Chemayev leaned back against the base of the fountain. Out of the corner of his eye he could see the arc of water spurting from the broken pipe; overhead, a great crossbeam broadcast a benign silvery radiance. Black trees with leafy prayer flags stretched toward the light, and the round gray stones beneath him seemed to be eddying in their concentric circles. He allowed the fingers of his right hand to brush the pistol grip beneath his jacket. His chances were fifty-fifty, he figured. About the same as ever.
“You look almost happy,” March said. “Did you have the good thought?”
“Happy’s not the word for it,” said Chemayev.
“What am I missing, Viktor? You seem so at ease. It’s not like you. Do you know something I should know, or is it the drugs have just kicked in?”
“I don’t know shit,” said Chemayev. “I’ve been having a bad night, too. Someone’s been playing games with me.”
“Games,” said March. “Yeah, that’s my feeling.” He cracked the knuckles of his free hand by making a fist. “Do you recall me mentioning the dealings I had with your Mister Polutin over in London? A terrible business. Couple of his boys got taken out. Well, not long after I was passing the evening with this Rastafarian bunch in a squat in Chelsea. I won’t go into the whys and wherefores—suffice it to say, it was part of a complex proceeding. At any rate, I was feeling comfortable with things when I made the mistake of smoking a joint one of those savages handed me. I’m not sure what was in it, but from the extreme paranoia that resulted, I’m guessing it was angel dust. The idea was, I gather, to fuck me up sufficient so the Rastas could carve me. I had the suspicion it was Polutin’s idea… though considering the relationship we’ve had since, I may be mistaken. But the drug, whatever it was, didn’t have the desired effect.” The barrel of the automatic drooped toward his knee. “Not that I wasn’t sick as a fish. Fucking hell! I was feverish. My thoughts buzzing like flies. Patches of color swimming around me. My bones ached. I thought my heart was going to burst out its bottom like a soggy sack full of red milk. But the paranoia… it organized me somehow. I became a calm at the center of the storm of my symptoms. I could see everything in the room with wonderful clarity.
“There was eight of ’em. All licorice-skinned and snake-headed. Eyes agleam. Lounging in the doorways, sitting on sprung sofas. Trying to orchestrate my paranoia with their whispered talk. Streetlight washed through the busted-out windows, painting a shine on their faces and exposing the shit spray-painted on the walls. Designs, mostly. A variety of strange devices that had to do with that mongrel religion of theirs, but which spoke to me in a way unintended by the artist. I could read the future in those mazes of squiggly lines.”
A slackness came into March’s face, as if he’d been brought hard against the memory of a transcendent moment. Chemayev inched his hand beneath the flap of his jacket, touched the pistol grip with his fingertips.
“Have you ever been close to death, Viktor?” asked March. “I don’t mean nearly dead. I’m talking about the way you’re close to a woman when you’re lying with her in the act of love and there’s not an inch of air between you that isn’t humming with sweet vibration. That’s how it was that night. I was in death’s arms, fucking her slow and easy, and she was fusing her power with mine. I could actually see the bitch. She had a sleek silver face with a catlike Asian cast. The mask of a demoness. The silver moved as supplely as flesh to make her wicked smiles. Her hair was white, long and fine, and her breasts were corpse-pale, the nipples purplish. Like poison berries. When she opened her mouth I saw a silver word embossed on her black tongue. A character in the language I spoke before I was born, telling me it was time to act. That if I took action at that precise second, I’d come through the ordeal.”
In his distraction March’s pale face had an aspect of long-preserved youth, like that of a revivified mummy; the licks of black hair falling over his brow looked like absences in his flesh.
“When I drew my gun,” he went on, “I was inside death. Hot and slick with her. Her legs locked about my waist, fingernails stabbing my back. Both of us screaming with release. I had six bullets, and every one went true. Six head shots. Their dreadlocks hissed and snapped, their eyes rolled up like horses’ eyes. One of the survivors came at me with a machete, and I killed him with my hands. The last one fled.” He ran the barrel of the automatic idly along his thigh. “That was strange enough, but what happened next was stranger yet. I was standing there, reviewing my work. Stoned as a fucking goose, I was. Reading the bloody sentences newly written on the walls. Obituaries of the recently deceased. Tributes to my marksmanship. When I turned my head, following the red script of those shattered lives, I found death was still with me. I’d assumed she was an ordinary hallucination, that she’d served her purpose and moved on. But there she stood, posed like Hell’s calendar girl with hands on hips and one leg cocked, smiling at me. I’d only seen her close up before. Only been witness to half her beauty. The silvery stuff of her face flowed in sinuous curves to embellish her arms and legs. Silver flourishes coiled down her hips and framed her secret hair, which was trimmed to the shape of seven snakes standing on their tails. She beckoned to me, and I couldn’t resist. I lay with her once again.”
Chemayev had succeeded in securing a firm grasp on the pistol; but recalling March’s quickness, he didn’t trust the steadiness of his hand.
“It was a fool’s act,” March said, “to be coupling with what half my mind believed to be a product of madness. Especially with the dead lying around us, souls still tangled in their flesh. But I was in thrall. Her musk coated my tongue, her sweat formed a silvery sheen on my skin. My eyes went black with staring through the slits of her eyes into the thoughtless place beyond. She whispered to me. Not words of love, but a sibilant breath that entered through my ear and slithered into all my hollows, making an icy shape inside me. She stayed with me until the sky paled and flies began to gather like early fishermen at the edges of the spills of blood. But she never truly left me. I’ve seen her time and again since that night. Whenever trouble’s near she comes to guide my arm.” He gave Chemayev a sideways look. “I’ve seen her tonight.”
“Maybe you’re mistaken. It could have been one of Yuri’s girls. They like to dress up.” Chemayev thought if it weren’t for the plash of water behind him, he would be able to hear the beating of his heart.
“I’ve seen her tonight,” March repeated. “But I’m not so sure she’s with me this time.” He paused. “What do you think of my story, Viktor?”
“You mean apart from the obvious pathology?”
“Always ready to spit in the devil’s eye.” March lowered his head and chuckled. “You remind me of myself as a lad.”
Chemayev’s hand tightened on the pistol, but he failed to seize the opportunity.
“You probably think I’m having you on,” said March, and was about to say more, when Chemayev, his patience for this game exhausted, broke in: “I don’t know what you’ve got in mind, but I doubt you understand the implications of your story.”
“And I suppose you’re bursting to enlighten me?”
“Sure. Why not?” said Chemayev. “The idea that a man who’s accustomed to violence, who thrives on it, has come to rely on a fictive alliance with death… with a comic book image of death…”
“All alliances are fictive,” said March. “Haven’t you figured that one out?”
Chemayev ignored the interruption. “The fact you’ve created an imaginary playmate to help enable your violence—even if just in a story—that implies slippage. Weakness.”
March’s face emptied. “Weakness is it?”