“It’s a bad life in a place like this for a blind man,” I said.
He understood me now. He blinked up at me; I saw him get frightened, and I knew when he was ready to listen to me.
I said, “You people didn’t do the shooting, you don’t have guns. You came down afterwards, to pick the bodies.”
“Why not?” he cried. “Somebody would.”
“It’s a fine system you’ve got,” I said. “You saw who did do the shooting, though.”
He shook his head emphatically. “It was all over when we got there!”
I tapped his nose gently with the can. “Be careful,” I said. “Don’t tell foolish lies.”
“It was all over!”
“No,” I said.
“Why not? Why not?”
“One, you wouldn’t have known there were bodies down here to be picked if you hadn’t seen them drop. Two, if you’d come along later you would have been too late because some other scavengers would have beaten you to it.” I tapped him with the can again. “You’re not very good at lying,” I said. “Better not try it any more, you’ll just make me impatient.”
“I didn’t know them,” he said.
“Which means you did know them. Who were they?”
“I swear—”
I hit him a little harder. “Don’t waste my time.”
“I’ll tell you what I know!” he shouted. “There were two of them. They came out and shot you.”
“Came out? Came out of where?”
“A place across the street, a house over there.”
“Is that where they live?”
“No. Nobody’s lived there for a long while.”
“They’re both men?”
“Oh, yes.”
“They were already here, eh? Waiting for me. What did they do afterwards, go back into the house?”
“No. They took your car and drove away.”
“Did they come down here?”
“No.”
“What are their names?”
“I don’t know,” he said stubbornly.
I started to hit him, then changed my mind. I said, reasonably, “What are they to you? Why protect them? Why get blinded instead of giving me a chance to get near them again? Maybe they’ll kill me after all.”
“They will,” he said. “If you go after them they’ll finish the job on you. I’ll do them a favor, telling you.”
“That’s the way to think.”
“Malik and Rose,” he said.
I repeated the names, and said, “That’s all the names they have?”
“That’s all I know.”
“Rose is a man?”
“Of course.” He seemed surprised at the question.
“What do they look like?”
“Big, like you. Young, like Alfie, or like you. They shave their heads to keep the bugs away.”
“Where do I find them?”
“I don’t know. If I knew I’d tell you, because then you’d go there and they’d kill you, like you killed my boy.”
He was telling the truth. I got to my feet and put the can away and said, “Goodbye.”
He cursed.
I went to the steps, my pistol again in my hand, and went up them cautiously, pausing midway to let my eyes re-accustom themselves to the glare of daylight. I was stopped with my body still completely within the lean-to, my head at about street level. Looking out, the narrow strip of outside world I could see looked unnaturally empty and motionless, like the remains of lost colonies on the fic-films. Across the way was the corrugated metal shack which must be the “house” my assassins had been waiting in.
The stillness and emptiness continued unbroken as I stood watching. The only sound was the heavy breathing of the wounded man down behind me. Of Alfie, to whom the wounded man had kept calling for help, there was no sign.
Yet I remained cautious. I crept out of that hole like a gopher in a desert of carnivores, moving one slow careful step at a time.
No one. I stood at last in the entranceway, one step down from ground level, peering this way and that, and still I saw no sign of life. The sound of shooting must have driven the locals into their own holes; here, curiosity was anti-survival.
I purposely made a noise, clinking the pistol against the spray can in my pocket, but nothing happened. I lifted one foot, slid it out onto the ground, waited. Nothing. I shifted my weight forward. I raised the other foot, brought it up beside the first.
The sun went out.
Confusion. Darkness. Stench. Coarse cloth scraping my face and neck. Soft heavy weights dropping on my shoulders and back, bending me, driving me to the ground.
I roared in rage and fright, but the noise was muffled even in my own ears. My arms were imprisoned, held against my sides. The pistol in my hand was useless and worse than useless. If it went off, I would be shooting myself in the leg.
I staggered, staggered, and toppled over. Out of my bewilderment came sprays of understanding.
The lean-to. Alfie — and others — had been atop it, atop it, waiting for me with a blanket in their hands. When I emerged the blanket was dropped on my head, and Alfie — and at least one other, there was more than one here — had jumped down on me, grappling me, knocking me off my feet.
Still I struggled, until someone kicked me on the side of the head. In the darkness inside the blanket I saw pinwheels of light, felt my awareness fading, tried to duck my head away, keep my consciousness, regain control.
I ducked into the path of the second kick.
XIV
“I think he’s awake,” said the woman.
“His eyes are closed,” the old man told her.
“I don’t care,” said the woman. “I still think he’s awake.”
“So do I,” said the young man. I heard his boots crunch on the ground as he walked over to me. He stopped with his feet very near my head. “He’s faking,” he said, and kicked me on the shoulder, painfully. “Open your eyes,” he said.
I didn’t respond, didn’t move. The longer I could convince them I was still unconscious the better it was for me.
The old man said, “Take it easy, Alfie. Don’t bust him up.”
“You quit faking,” said the young man. Alfie, he was the young one. He kicked me again. “Open your eyes and get up from there.”
The old man said, “Alfie, don’t! We won’t get nothing for him if he’s busted up.”
“I’ll bring him out of it,” said Alfie. “Tina, go get a needle or something. Something with a point on it.”
I heard the soft pad of the woman’s feet as she hurried away. Then there was silence, while the old man and Alfie and I waited for her to return.
I was lying on my back, on bare ground, somewhere in the open; red sunlight illuminated my closed eyelids. I had been awake now for perhaps ten minutes, listening to the three of them talk.
They were taking no chances with me. They’d disarmed me this time, and tied my wrists together in front of me, and hobbled my ankles so I would be able to walk but only with small steps. From their conversation I understood they meant to sell me to the slavers.
They were a kind of family group. Tina, the woman, was the wife of the man I’d wounded and mother of the youth I’d killed. Alfie was some sort of cousin, and the leader of the group. The old man, whose name I hadn’t yet heard, was the woman’s father. They lived nearby, had been on particularly hard times recently, and considered me — and my weapons — a real windfall. They were all more or less afraid some larger or stronger group would come and take this unexpected treasure away, though only the old man actually stated their fears. Alfie put up a good tough front, denying the possibility, and the woman preferred not to think or talk about it.
They’d checked the wounded man down in the lean-to, but none of them could guess whether he’d live or die, so they’d decided to leave him where he was until they’d taken care of me. Then they would come back and look the situation over. I had the impression they would prefer him to die, as being the simplest solution to the problem.