Reaching the Big Blue wet feature, he parks. Gets out. A large "salami" wrapped in butcher paper is cradled in his arms. He sees a desolate river rat shack and is drawn to it. There is no sign of any presence but the heart-eater waits patiently, listening with his mind, and a watcher could not possibly hope to understand why he wastes time on a lonely unpaved access road, or near a rotting shack at the edge of the river.
He buys unleaded for the gas-guzzler. As he pays, the back of a dollar bill nudges him with its pyramid graphic art. "Eye in the sky." A taunting thing he pushes back for now.
Chaingang knows many things, Dr. Norman: ontology, cosmology, epistemology, triggernometry. He carries his killer salami back to the car and a quarter ton of monster lurches down on the springs; he grinds it to life and eases back out in the world of monkeys.
Passes low lifes. Urban rot. Doorway winos twitching in the throes of the jittery jim-jams from Sterno and muscatel and subripples of wet Missouri skid-row dreams. Pig eyes watch as a black whore moves her arm in play despair and a chinky jingle of bijoux can be heard from the trinkets she wears. Two hours before sunset and the Kansas City sky is like looking at sunlight through the bottom of a lithophane beer mug. He smells faraway rain.
The huge beast keeps driving the quadrants. Waiting for his unique sensory banks to hunt, excited by the proprioceptive stimuli that make him sui generis. Moves back along the blue—drawn to it himself, truth be known. It is here he would set up if their roles had been reversed. Here is where he would feel most comfortable performing those SAUCOG-otomies with surgical precision.
Bunkowski's bibliomania has taught him many things, Dr. Norman—and as his weird mind scans for traces of a dangerous presence, he sees that a more appropriate analogy for the overcast sky would be Meissen bisque porcelain. That in turns makes him think of Elaine Roach and he visualizes her identifying him to a chief postal inspector, but intenerates his reaction to this treachery. He cannot help but think of the poor lady fondly. Certainly, she is as out of place on the planet of the monkey men as is he. He should have removed her from mortal coil. He sees himself leaving a trace at Mr. Hy's in Crown Plaza, recalls a moment when he burnt in an image, how that description will lead to a Mr. Cunningham who advertised for help at the Hyatt Regency, and, of course, to Tommy Norville of the Norville Galleries on East Minnesota Avenue.
With a start, he jerks his mind to matters at hand. An old woman, staring at him boldly from a street comer, looks—just for a half second—like Mrs. Garbella. Daniel is quite disappointed. He will find her in due time and extract an appropriate measure of her life force.
Back on another access road. Another knoll overlooking miles of monkey targets. Macroscopic floating vegetation weaves slimy green pleustonic mats across the surface of the water. A happy little goldfinch flutters across the road. Anything that is alive, he will sense it.
He looks up and sees, on a utility pole, a huge nest-probably built by sparrows but as big as two squirrel's nests placed end to end. Nearby a cluster of white gourds, bleached by the sun, hang from a pole. The holes are hotel rooms into which mocking birds, indigos, and others he cannot identify check in and out. He sees sign—animal and human sign—even from the moving car. The vibes are still.
If you see him perhaps you will have sensed him before-if only momentarily. When he lumbers into view, if he is on shank's mare, you will recoil as you're caught in a stinking downdraft of raw body odors and unspeakable vileness. If he is in a vehicle and catches your eye, look away. The heart-eater hungers for a kill.
In the front seat of the stolen car is a map decorated in circles. But Chaingang heeds neither azimuth nor monitor. He has slipped beyond graded rings or grids of probability. He is somewhere east of Oceanus Aethiopicus, south of Septentrio, north of Lis Incognita, on a heading west, his back and shoulder to the Mar del Norte.
Distance is no longer measured in miles but by bathymetry. He is a shark swimming in lazy dangerous circles, drawn by the smell of blood in the water as he goes down deeper into the land of the lost.
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25
Trask supposed that it was pointless to continue working on the notes about American violence, considering that he had no outlet for the research. But at this juncture it was as much momentum as anything that had kept him working on the story—if indeed it was a story. He was too logy to begin looking for another job yet, and he couldn't sit around watching television, so immersing himself in the homicides was a harmless obsession, he felt. He was razoring clippings and assembling his voluminous notes chronologically when a knock surprised him.
"Hey," he said through the opening in the door, astonished to see the attractive face of Barb Rose, of all people.
"Hi. Any chance I could talk to you for a second?"
"Yeah. Come on in." Why the hell not? He opened the door wide and ushered her in.
"Thanks. Feeling about the same?"
"Pretty much. I'm a little better. I don't get many colds or flu bugs but when I do…they take forever to shake. Have a seat." He pointed to the only available place besides his own chair where he was working, and was suddenly conscious of all the clippings and work-ups adorning his apartment walls. No reason to hide them now, he supposed.
"I'm not going to stay, hon. I just—" She held out a small bag. "Brought you something for your cold. Go ahead and have some while it's still warm."
"Thanks." He almost said—jokingly—what is it, a cup of hemlock? But he sat it on the little bar between the kitchen and living area and took the lid off the container. "Ahh! Smells good." Yellow thick broth of some kind.
"Chicken soup," she said, with a smile. "Fix you right up. I thought you might need some." She was rather self-conscious all of a sudden, and moved toward the door. "I'm going, Vic. I just wanted to tell you I heard about you leaving and stuff and wanted to say goodbye."
"Come on. Stay for a little while. Sit. If you don't mind the mess—and aren't afraid I'll give you whatever I've got. I'd appreciate the company." He meant it, surprising himself as he said it. Every time he was able to think clearly, he could see more and more what a total horse's ass he'd been. He thought he'd been particularly shitty about Barb.
"Okay. But just for a minute." She sat on the edge of the sofa. "I'll stay to make sure you eat that." She laughed warmly.
"Right." He got a spoon and tried some. "Umm. That's very good."
"We Jews are great believers in the healing properties of some good hot chick' n soup!" She gave the word a comedic emphasis. Trask took a few more spoonfuls. Tried not to slurp, but it was difficult. "This stuff is delicious." The more soup he ate the better Barb Rose looked to him. "I gotta say something to you before you leave. And not just because you brought me chick' n soup. I've been a real asshole. Toward you."
"You're right. What can I say?" She had a beautiful smile.
"Don't cover up your feelings like that, Barb. You gotta learn to say what you really think." They both laughed. "But I know I have. I can't explain it. I…"
"That's the past. Forget it. I wasn't always such an easy person to work with. We're a lot alike. Very competitive."
"Yeah. That's for sure. I haven't been thinking clearly…about a lot of things, of which—of whom—you were one. Anyway—hope you'll accept my apology."
"Not necessary. I thought you got a real bum deal at the station, by the way. Not that my opinion is worth anything. I suppose you know I'm leaving?"