The Best of Lucius Shepard (29 page)

Mingolla
rubbed at the blood on his shaking hand, hoping that cleaning it would have
some good effect.

“Are you
listening?” the lieutenant asked.

Mingolla had
a peculiar perception of the lieutenant and the corpse as dummy and
ventriloquist. Despite its glowing eyes, the corpse had too much reality for
any trick of the light to gloss over for long. Precise crescents showed on its
fingernails, and because its head was tipped to the left, blood had settled
into that side, darkening its cheek and temple, leaving the rest of the face
pallid. It was the lieutenant, with his neat khakis and polished shoes and nice
haircut, who now looked less than real.

“Listen!”
said the lieutenant vehemently. “I want you to understand that I have to do
what’s right for me!” The bicep of his gun arm bunched to the size of a
cannonball.

“I
understand,” said Mingolla, thoroughly unnerved.

“Do you? Do
you really?” The lieutenant seemed aggravated by Mingolla’s claim to
understanding. “I doubt it. I doubt you could possibly understand.”

“Maybe I
can’t,” said Mingolla. “Whatever you say, man. I’m just trying to get along,
y’know.”

The
lieutenant sat silent, blinking. Then he smiled. “My name’s Jay,” he said. “And
you are ... ?”

“David.”
Mingolla tried to bring his concentration to bear on the gun, wondering if he
could kick it away, but the sliver of life in his hand distracted him.

“Where are
your quarters, David?”

“Level
Three.”

“I live
here,” said Jay. “But I’m going to move. I couldn’t bear to stay in a place
where ... “ He broke off and leaned forward, adopting a conspiratorial stance.
“Did you know it takes a long time for someone to die, even after their heart
has stopped?”

“No, I
didn’t.” The thing in Mingolla’s hand squirmed toward his wrist, and he
squeezed the wrist, trying to block it.

“It’s true,”
said Jay with vast assurance. “None of these people”—he gave the corpse a
gentle nudge with his elbow, a gesture that conveyed to Mingolla a creepy sort
of familiarity—”have finished dying. Life doesn’t just switch off. It fades.
And these people are still alive, though it’s only a half-life.” He grinned.
“The half-life of life, you might say.”

Mingolla
kept the pressure on his wrist and smiled, as if in appreciation of the play on
words. Pale red tendrils of mist curled between them.

“Of course
you aren’t attuned,” said Jay. “So you wouldn’t understand. But I’d be lost
without Eligio.”

“Who’s
Eligio?”

Jay nodded
toward the corpse. “We’re attuned, Eligio and I. That’s how I know we’re safe.
Eligio’s perceptions aren’t limited to the here and now any longer. He’s with
his men at this very moment, and he tells me they’re all dead or dying.”

“Uh-huh,”
said Mingolla, tensing. He had managed to squeeze the thing in his hand back
into his fingers, and he thought he might be able to reach the gun. But Jay
disrupted his plan by shifting the gun to his other hand. His eyes seemed to be
growing more reflective, acquiring a ruby glaze, and Mingolla realized this was
because he had opened them wide and angled his stare toward the emergency
lights.

“It makes
you wonder,” said Jay. “It really does.”

“What?” said
Mingolla, easing sideways, shortening the range for a kick.

“Half-lives,”
said Jay. “If the mind has a half-life, maybe our separate emotions do, too.
The half-life of love, of hate. Maybe they still exist somewhere.” He drew up
his knees, shielding the gun. “Anyway, I can’t stay here. I think I’ll go back
to Oakland.” His tone became whispery. “Where are you from, David?”

“New York.”

“Not my cup
of tea,” said Jay. “But I love the Bay Area. I own an antique shop there. It’s
beautiful in the mornings. Peaceful. The sun comes through the window, creeping
across the floor, y’know, like a tide, inching up over the furniture. It’s as
if the original varnishes are being reborn, the whole shop shining with ancient
lights.”

“Sounds
nice,” said Mingolla, taken aback by Jay’s lyricism.

“You seem
like a good person.” Jay straightened up a bit. “But I’m sorry. Eligio tells me
your mind’s too cloudy for him to read. He says I can’t risk keeping you alive.
I’m going to have to shoot.”

Mingolla set
himself to kick, but then listlessness washed over him. What the hell did it
matter? Even if he knocked the gun away, Jay could probably break him in half.
“Why?” he said. “Why do you have to?”

“You might
inform on me.” Jay’s soft features sagged into a sorrowful expression. “Tell
them I was hiding.”

“Nobody
gives a shit you were hiding,” said Mingolla. “That’s what I was doing. I bet
there’s fifty other guys doing the same damn thing.”

“I don’t
know.” Jay’s brow furrowed. “I’ll ask again. Maybe your mind’s less cloudy
now.” He turned his gaze to the dead man.

Mingolla
noticed that the Cuban’s irises were angled upward and to the left—exactly the
same angle to which Jay’s eyes had drifted earlier—and reflected an identical
ruby glaze.

“Sorry,”
said Jay, leveling the gun. “I have to.” He licked his lips. “Would you please
turn your head? I’d rather you weren’t looking at me when it happens. That’s
how Eligio and I became attuned.”

Looking into
the aperture of the gun’s muzzle was like peering over a cliff, feeling the
chill allure of falling and, it was more out of contrariness than a will to
survive that Mingolla popped his eyes at Jay and said, “Go ahead.”

Jay blinked
but he held the gun steady. “Your hand’s shaking,” he said after a pause.

“No shit,”
said Mingolla.

“How come
it’s shaking?”

“Because I
killed someone with it,” said Mingolla. “Because I’m as fucking crazy as you
are.”

Jay mulled
this over. “I was supposed to be assigned to a gay unit,” he said finally. “But
all the slots were filled, and when I had to be assigned here they gave me a
drug. Now I ... I ... “ He blinked rapidly, his lips parted, and Mingolla found
that he was straining toward Jay, wanting to apply Body English, to do
something to push him over this agonizing hump. “I can’t ... be with men
anymore,” Jay finished, and once again blinked rapidly; then his words came
easier. “Did they give you a drug, too? I mean I’m not trying to imply you’re
gay. It’s just they have drugs for everything these days, and I thought that
might be the problem.”

Mingolla was
suddenly, inutterably sad. He felt that his emotions had been twisted into a
thin black wire, that the wire was frayed and spraying black sparks of sadness.
That was all that energized him, all his life. Those little black sparks.

“I always
fought before,” said Jay. “And I was fighting this time. But when I shot Eligio
... I just couldn’t keep going.”

“I really
don’t give a shit,” said Mingolla. “I really don’t.”

“Maybe I
can
trust you.” Jay sighed. “I just wish you were attuned. Eligio’s a good
soul. You’d appreciate him.”

Jay kept on
talking, enumerating Eligio’s virtues, and Mingolla tuned him out, not wanting
to hear about the Cuban’s love for his family, his posthumous concerns for
them. Staring at his bloody hand, he had a magical overview of the situation.
Sitting in the root cellar of this evil mountain, bathed in an eerie red glow,
a scrap of a dead man’s life trapped in his flesh, listening to a deranged
giant who took his orders from a corpse, waiting for scorpion soldiers to pour
through a tunnel that appeared to lead into a dimension of mist and blackness.
It was insane to look at it that way. But there it was. You couldn’t reason it
away; it had a brutal glamour that surpassed reason, that made reason
unnecessary.

“ ... and
once you’re attuned,” Jay was saying, “you can’t ever be separated. Not even by
death. So Eligio’s always going to be alive inside me. Of course I can’t let
them find out. I mean”—he chuckled, a sound like dice rattling in a cup—”talk
about giving aid and comfort to the enemy!”

Mingolla
lowered his head, closed his eyes. Maybe Jay would shoot. But he doubted that.
Jay only wanted company in his madness.

“You swear
you won’t tell them?” Jay asked.

“Yeah,” said
Mingolla. “I swear.”

“All right,”
said Jay. “But remember, my future’s in your hands. You have a responsibility
to me.”

“Don’t
worry.”

Gunfire
crackled in the distance.

“I’m glad we
could talk,” said Jay. “I feel much better.”

Mingolla
said that he felt better, too.

They sat
without speaking. It wasn’t the most secure way to pass the night, but Mingolla
no longer put any store in the concept of security. He was too weary to be
afraid. Jay seemed entranced, staring at a point above Mingolla’s head, but
Mingolla made no move for the gun. He was content to sit and wait and let fate
take its course. His thoughts uncoiled with vegetable sluggishness.

They must
have been sitting a couple of hours when Mingolla heard the whisper of
helicopters and noticed that the mist had thinned, that the darkness at the end
of the tunnel had gone gray. “Hey,” he said to Jay. “I think we’re okay now.”
Jay offered no reply, and Mingolla saw that his eyes were angled upward and to
the left just like the Cuban’s eyes, glazed over with ruby reflection.
Tentatively, he reached out and touched the gun. Jay’s hand flopped to the
floor, but his fingers remained clenched around the butt. Mingolla recoiled,
disbelieving. It couldn’t be! Again he reached out, feeling for a pulse. Jay’s
wrist was cool, still, and his lips had a bluish cast. Mingolla had a flutter
of hysteria, thinking that Jay had gotten it wrong about being attuned: instead
of Eligio becoming part of his life, he had become part of Eligio’s death.
There was a tightness in Mingolla’s chest, and he thought he was going to cry.
He would have welcomed tears, and when they failed to materialize he grew both
annoyed at himself and defensive. Why should he cry? The guy had meant nothing
to him ... though the fact that he could be so devoid of compassion was reason
enough for tears. Still, if you were going to cry over something as commonplace
as a single guy dying, you’d be crying every minute of the day, and what was
the future in that? He glanced at Jay. At the Cuban. Despite the smoothness of
Jay’s skin, the Cuban’s bushy beard, Mingolla could have sworn they were
starting to resemble each other the way old married couples did. And, yep, all
four eyes were fixed on exactly the same point of forever. It was either a hell
of a coincidence or else Jay’s craziness had been of such magnitude that he had
willed himself to die in this fashion just to lend credence to his theory of
half-lives. And maybe he was still alive. Half alive. Maybe he and Mingolla
were now attuned, and if that were true, maybe ... Revolted by the prospect of
joining Jay and the Cuban in their deathwatch, Mingolla scrambled to his feet
and ran into the tunnel. He might have kept running, but on coming out into the
dawn light he was brought up short by the view from the tunnel entrance.

At his back,
the green dome of the hill swelled high, its sides brocaded with shrubs and
vines, an infinity of pattern as eyecatching as the intricately carved facade
of a Hindu temple; atop it, one of the gun emplacements had taken a hit:
splinters of charred metal curved up like peels of black rind. Before him lay
the moat of red dirt with its hedgerows of razor wire, and beyond that loomed
the blackish-green snarl of the jungle. Caught on the wire were hundreds of
baggy shapes wearing bloodstained fatigues; frays of smoke twisted up from the
fresh craters beside them. Overhead, half-hidden by the lifting gray mist,
three Sikorskys were hovering. Their pilots were invisible behind layers of
mist and reflection, and the choppers themselves looked like enormous carrion
flies with bulging eyes and whirling wings. Like devils. Like gods. They seemed
to be whispering to one another in anticipation of the feast they were soon to
share.