“You and Muninn, it’s like Jesus and Lucifer, isn’t it? One’s all heart and one’s all head.”
He puts the crystal in a pocket of his red waistcoat. It’s a tight fit.
“He’s the youngest. I’m the oldest. You do the math.”
“What happens if Aelita kills one of you?”
He leans over the wall and looks down at the street.
“See that manhole down there? I have a feeling if you went down inside and walked exactly three hundred and thirty-three paces west, you’ll find where you want to go.”
“Seriously? Why that number?”
“Because that’s how many it is. Not three hundred and thirty-two or three hundred and thirty-four. Count off three hundred and thirty-three and look around. You’ll be there.”
“Seriously? Thanks, man. And after all the things I’ve said about you over the years.”
“Don’t worry. I’ve said the same about you.”
“Will you be here when I’m done up the hill?”
He shrugs.
“Hard to say. I work in mysterious ways.”
I start for the ramp wondering if I’ll need something to pry up the manhole cover.
“Nice meeting you, Spider-Man!”
I look back. Neshamah is waving, a shit-eating grin plastered on his face. I have no choice. I start an old tune my mother used to belt out when she had just the right number of martinis.
At the Devil’s ball
In the Devil’s hall
I saw the funniest devil that I ever saw
Dancing with the Devil
Oh, you little devil
Dancing at the Devil’s ball
He turns back to the city.
“Yeah, fuck you, too, kid.”
THERE’S A KID’S game that goes something like this: “Don’t think of a white bear for half an hour and you win a dollar.” No one ever wins because the moment anyone says “white bear,” that’s all you can think about. Being told your life depends on walking exactly 333 steps is a lot like that. You count on your fingers, but what if you get distracted and drop a number? What if you repeat one? How do you know each step you’re taking is the same distance as all the others? I should have a calculator, a tape measure, and Rain Man as a guide. If I count wrong and don’t find a way out, maybe I should keep on walking. No. I could end up in here forever, and if it’s only one Apocalypse per customer I don’t want to miss it.
330. 331. 332. 333.
I stop and look around. Light comes through a crack in the wall to my left. I dig a finger into the crack. It feels like a service door that’s been welded shut but it was a sloppy job and the dampness in the tunnels has been working on the joins ever since. I push my new hand into the crack, gouging out layers of corroded iron and faded paint. The new hand works pretty well. It feels the shape and roughness of the metal, be tthe metut it doesn’t bleed or register pain. I might just have to keep it.
When there’s a clean clear crack an inch wide in the door, I brace my feet and put my shoulder and body into it. The metal slides away, scattering sewer fungus and oak-leaf-size sheets of rust.
Ragged lunatics are asleep on the floor and dirty mattresses dragged down from the wards upstairs. They don’t look so different from the ones I saw on the street. Maybe these are a little farther down the road to Candy Land. The others managed to run away, but these bedlam sheep never left the pasture. They drool and stare at me as I step through the old service door.
I’m in the lobby of what back home is the Griffith Park Observatory. This version doesn’t look like Galileo would stop by for a piss. The floors and walls are bare cement. A large open ward and single cells in a circle are around the bottom floor. All the cell doors are unlocked or have been smashed open.