Carlos thinks with some longing that in a better world, where people were honest, the jacket of his own book might be up there, as well. True Tales of Demon Infestations, with a photo of the one and only Carlos Detweiller on the cover. Smoking a pipe, perhaps, and looking Lovecrafty. That is not to be... but they will pay. Kenton, at least, will pay.
The hall looks empty except for the framed covers and the doors to the editorial cubicles beyond them, but the newcomer knows better. “Carlos, you weren't born yesterday or even the day before,” as Mr. Keen might have said in happier times, times when people didn't forget who was supposed to win all the card games.
Looks, however, can be deceiving.
With the garlic-rubbed portal behind him, Carlos can easily smell the Tibetan kadath ivy he has sent John Kenton, and he smells its true aroma: not popcorn, chocolate, coffee, honeysuckle, or Shalimar perfume but a darker odor, strict and sharp. It isn't oil of clove, but perhaps that comes closest. It is a smell Carlos has detected emanating from his own armpits when he has been being strenuously psykik.
He closes his eyes and murmurs, “Talla. Demeter. Abbalah. Great Opoponax.” He breathes deep and the smell intensifies, filling his head, making it swim with visions that are dark and full of gusty-cold flying. They are visions of the land to which he will soon be going, the place where he will make his transition from earthy mortal to tulpa, a creature of the invisible world fully capable of returning to this one and possessing the bodies of the still-living. Perhaps he will use this power; perhaps he will not. Right now, such things do not matter.
He opens his eyes again and yes, there is the kadath. It is growing all over the walls and the carpet, thinning as it advances toward the reception area, thick and luxuriant further down the corridor. Somewhere down there, Carlos knows, is the place where the original pot still resides, buried in billowing drifts of green which would be invisible to all those who don't believe in the plant's power. The far end of the corridor looks as impenetrable as a rainforest jungle, buried in growth right up to the fluorescents, but Carlos knows people could walk blithely up and down that corridor with absolutely no idea of what they were walking through... unless, of course, Zenith wanted them to know. In which case it would be the last thing they'd ever know. Basically, Zenith House is now a large green bear trap, spring-loaded.
Carlos walks down the corridor, Sakred Sakrifice Case held at chest level. He steps over the first trailing strand of Zenith, then an entire clot of entwined branches and rhizomes. One stirs and touches his ankle. Carlos stands patiently, and after a moment the strand drops away. Here, on the left, is the office of WADE EDITOR IN CHIEF. Carlos glances in without much interest, then passes on to the next door. Here the ivy-growth is much thicker, the strands covering the lower part of the door in zigzag patterns and twining around the knob in a loose lover's knot. One strand clings to the upper panel, which is glass, and streaks across the name like a stroke of green lightning.
“Kenton,” Carlos says in a low voice. “You mocker.”
10:44 A. M.
In Herb Porter's office, General Anthony Hecksler opens his eyes. The thought that he may have dreamed the voice never so much as crosses his mind. What he has heard is this: Kenton, you mockie.
Someone else is in the Zenith House offices.
Someone else on a Saturday morning.
Iron-Guts has a pretty good idea who the someone else must be.
“Tick-tick,” he whispers, his lips barely moving. “Designated spic.”
In his doze, Hecksler has slid down a bit in Porter's chair. Now he slides even farther, wanting to make absolutely sure that the top of his head won't show if the D. S. should wander a few yards farther down the hall. It's okay for “Carlos” to see the mess in here as long as he doesn't see the man in here.
Silent as a sigh, Hecksler eases his hand into the pocket of his pants and pulls out another of his Army-Navy store purchases: a bone-handled hunting knife with a seven-inch tungsten blade.
There is the faintest click as the General unfolds the blade and locks it into position. He holds it against his chest, the tip nearly touching the undershelf of his stringently shaved chin, and waits for whatever comes next.
Central Park Skies fair, winds light, temperature 60 F.
10:50 A. M.
Bill Gelb is so excited about his planned excursion to Paramus that he hardly slept at all last night, and still he feels energized this Saturday morning, totally jazzed. He couldn't stay in the goddam apartment, just couldn't. The question was, where to go? Ordinarily he'd think movie, Bill loves the movies, but he couldn't sit still in one today. And then, in the shower, the answer came.
On a Saturday morning in Central Park, especially on a pretty spring morning like this one, there'll be a veritable Olympic games going on, everything from skateboarding and pick-up softball to chess and checkers.
There will also be a crap game going on at the edge of the Sheep Meadow; of this Bill is almost sure. It may have been closed down, but he can't imagine why the cops would bust such an innocuous game: low stakes, young white guys pretending to be cool dudes rolling the bones. Seven come eleven, baby needs a new pair of Adidas sneakers. A bottle or two of cheap wine will make the rounds, allowing the players to feel totally raffish, not to say decadent, shooting craps and drinking Night Train at eleven o'clock in the morning.
Bill has played in this game maybe half a dozen times over the last two years, always in warm weather. He likes to gamble, but shooting craps in Central Park when the temperature is below forty? No way. But today WINS radio says the mercury may shoot all the way up to an unseasonable seventy degrees, and besides... what better way to see if the force is still with him?
Which is why—as Riddley's train approaches Manhattan, as Sandra and her niece continue their whirlwind tour of Cony Island's early-season amusements, as Carlos Detweiller begins inspecting “Poop-Shit” Kenton's files, and General Hecksler sits slouched in Herb Porter's office chair, knife gleaming in the sunlight—we find Bill Gelb down on his knees in a circle of yelling, laughing white guys who are happy to fade his heat. Lucky son of a bitch got in the game, bet two guys to crap out (and won), then took the dice himself. Since then he's rolled five straight sevens. Now he's promising them a sixth, and further promising them it'll be sixty-one. Dude is crazy, so of course they're happy to fade him. And Bill is happy, as well. As happy as he's ever been in his life, it seems to him. He showed up here on the Meadow with just fifteen dollars in his pocket, deliberately leaving the rest of his cash at home; he's already tripled that. And this, by God, is just the warmup! Tonight, in Paramus, he will sit down to the main course.
“God bless that crazy houseplant,” he murmurs, and rolls the dice onto the painted hopscotch grid that serves as the pit. They bounce, they roll, they tumble—
—and the Saturday morning yuppie crap-artists groan in mingled disbelief, despair, and amazement.
It's six and one.
Bill snatches up the wad of currency lying on the HOME slot of the hopscotch grid, smacks it, and holds it up to the bright blue sky, laughing.
“You want to pass the dice, Mr. Lucky?” one of the other players asks.
“When I'm on a roll like this?” Bill Gelb leans forward and snatches the dice. “No fuckin way.” The bones feel warm in his hand. Someone hands him a bottle of Boone's Farm and he takes a hit. “No fuckin way am I passing,” he repeats. “Gents, I'm going to roll these bones until the spots fall off.”