"Nothing at all to tell me, darling? Really?" she said, as Samantha at last collapsed, with terrible red blood seeping out in far too many places. "Very well, then, we'll give you some time to think." And she put the knife down on the table, and lifted the lid of the barbecue. "Oh, bother, I'm afraid this has burned," she said, and with a quick glance to be sure that Samantha was watching, she took the long-handled fork and flipped the piece of flesh over the rail and into the water.
Samantha gave a weak wail of despair and slumped over; Alana watched her happily, and then looked at me with her serpent's smile and said, "Your turn next, old boy," and went to the rail.
In truth, I was quite happy to see her go, as I had found her performance very hard to watch. Aside from the fact that I did not actually enjoy watching other people inflict pain and suffering on the innocent, I knew full well that it was at least partially intended for my benefit. I did not want to be next, and I did not want to be food-which I would be, apparently, if Chutsky didn't get here soon. I was sure he was out there in the dark, circling around to come at us at an unexpected angle, trying to find some way to improve his odds, performing some strange and deadly maneuver known only to hardened warriors, before he burst upon us with gun blazing. Still, I really wished he would hurry up.
Alana kept looking off toward the gate. She seemed to be a bit distracted, which was fine with me. It gave me a chance to reflect on my misspent life. It seemed terribly sad that it was ending now, so soon, long before I did anything really important, like taking Lily Anne to ballet lessons. How would she manage in life without me there to guide her? Who would teach her to ride a bicycle; who would read her fairy tales?
Samantha moaned weakly again, and I looked at her. She was rolling against her bonds in a kind of slow and spastic rhythm, as if her batteries were slowly running down. Her father had read to her, too. Read her fairy tales, she had said. Perhaps I shouldn't read Lily Anne fairy tales-it hadn't worked out very well for Samantha. Of course, as things stood now, I wouldn't be reading anything to anyone. I hoped Deborah was all right. In spite of her odd moodiness lately, she was tough-but she had taken a hard shot to the head, and she had looked very limp when they dragged her below.
And then I heard Alana say, "Aha," and I turned to look.
A group of figures was just now stepping into one of the pools of light cast from a working lamp. This new clump of young partiers in pirate costumes had come into the park and joined up with Bobby, and I had time to wonder: How many cannibals could there be in Miami? The group circled excitedly like a flock of gulls, waving pistols, machetes, and knives. At the center of their circle, five more figures came on. One of them was Cesar, the man Alana had sent off into the park. With him was Antoine, the other guard, as well as Bobby. Between them they were dragging another man. He was slumped over, apparently unconscious. Behind them stalked a man dressed in a black, hooded robe that hid his face.
And as the partiers circled and cawed, the unconscious man in the middle rolled back his head and the light caught his face so I could see his features.
It was Chutsky.
THIRTY-NINE
Einstein tells us that our notion of time is really nothing more than a convenient fiction. I have never pretended to be the kind of genius who actually understands that sort of thing, but for the first time in my life I began to get a glimmer of what it meant. Because when I saw Chutsky's face, everything stopped. Time no longer existed. It was as if I was trapped in a single moment that went on forever, or a still-life painting. Alana was etched against the dim lights at the railing of the old fake pirate ship, face frozen into an expression of carnivorous amusement. Beyond her in the park were the five unmoving figures in their pool of light, Chutsky with his head rolled limply back, the guards and Bobby pulling him along by his arms, the strange black-robed figure stalking behind them, holding Cesar's shotgun. The group of pirates held comic-menacing poses around them, all in lifelike postures without motion. I no longer heard any sound. The world had shrunk down to that one still picture of all hope ending.
And then in the near distance, in the direction of the Steeplechase, the horrible migraine-inducing beat of the music from Club Fang started up; somebody shouted, and normal time began to return. Alana started to turn from the rail, slowly at first, and then back up to regular speed, and once again I heard Samantha moaning, the Jolly Roger flopping at the masthead, and the remarkably loud pounding of my heart.
"Were you expecting someone?" Alana asked me pleasantly, as things came back to very horrible normal. "I'm afraid he's not going to be much help."
That thought had occurred to me, along with several others, but none of them offered me anything more than a semihysterical commentary on the rising sense of hopelessness that was now flooding the basements of Castle Dexter. I could still smell the lingering aroma of flesh toasting on the grill, and it did not take a great stretch of the imagination to picture that precious, irreplaceable Dexter would be sizzling there soon, one slice at a time. In a really good story with a perfect Hollywood structure, this would be the moment when a fantastically clever idea would pop into my head, and I would somehow cut my bonds, grab a shotgun, and blast my way to freedom.
But apparently, I was not in that kind of story, because nothing at all popped into my head except the forlorn and unshakable idea that I was about to be killed and eaten. I saw no way out, and I could not still the pointless yammering in my brain long enough to think of anything but that one central thing: This was It. End of game, all over, fade to black-Dexter into darkness. No more wonderful me, not ever again. Nothing left but a pile of gnawed bones and abandoned guts, and somewhere one or two people would have a few vague memories of the person I had pretended to be-not even the real me, which seemed deeply tragic, and not for very long. Life would go on without fabulous, inimitable me, and although it was not right, it was unavoidable. The end, finish, finito.
I suppose I should have died right then from pure misery and self-pity, but if those things were fatal, no one would ever make it past thirteen years old. I lived, and I watched as they dragged Chutsky up the wobbly ramp and dumped him on the deck with his hands taped behind him. The black-robed figure with Cesar's shotgun moved over to the grill where he could cover me and Chutsky, and Bobby and Cesar dragged Chutsky to Alana's feet and let him flop facedown into a limp and quivering heap. He had two darts sticking out of his back, which explained the quivering. They had somehow sneaked up behind Chutsky and Tasered him, and then knocked him out somehow while he shivered helplessly. So much for big-time professional rescue.
"He's rather a large brute," Alana said, nudging him with a toe. She glanced at me. "Friend of yours, is he?"
"Define friend," I said. After all, I had really been counting on him, and he was supposed to be good at this sort of thing.
"Yes," she said, looking back at Chutsky. "Well, he's no bloody use to us. Nothing but gristle and scar tissue."
"Actually, I'm told he's very tender underneath," I said hopefully. "I mean, much more than me."
"Ohhhh," Chutsky said. "Ohhh, shit…"
"Hey, looka that; he got a good jaw," Cesar said, nodding with approval. "I hit him good; he should still be out."
"Where is she?" Chutsky said, trembling. "Is she all right?"
"I did, I hit him good. I used to fight," Cesar said to no one in particular.
"She's here," I said to him. "She's unconscious."
Chutsky made a huge and apparently very painful effort and rolled his body so he could see me. His eyes were red and filled with anguish. "We fucked up, buddy," he said. "Fucked up bad."