"Heard you saw some action down in the Delta a few days back," said Gandy.
"Some."
"My man, Elvis. Word is you done pretty good for the bros in the wetside."
Big Bill stuck his long tongue in Chamberlain's ear, and whispered something that turned the Good Ole Boy a yellowish shade of grey. Here was an Op who could get a whole rainbow on his face. The Dollman's fingers moved fast, and flakes of wax fell to the floor like dandruff.
"I tried to do my best, Gandy. I was paid. It's my job."
"You tellin' me you couldn't bring down ten-twenty times the kish workin' for the Man here than you can helpin' out the pore folks?"
The Dollman held up the tiny white head, and his friends admired it. He pulled a headless wooden human figure, its joints loose, out of his pocket, and stuck the head onto the spike sticking up from its neck. He showed the doll to Chamberlain.
"I just go my own way," Elvis said. "I don't like people owning any part of me."
Gandy produced a switchknife, and pressed a pearl stud. A six-inch blade, razor-edged, sprang out.
"I get the 'pression the Man here don't reckon much to the bros?"
Gandy touched the tip of Chamberlain's nose with his knifepoint
"You could say that."
"Hey, massah," Gandy said in a high-pitched voice, "kin Ah pluck yo cotton?"
Chamberlain's chin was shaking. His cigar slipped out of his mouth.
"I always wondered," began Big Bill, "why does a honky need two ears?"
The bros looked at each other, shrugging and saying, "Swiped if I know." Gandy nicked the lobe of Chamberlain's left ear.
"Hey, massah, yo bleedin'. Yo' bleedin' 'zactly the same colour as us tan-tinted types. Ain't that an amazin' fact. Under that lilywhite skin, you just a mess of red blood and brown shit and all them other colours."
Gandy's knife leaped forwards, and Chamberlain flinched, green slime leaking from his nose as he blubbered. Gandy's hand moved fast, and his knife was back in his overall pocket. Chamberlain wasn't hurt. He opened his eyes, and looked around.
Gandy held up a tuft of white hair, which he passed over to the Dollman. Elvis had seen this done before. The Dollman took the hairs and fixed them to the wax head, warming up the surface with a thumb-rub to make the material soft, and then pressing the hair in.
"Finished," he said.
Big Bill let Chamberlain go. The Good Ole Boy was sagging.
The Dollman gave Elvis the stick-figure. "Here's a present, Elvis."
"Thank you."
"The spirits be with you, my son."
The Dollman was twenty-three, and he called everyone "my son," even his grandfather. Elvis had heard he was the best conjure man in the city.
Elvis looked at the little Chamberlain, and at the original model.
The Good Ole Boy was straightening his tie and wiping his face off. Some of the starch was coming back.
"I hope you don't think all that hoodoo mumbo-jumbo scares me none?"
Elvis tossed the doll from hand to hand, almost letting it fall. Chamberlain cringed every time it flew into the air. Everybody had heard the story about the Japcorp exec who gave Dollman's sister Daisy Cleele a squeeze too many down at the cockfights and took mysteriously sick, all his facial features (and other features too) dropping off with a rot that none of the smart boys in the BioDiv had been able to diagnose. And there were people who suggested that Homely Harvey, Dollman's best friend, was only married to a fox like Bonnie the Boom-Boom because of a charm posset the conjure man had put together. Homely Harvey suffered from curvature of the spine, while Bonnie, a dancer at the Hi-Hat Club, benefited from curvature of everything else.
"That's a mighty pretty toy, Elvis," said Gandy. "What are you going to do with it?"
"I reckon I might hang it up in my car where I can see it when I'm driving."
Gandy smiled. "Hang it up?"
"Yeah. I can make a little noose of string, give the little feller a necktie. Then, it'll hang neat as you please, right?"
"It surely will."
"Bye, Elvis."
"Bye,bros."
Gandy and his gang drifted away, back to the Studebaker. Chamberlain looked dangerously at Elvis.
"It won't go easy with you, Presley. It ain't just me you've got to worry about. Harbottle isn't as understanding as me. And he's connected so high you'd need an oxygen mask to get into the office. You understand?"
Elvis nodded, and gave the wax head in his hand a squeeze.
Sweat stood out on Chamberlain's forehead.
"You look peaked, Robert E. Lee. Have you got a migraine coming on?"
Chamberlain rubbed his temples. Elvis didn't know if the voodoo was working, but something was certainly getting to the Good Ole Boy.
"Can I get you an aspirin?"
Chamberlain clamped his hat on his head and stumped out of the garage, leaving nine inches of cigar behind him.
Elvis stamped on it, grinding the tobacco tube into the asphalt.
VIII
"Old man, can you hear me?"
“…”
"Old Man?"
"Yes?"
"It's me.Krokodil."
"I know."
"Of course. I'll kill you, you know?"
"All must die."
"But you haven't. Not so far."
"No."
"How long has it been?"
"I know not."
"Hundreds of years? Thousands?"
"Longer."
"I feel very close to you, old man."
"You are part of me, just as I am part of you."
"Was it the shades?"
“…”
"Well?"
"Yes. It was the spectacles."
"I saw things through them. Things that weren't there."
"The lesser entities. Yes."
"Lesser than what?"
“…”
"You might as well tell me. I won't go away. Lesser than what?"
"The Dark Ones."
"Like the creature at Santa de Nogueira?"
"The Jibbenainosay. Yes, like that. There are many more like the Jibbenainosay."
"Where do they come from?"
"The Outer Darkness."
"That tells me a lot."
"You would not understand."
"Try me. We have all night to talk.."
"The Outer Darkness lies beyond the lip of the universe."
"Old man?"
"Yes?"
"The thing inside me, is it a Dark One?"
"No."
"Then what is it. What makes Jessamyn into Krokodil?"
"You are host to the Ancient Adversary, the Pawn of the Nullifiers."
"Why are you telling me all this? You know I'll kill you."
"It does me no harm. You cannot understand. It would take centuries to make you understand. Even the creature inside you cannot make you understand."
"Centuries? You've had centuries, haven't you? Do I have centuries? Will I live forever with this Ancient Thing in me?"
"You could, but you won't."
"Why not?"
"There are no more centuries, Krokodil. Not after this one. There are none left. The Dark Ones will descend. It will all come to an end."
"You're looking forward to that?"
“…”
"Well?"
"Yes…I look forward to the Nothing."
"I'll see what I can do for you."
"Believe me, Krokodil, I would thank you for it. But there are things that must be done, and I am here to do them. I am the Summoner."
"You're to blow the last trump? You don't seem like Gabriel to me."
"That is just a story, little girl. One of many. All the stories distort the truth, but contain a little of it."
"Why me?"
"It was just an accident. You took the spectacles. You became a channel to the Outer Darkness."
"Like you?"
"Yes, like me."