, Gary Goldstein, Tom Dupree, Pete Schneider, Tony Gangi and Mike Cilione. In its short story incarnation,
The Shaft
was given a sumptuous home by Darrell Schweitzer, John Betancourt and George Scithers of
Weird Tales
, in a special issue spotlighting my fiction, for which they have my deepest appreciation.