The pimply driver reeked of alcohol, and his eyes were red like a rabbit’s, but he was extremely agitated and immediately started telling Redrick how a corpse from the cemetery showed up this morning on his street. “He came to his old house, except this house, it’s been boarded up for years, everyone has left—the old lady, his widow, and his daughter with her husband, and his grandkids. He passed away, the neighbors say, about thirty years ago, before the Visit, and now here you go—hello!—he’s turned up. He walked around and around the house, rattled the door, then sat down by the fence and just stayed there. A crowd gathered—the whole neighborhood had come to gawk—but, of course, no one had the guts to go near. Eventually, someone figured it out: broke down the door to his house, gave him a way in. And what do you know, he stood up and walked in and closed the door behind him. I had to get to work, don’t know how it turned out, all I know is that they were planning to call the Institute, so they’d take him the hell away from us. You know what they say? They say the military has been drafting an order, that these corpses, if their relatives have moved out, should be sent to them at their new place of residence. Won’t the family be delighted! And the stench of him… Well, he’s not a corpse for nothing.”
“Stop,” said Redrick. “Drop me off here.”
He rummaged in his pocket. He didn’t find any change and had to break a hundred. Then he stood by the gates, waiting for the taxi to leave. Burbridge’s cottage wasn’t bad: two floors, a glass-enclosed wing with a billiards room, a well-kept garden, a hothouse, and a white gazebo among the apple trees. And all this was surrounded by a carved iron fence, painted light green. Redrick rang the doorbell a couple of times, the gate opened with a slight squeak, and Redrick started slowly walking along a sandy path lined with rosebushes. The Gopher—gnarled, dark crimson, and quivering with enthusiasm from the desire to be of service—was already waiting on the cottage porch. Seized with impatience, he turned sideways, lowered his foot down a step, groped convulsively for support, steadied himself, then reached for the bottom step with his other foot, the entire time jerking his healthy arm in Redrick’s direction: Wait, wait, I’m coming.
“Hey, Red!” called a female voice from the garden.
Redrick turned his head and, in the greenery next to the carved white roof of the gazebo, saw bare, tanned shoulders, a bright red mouth, and a waving hand. He nodded to the Gopher, turned off the path, cut through the rosebushes, and, walking on the soft green grass, headed toward the gazebo.
A huge red mat was spread on the lawn, and on it, holding a glass in her hand, Dina Burbridge lounged regally in a minuscule bathing suit; a book with a colorful cover lay nearby, and right there, in the shadow of the bush, stood a metal ice bucket with a slender bottle neck peeking out from inside.
“What’s up, Red?” said Dina Burbridge, making a welcoming gesture with her glass. “And where’s the old man? Did he get caught again?”
Redrick came up to her and, placing his briefcase behind his back, stopped, admiring her from above. Yes, the children Burbridge had wished up in the Zone were magnificent. She was silky, luscious, sensuously curvy, without a single flaw, a single extra ounce—a hundred and twenty pounds of twenty-year-old delectable flesh—and then there were the emerald eyes, which shone from within, and the full moist lips and the even white teeth and the jet-black hair that gleamed in the sun, carelessly thrown over one shoulder; the sunlight flowed over her body, drifting from her shoulders to her stomach and hips, throwing shadows between her almost-bare breasts. He was standing over her and openly checking her out while she looked up at him, smiling knowingly; then she brought her glass to her lips and took a few sips.
“Want some?” she said, licking her lips, and, waiting just long enough for him to appreciate the double entendre, offered him the glass.
He turned away, looked around, and, finding a lounge chair in the shade, sat down and stretched his legs. “Burbridge is in the hospital,” he said. “They’ll cut off his legs.”
Still smiling, she looked at him with one eye, the other hidden behind a thick mass of hair falling over her shoulder, except her smile had frozen—it was a fixed grin on a tan face. She mechanically shook her drink, as if listening to the tinkling of the ice against the glass, and asked, “Both legs?”
“Both of them. Maybe up to the knee, and maybe higher.”
She put down the glass and swept the hair off her face. She was no longer smiling. “A pity,” she said. “That means that you, then…”
To her, Dina Burbridge, and her alone, he could have described exactly what happened and how it all was. He could have probably even described how he came back to the car, gripping the brass knuckles, and how Burbridge had begged—not even for himself, but for the kids, for her and for Archie, and how he promised the Golden Sphere. But he didn’t describe it. He silently reached into his pocket, pulled out a bundle of cash, and threw it on the red mat, next to Dina’s long bare legs. The bills spread into a colorful fan. Dina absentmindedly picked up a few and began to examine them, as if she had never seen one before but wasn’t all that interested.
“The last pay, then,” she said.
Redrick bent down from the lounge chair, reached for the bucket, and, taking out the bottle, glanced at the label. Water was trickling down the dark glass, and Redrick held the bottle off to the side so it wouldn’t drip on his pants. He didn’t like expensive whiskey, but right now it would do. And he was about to chug some straight from the bottle, but was stopped by inarticulate protesting sounds coming from behind his back. He turned around and saw the Gopher hurrying across the lawn, painfully moving his twisted legs, holding a tall glass with a clear mixture in front of him with both hands. He was sweating from the strain, perspiration poured down his dark crimson face, and his bloodshot eyes were almost popping out of their sockets; then, when he saw that Redrick was looking at him, he almost desperately held the glass out in front of him, making the same pitiful mewling sound, opening his toothless mouth wide in helpless frustration.
“I’m waiting, I’m waiting,” Redrick told him and stuck the bottle back into the ice.
The Gopher finally limped up, gave Redrick the glass, and with a timid familiarity patted his shoulder with a clawlike hand.
“Thank you, Dixon,” said Redrick seriously. “That’s exactly what I needed right now. As usual, you’re on top of your game, Dixon.”
And while the Gopher in embarrassment and delight shook his head and spasmodically beat his hip with his healthy hand, Redrick solemnly raised the glass, nodded to him, and drank half in one gulp. He looked at Dina. “Want some?” he said, showing her the glass.
She wasn’t answering. She was folding a banknote in half, then again, and again.
“Stop that,” he said. “You’ll manage. Your father—”
She interrupted him. “So you carried him out, then,” she said. She wasn’t asking, but stating. “Hauled him, the moron, through the whole Zone, carried that piece of scum on your back—you redheaded idiot, what a chance you blew!”
He looked at her, forgetting his drink, while she got up, came closer, stepping over the scattered banknotes, and stopped in front of him; she put her fists on her hips, blocking the whole world from him with her incredible body, smelling of sweet sweat and perfume.
“He has all you idiots wrapped around his finger… Dancing on your bones, on your skulls… You just wait, you just wait, he’ll be dancing on your bones on crutches, he’ll still show you brotherly love and mercy!” She was now almost shrieking. “Promised you the Golden Sphere, huh? Maps and traps, huh? Moron! I can tell from your freckled mug that he promised. You just wait, he’ll still show you a map, may the foolish soul of redheaded idiot Redrick Schuhart rest in peace…”