Niko approaches a barred window and the demon behind it looks up from biting someone else’s fingernails and squawks and sits upright and waves his rubbery hands. “Oh no no not this window no no no—”
Niko sets the jar on the counter and pulls out his wallet and removes all his cash. Amazingly still there. Then again what would anyone have done with it? He says Popoudopolos to win and does not look back at the murmur behind him.
The demon glances warily at a wager board. “Eight fifty to one.”
Niko pushes the money through the space beneath the grille. The demon flaps his hands and slaps himself hard and glances over his shoulder at his supervisor, who lifts one flaccid breast and squeezes it like a winesack to spray a puslike milk into his own mouth and all over his own face. He licks his lipless dripping mouth with a thick reptilian tongue and grins at Niko and nods at his underling who scoops the cash and calls out Popoudopolos to win.
The murmuring grows louder. The cashier pushes a ticket across the counter and Niko puts it in a coat pocket.
“How you gonna collect if you win?” the supervisor calls.
Niko stares at the obese obscenity fingering itself before him. “It’s more fun if everyone knows you owe me.” He picks up the mason jar and shoulders through the silent restless hordes soon to pursue him.
EXIT. THE INSTANT he crosses that threshold they’ll do everything in their considerable power to waylay stop or ruin him. To make him look back. All the hosts of Hell will nip at Niko’s heels. You think the dogs and walls and gates and spears are there to guard the way in? Getting here’s the easy part.
Reflections in the glass before him wink and slide and wobble and distort. Thresholds, portals, demarcations. Ye who exit here.
He feels the stares on his back and takes one last look behind him. For an instant just beneath articulation Niko glimpses formless chaos churning there. A fearsome primal mindless maw feeding on decay and terror and the slow uncoiling of the cosmos itself. A universe of evershifting laws and fanged indifference that would smear him across its fabric like a bloated mosquito were it not amused by him. As any hero out of myth was easily defeated who did not amuse or charm the gods. In that instant beneath thought or language Niko glimpses the world caught offguard, the face behind the mask, the true shape of things.
But Niko turns. And as he turns that horrible glimpse reverts to the casino and its enslaved patrons, not staring at him as he had presumed but going about their neverending business, eternal commerce of punishment and penitence.
Again he heads toward the exit and again he stops.
Beyond the carnival-lighted glass the Black Taxi is still parked against the curb. The Driver is nowhere in sight. And a plastic case in Niko’s pocket holds the key.
XXIII.
TERRAPLANE BLUES
NIKO LEAVES THE casino without ceremony and pulls the keyholder from his pocket as he heads directly for the Black Taxi. He opens the keyholder with one hand and shakes the key out of the box. At the driver’s door he extends the key like a man making an offering to a blind man’s cup. His arm feels guided as the key finds the slot without jostle or fumble as if it had eyes. Niko turns the key and pulls the handle and opens the suicide door. Son of a bitch. His heart is yammering. He ducks into the car and through the flatpaned windshield sees stalking toward him the uniformed valet whose elbow he dislocated. Quickly but carefully Niko sets the mason jar on the leather bench seat. He starts to get out but stops suddenly. Don’t turn around. Don’t look back.
Quickly he turns and backs out of the car, straightening as the valet, swelling like a posing bodybuilder, extends an arm to shove him over. “Away from the car, chie—” Niko grabs the hand and turns it funny and a giant knucklepop cracks across the casino entryway and once again the valet’s elbow dislocates. Niko follows through and slams the blanching valet on the ground facefirst and yanks him onto his back and stomps his throat. The valet curls into a ball and tries to choke but can’t because no air can escape his crushed esophagus. Niko doubts he’ll choke to death because he’s probably already dead. If he ever was alive.
He steps around the writhing valet and slides behind the wheel of the Black Taxi. The mason jar tips toward him as he sits and Niko wedges it against his hip. He takes a deep breath and shuts the solid heavy door and elbows down the lock. Wary as he is of this car Niko feels protected now. Encased. But let’s not be lulled. Driving this car is sleeping with the enemy. Perhaps it senses who is driving it. Will it try to throw me?
Well you’re in the gate and you’ve got about ten seconds to take stock of this bronc before the buzzer sounds. You better cowboy up.
Smells of leather, lemon oil, age. A locking glove compartment. Birdseye maple instrument panels. Large round dials. A roman numeralled clock the size of his palm. xii. Midnight or noon? The speedometer goes to 120. The odometer reads 186282. The tripmeter shows a row of zeroes. Gas gauge full. No radio. Huge steering wheel. Small brake pedal, the size of the clutch. An absurd amount of legroom. The gearshift long and spindly. The passenger compartment stretches behind him like the rear of a limo. The hood sticks out a good eight feet. Its glossy black the ink of water at the bottom of the Marianas Trench. This thing is a fucking boat. Everywhere around him is metal. The car must weigh five thousand pounds. Casino lights flash and flow along the polished chassis. Something odd about that, what is it? And remembers. Above the ground the Franklin had reflected no light at all. Had been a shadow without a casting object. But here the black chassis is polished to a high gloss like a lacquered bento box.
No seatbelt. Guess that was part of the luxury package. The clutch feels like a weighted legpress. Terrific.
He looks up to adjust the rearview mirror—and jerks his head aside and bats the mirror askew.
Does a mirror count as looking back?
Table that one for now. At least there are no side mirrors to compound the issue.
Niko racks the shift lever and slides the key into the ignition. Once more his hand feels guided to the spot. Okay Houston all systems go.
Before he turns the key he looks through the slanted windshield at casino lights reflecting along the Franklin’s nightshade hood. The lights now melt toward the ground like heated wax, coalescing light cascading down the hood like thinning watercolors washing down to dim and fade and die. As it has risen like a beanstalk from this unhallowable ground so now the big casino collapses groaning back into the plain. Niko keep his gaze fixed straight ahead as the dimming structure growls and creaks and sputters and diminishes. Soon the plain is dark again. As if the casino were never there at all.
Unnerving silence follows the casino’s demise. Without the light to lend it shape the body of the Franklin is invisible now. In this lull that Niko senses will be very brief he grows aware of the key in the ignition, warm in his fingers like a living thing. He switches it on and nothing happens.
Where the casino was there now begins a growing rumble.
Niko glances around the instrument panel. Remember it’s an old car. There. Starter button. He presses it and the engine turns over but doesn’t catch. Now the heavy air is imminent with something straining to be born. Now he feels the rumble through the car. He pumps the gas and tries again. Again the engine doesn’t start. Briefly he considers getting out to push start the car. Yeah right.
The rumble strengthens. It sounds as if it’s somehow widening. Niko dares not look to see what’s going on but it sounds as if the ground itself is opening up. Don’t look don’t look don’t look.