Black House

24

D'YAMBA IS A BRIGHT and powerful spell; powerful connections form a web that extends, ramifying, throughout infinity. When Jack Sawyer peels the living poison from Mouse's eyes, d'yamba first shines within the dying man's mind, and that mind momentarily expands into knowledge; down the filaments of the web flows some measure of its shining strength, and soon a touch of d'yamba reaches Henry Leyden. Along the way, the d'yamba brushes Tansy Freneau, who, seated in a windowed alcove of the Sand Bar, observes a wry, beautiful young woman take smiling shape in the pool of light at the far end of the parking lot and realizes, a moment before the young woman vanishes, that she has been given a glimpse of the person her Irma would have become; and it touches Dale Gilbertson, who while driving home from the station experiences a profound, sudden yearning for the presence of Jack Sawyer, a yearning like an ache in his heart, and vows to pursue the Fisherman case to the end with him, no matter what the obstacles; the d'yamba quivers flashing down a filament to Judy Marshall and opens a window into Faraway, where Ty sleeps in an iron-colored cell, awaiting rescue and still alive; within Charles Burnside, it touches the true Fisherman, Mr. Munshun, once known as the Monday Man, just as Burny's knuckles rap the glass. Mr. Munshun feels a subtle drift of cold air infiltrate his chest like a warning, and freezes with rage and hatred at this violation; Charles Burnside, who knows nothing of d'yamba and cannot hate it, picks up his master's emotion and remembers the time when a boy supposed dead in Chicago crept out of a canvas sack and soaked the back seat of his car in incriminating blood. Damnably incriminating blood, a substance that continued to mock him long after he had washed away its visible traces. But Henry Leyden, with whom we began this chain, is visited not by grace or rage; what touches Henry is a kind of informed clarity.

Rhoda's visits, he realizes, were one and all produced by his loneliness. The only thing he heard climbing the steps was his unending need for his wife. And the being on the other side of his studio door is the horrible old man from Maxton's, who intends to do to Henry the same thing he has done to three children. Who else would appear at this hour and knock on the studio window? Not Dale, not Jack, and certainly not Elvena Morton. Everyone else would stay outside and ring the doorbell.

It takes Henry no more than a couple of seconds to consider his options and work out a rudimentary plan. He supposes himself both quicker and stronger than the Fisherman, who sounded like a man in his mid- to late eighties; and the Fisherman does not know that his would-be victim is aware of his identity. To take advantage of this situation, Henry has to appear puzzled but amiable, as if he is merely curious about his visitor. And once he opens the studio door, which unfortunately he has left unlocked, he will have to act with speed and decisiveness.

Are we up to this? Henry asks himself, and thinks, We'd better be.

Are the lights on? No; because he expected to be alone, he never bothered with the charade of switching them on. The question then becomes: How dark is it outside? Maybe not quite dark enough, Henry imagines ¡ª an hour later, he would be able to move through the house entirely unseen and escape through the back door. Now his odds are probably no better than fifty-fifty, but the sun is sinking at the back of his house, and every second he can delay buys him another fraction of darkness in the living room and kitchen.

Perhaps two seconds have passed since the lurking figure rapped on the window, and Henry, who has maintained the perfect composure of one who failed to hear the sound made by his visitor, can stall no longer. Pretending to be lost in thought, with one hand he grips the base of a heavy Excellence in Broadcasting award accepted in absentia by George Rathbun some years before and with the other scoops from a shallow tray before him a switchblade an admirer once left at the university radio station as a tribute to the Wisconsin Rat. Henry uses the knife to unwrap CD jewel boxes, and not long ago, in search of something to do with his hands, he taught himself how to sharpen it. With its blade retracted, the knife resembles an odd, flat fountain pen. Two weapons are twice as good as one, he thinks, especially if your adversary imagines the second weapon to be harmless.

Now it has been four seconds since the rapping came from the window by his side, and in their individual ways both Burny and Mr. Mun-shun have grown considerably more restive. Mr. Munshun recoils in loathing from the suggestion of d'yamba that has somehow contaminated this otherwise delightful scene. Its appearance can mean one thing only, that some person connected to the blind man managed to get close enough to Black House to have tasted the poisons of its ferocious guardian. And that in turn means that now the hateful Jack Sawyer undoubtedly knows of the existence of Black House and intends to breach its defenses. It is time to destroy the blind man and return home.

Burny registers only an inchoate mixture of hatred and an emotion surprisingly like fear from within his master. Burny feels rage at Henry Leyden's appropriation of his voice, for he knows it represents a threat; even more than this self-protective impulse, he feels a yearning for the simple but profound pleasure of bloodletting. When Henry has been butchered, Charles Burnside wishes to claim one more victim before flying to Black House and entering a realm he thinks of as Sheol.

His big, misshapen knuckles rap once more against the glass.

Henry turns his head to the window in a flawless imitation of mild surprise. "I thought someone was out there. Who is it? . . . Come on, speak up. " He toggles a switch and speaks into the mike: "If you're saying anything, I can't hear you. Give me a second or two to get organized in here, and I'll be right out. " He faces forward again and hunches over his desk. His left hand seems idly to touch his handsome award; his right hand is hidden from sight. Henry appears to be deep in concentration. In reality, he is listening as hard as he ever has in his life.

He hears the handle on the studio door revolve clockwise with a marvelous slowness. The door whispers open an inch, two inches, three. The floral, musky scent of My Sin invades the studio, seeming to coat a thin chemical film over the mike, the tape canisters, all the dials, and the back of Henry's deliberately exposed neck. The sole of what sounds like a carpet slipper hushes over the floor. Henry tightens his hands on his weapons and waits for the particular sound that will be his signal. He hears another nearly soundless step, then another, and knows the Fisherman has moved behind him. He carries some weapon of his own, something that cuts through the mist of perfume with the grassy smell of front yards and the smoothness of machine oil. Henry cannot imagine what this is, but the movement of the air tells him it is heavier than a knife. Even a blind man can see that. An awkwardness in the way the Fisherman takes his next oh-so-quiet step suggests to Henry that the old fellow holds this weapon with both of his hands.

An image has formed in Henry's mind, that of his adversary standing behind him poised to strike, and to this image he now adds extended, upraised arms. The hands hold an instrument like garden shears. Henry has his own weapons, the best of these being surprise, but the surprise must be well timed to be effective. In fact, if Henry is to avoid a quick and messy death, his timing has to be perfect. He lowers his neck farther over the desk and awaits the signal. His calm surprises him.

A man standing unobserved with an object like garden shears or a heavy pair of scissors in his hands behind a seated victim will, before delivering the blow, take a long second to arch his back and reach up, to get a maximum of strength into the downward stroke. As he extends his arms and arches his back, his clothing will shift on his body. Fabric will slide over flesh; one fabric may pull against another; a belt may creak. There will be an intake of breath. An ordinary person would hear few or none of these telltale disturbances, but Henry Leyden can be depended upon to hear them all.

Then at last he does. Cloth rubs against skin and rustles against itself; air hisses into Burny's nasal passages. Instantly, Henry shoves his chair backward and in the same movement spins around and swings the award toward his assailant as he stands upright. It work

s! He feels the force of the blow run down his arm and hears a grunt of shock and pain. The odor of My Sin fills his nostrils. The chair bumps the top of his knees. Henry pushes the button on the switchblade, feels the long blade leap out, and thrusts it forward. The knife punches into flesh. From eight inches before his face comes a scream of outrage. Again, Henry batters the award against his attacker, then yanks the knife free and shoves it home again. Skinny arms tangle around his neck and shoulders, filling him with revulsion, and foul breath washes into his face.

He becomes aware that he has been injured, for a pain that is sharp on the surface and dull beneath announces itself on the left side of his back. The goddamn hedge clippers, he thinks and jabs again with the knife. This time, he stabs only empty air. A rough hand closes on his elbow, and another grips his shoulder. The hands pull him forward, and to keep upright he rests his knee on the seat of the chair. A long nose bangs against the bridge of his own nose and jars his sunglasses. What follows fills him with disgust: two rows of teeth like broken clamshells fasten on his left cheek and saw through the skin. Blood sluices down his face. The rows of teeth come together and rip away an oval wedge of Henry's skin, and over the white jolt of pain, which is incredible, worse by far than the pain in his back, he can hear his blood spatter against the old monster's face. Fear and revulsion, along with an amazing amount of adrenaline, give him the strength to lash out with the knife as he spins away from the man's grip. The blade connects with some moving part of the Fisherman's body ¡ª an arm, he thinks.

Before he can feel anything like satisfaction, he hears the sound of the hedge clippers slicing the air before they bite into his knife hand. It happens almost before he can take it in: the hedge clippers' blades tear through his skin, snap the bones, and sever the last two fingers on his right hand.

And then, as if the hedge clippers were the Fisherman's last contact with him, he is free. Henry's foot finds the edge of the door, kicks it aside, and he propels his body through the open space. He lands on a floor so sticky his feet slide when he tries to get up. Can all of that blood be his?

The voice he had been studying in another age, another era, comes from the studio door. "You stabbed me, you asswipe moke. "

Henry is not waiting around to listen; Henry is on the move, wishing he did not feel that he was leaving a clear, wide trail of blood behind him. Somehow, he seems to be drenched in the stuff, his shirt is sodden with it, and the back of his legs are wet. Blood continues to gush down his face, and in spite of the adrenaline, Henry can feel his energy dissipating. How much time does he have before he bleeds to death ¡ª twenty minutes?

He slides down the hallway and runs into the living room.

I'm not going to get out of this, Henry thinks. I've lost too much blood. But at least I can make it through the door and die outside, where the air is fresh.

From the hallway, the Fisherman's voice reaches him. "I ate part of your cheek, and now I'm going to eat your fingers. Are you listening to me, you moke of an asshole?"

Henry makes it to the door. His hand slips and slips on the knob; the knob resists him. He feels for the lock button, which has been depressed.

"I said, are you listening?" The Fisherman is coming closer, and his voice is full of rage.

All Henry has to do is push the button that unlocks the door and turn the knob. He could be out of the house in a second, but his remaining fingers will not obey orders. All right, I'm going to die, he says to himself. I'll follow Rhoda, I'll follow my Lark, my beautiful Lark.

A sound of chewing, complete with smacking lips and crunching noises. "You taste like shit. I'm eating your fingers, and they taste like shit. You know what I like? Know my all-time favorite meal? The buttocks of a tender young child. Albert Fish liked that too, oh yes he did. Mmm-mmm! BABY BUTT! That's GOOD EATIN'!"

Henry realizes that he has somehow slipped all the way down the unopenable door and is now resting, breathing far too heavily, on his hands and knees. He shoves himself forward and crawls behind the Mission-style sofa, from the comfort of which he had listened to Jack Sawyer reading a great many eloquent words written by Charles Dickens. Among the things he would now never be able to do, he realizes, is find out what finally happens in Bleak House. Another is seeing his friend Jack again.

The Fisherman's footsteps enter the living room and stop moving. "All right, where the fuck are you, asshole? You can't hide from me. " The hedge clippers' blades go snick-snick.

Either the Fisherman has grown as blind as Henry, or the room is too dark for vision. A little bit of hope, a match flame, flares in Henry's soul. Maybe his adversary will not be able to see the light switches.

"Asshole!" Ahzz-hill. "Damn it, where are you hiding?" Dahmmut, vhey ah you high-dung?

This is fascinating, Henry thinks. The more angry and frustrated the Fisherman gets, the more his accent melts into that weird non-German. It isn't the South Side of Chicago anymore, but neither is it anything else. It certainly isn't German, not really. If Henry had heard Dr. Spiegleman's description of this accent as that of a Frenchman trying to speak English like a German, he would have nodded in smiling agreement. It's like some kind of outer space German accent, like something that mutated toward German without ever having heard it.

"You hurt me, you stinking pig!" You huhht me, you steenk-ung peek!

The Fisherman lurches toward the easy chair and shoves it over on its side. In his Chicago voice, he says, "I'm gonna find you, buddy, and when I do, I'll cut your fucking head off. "

A lamp hits the floor. The slippered footsteps move heavily toward the right side of the room. "A blind guy hides in the dark, huh? Oh, that's cute, that's really cute. Lemme tell you something. I haven't tasted a tongue in a while, but I think I'll try yours. " A small table and the lamp atop it clunk and crash to the floor. "I got some information for you. Tongues are funny. An old guy's doesn't taste much different from a young fella's ¡ª though of course the tongue on a kid is twice as good as both. Venn I vas Fridz Hahhmun I ade munny dungs, ha ha. "

Strange ¡ª that extraterrestrial version of a German accent bursts out of the Fisherman like a second voice. A fist strikes the wall, and the footsteps plod nearer. Using his elbows, Henry crawls around the far end of the sofa and squirms toward the shelter of a long, low table. The footsteps squish in blood, and when Henry rests his head on his hands, warm blood pumps out against his face. The fiery agony in his fingers almost swallows the pain in his cheek and his back.

"You can't hide forever," the Fisherman says. Immediately, he switches to the weird accent and replies, "Eenuff ov dis, Burn-Burn. Vee huv murr impurdund vurk zu do. "

"Hey, you're the one who called him an ahzz-hill. He hurt me!"

"Fogzes down fogzhulls, oho, radz in radhulls, dey too ahh huhht. My boor loss babbies ahh huhht, aha, vurze vurze vurze dan uz. "

"But what about him?"

"Hee iz bledding zu deff, bledding zu deff, aha. Led hum dy. "

In the darkness, we can just make out what is happening. Charles Burnside appears to be performing an eerie imitation of the two heads of Parkus's parrot, Sacred and Profane. When he speaks in his own voice, he turns his head to the left; when speaking with the accent of an extraterrestrial, he looks to his right. Watching his head swivel back and forth, we might be watching a comic actor like Jim Carrey or Steve Martin pretending to be the two halves of a split personality ¡ª except that this man is not funny. Both of his personalities are awful, and their voices hurt our ears. The greatest difference between them is that left-head, the guttural extraterrestrial, runs the show: his hands hold the wheel of the other's vehicle, and right-head ¡ª our Burny ¡ª is essentially a slave. Since the difference between them has become so clear, we begin to get the impression that it will not be long before Mr. Munshun peels off Charles Burnside and discards him like a worn-out sock.

"But I WANT to kill him!" Burny screeches.

"Hee iz alreddy dud, dud, dud. Cha

ck Zawyuh's hardt iz go-ung do break. Chack Zawyuh vill nod know whud he iz do-ung. Vee go now du Muxtun'z and oho vee kull Chibbuh, yuzz? You vahhnd kull Chibbuh I ding, yuzz?"

Burny snickers. "Yeah. I vahhnd to kill Chipper. I vahhnd to slice that asshole into little pieces and chew on his bones. And if his snippy bitch is there, I want to cut off her head and suck her juicy little tongue down my throat. "

To Henry Leyden, this conversation sounds like insanity, demonic possession, or both. Blood continues to stream out of his back and from the ends of his mutilated fingers, and he is powerless to stop the flow. The smell of all the blood beneath and around him makes him feel nauseated, but nausea is the least of his problems. A light-headed sense of drift, of pleasing numbness ¡ª that is his real problem, and his best weapon against it is his own pain. He must remain conscious. Somehow, he must leave a message for Jack.

"Zo vee go now, Burn-Burn, and vee hahhv ah blesh-ah vid Chibbuh, yuzz? End denn . . . oho end denn, denn, denn vee go do de beeyoodiful bee-yoodiful Blagg Huzz, my Burn-Burn, end in Blagg Huzz vee mayyg reddy for de Grimsunn Ging!"

"I want to meet the Crimson King," Burny says. A rope of drool sags from his mouth, and for an instant his eyes gleam in the darkness. "I'm gonna give the Marshall brat to the Crimson King, and the Crimson King is gonna love me, because all I'm gonna eat is like one little ass cheek, one little hand, something like that. "

"Hee vill lahhv you fuhr my zake, Burn-Burn, fuhr de Ging lahhvs mee bezzd, mee, mee, mee, Mizz-durr Munn-shunn! End venn de Ging roolz sooprumm, fogzes down fogzhulls veep and veep, dey gryy, gryy, gryy dere lid-dul hardz utt, on-cuzz you end mee, mee, mee, vee vull eed end eed end eed, eed, eed undill de vurrldz on all zydes are nudding bahd embdy bee-nudd shillz!"

"Empty peanut shells. " Burny chuckles, and noisily retracts another rope of slobber. "That's a hell of a lot of eatin'. "

Any second now, Henry thinks, horrible old Burn-Burn is going to fork over a substantial down payment on the Brooklyn Bridge.

"Gumm. "

"I'm coming," says Burnside. "First I want to leave a message. "

There is a silence.

The next thing Henry hears is a curious whooshing sound and the joined smack-smacks of sodden footwear parting from a sticky floor. The door to the closet beneath the stairs bangs open; the studio door bangs shut. A smell of ozone comes and goes. They have gone; Henry does not know how it happened, but he feels certain that he is alone. Who cares how it happened? Henry has more important matters to think about. "Murr impurdund vurk," he says aloud. "That guy's a German like I'm a speckled hen. "

He crawls out from beneath the long table and uses its surface to lever himself up on his feet. When he straightens his back, his mind wobbles and goes gray, and he grasps a lampstand to stay upright. "Don't pass out," he says. "Passing out is not allowed, nope. "

Henry can walk, he is sure of it. He's been walking most of his life, after all. Come to that, he can drive a car, too; driving is even easier than walking, only no one ever had the cojones to let him demonstrate his talents behind the wheel. Hell, if Ray Charles could drive ¡ª and he could, he can, Ray Charles is probably spinning into a left turn off the highway at this moment ¡ª why not Henry Leyden? Well, Henry does not happen to have an automobile available to him right now, so Henry is going to have to settle for taking a brisk walk. Well, as brisk as possible anyhow.

And where is Henry going on this delightful stroll through the blood-soaked living room? "Why," he answers himself, "the answer is obvious. I am going to my studio. I feel like taking a stroll into my lovely little studio. "

His mind slides into gray once more, and gray is to be avoided. We have an antidote for the gray feeling, don't we? Yes, we do: the antidote is a good sharp taste of pain. Henry slaps his good hand against the stumps of his severed fingers ¡ª whoo boy, yes indeed, whole arm sort of went up in flames there. Flaming arm, that will work. Sparks shooting white hot from burning fingers will get us to the studio.

Let those tears flow. Dead folks don't cry.

"The smell of blood is like laughter," Henry says. "Who said that? Somebody. It's in a book. ¡®The smell of blood was like laughter. ' Great line. Now put one foot in front of the other. "

When he reaches the short hallway to the studio, he leans against the wall for a moment. A wave of luxurious weariness begins at the center of his chest and laps through his body. He snaps his head up, blood from his torn cheek spattering the wall. "Keep talking, you dope. Talking to yourself isn't crazy. It's a wonderful thing to do. And guess what? It's how you make your living ¡ª you talk to yourself all day long!"

Henry pushes himself off the wall, steps forward, and George Rath-bun speaks through his vocal cords. "Friends, and you ARE my friends, let me be clear about that, we here at KDCU-AM seem to be experiencing some technical difficulties. The power levels are sinking, and brownouts have been recorded, yes they have. Fear not, my dear ones. Fear not! Even as I speak, we are but four paltry feet from the studio door, and in no time at all, we shall be up and running, yessir. No ancient cannibal and his space-alien sidekick can put this station out of business, uh-UHH, not before we make our last and final broadcast. "

It is as if George Rathbun gives life to Henry Leyden, instead of the other way around. His back is straighter, and he holds his head upright. Two steps bring him to the closed studio door. "It's a tough catch, my friends, and if Pokey Reese is going to snag that ball, his mitt had better be clean as a whistle. What is he doing out there, folks? Can we believe our eyes? Can he be shoving one hand into his pants pocket? Is he pulling something out? Man oh man, it causes the mind to reel Pokey is using THE OLD HANDKERCHIEF PLOY! That's right! He is WIPING his mitt, WIPING his throwing hand, DROPPING the snotrag, GRABBING the handle And the door is OPEN! Pokey Reese has done it again, he is IN THE STUDIO!"

Henry winds the handkerchief around the ends of his fingers and fumbles for the chair. "And Rafael Furcal seems lost out there, the man is GROPING for the ball Wait, wait, does he have it? Has he caught an edge? YES! He has the ARM of the ball, he has the BACK of the ball, and he pulls it UP, ladies and gents, the ball is UP on its WHEELS! Furcal sits down, he pushes himself toward the console. We're facing a lot of blood here, but baseball is a bloody game when they come at you with their CLEATS up. "

With the fingers of his left hand, from which most of the blood has been cleaned, Henry punches the ON switch for the big tape recorder and pulls the microphone close. He is sitting in the dark listening to the sound of tape hissing from reel to reel, and he feels oddly satisfied to be here, doing what he has done night after night for thousands of nights. Velvety exhaustion swims through his body and his mind, darkening whatever it touches. It is too early to yield. He will surrender soon, but first he must do his job. He must talk to Jack Sawyer by talking to himself, and to do that he calls upon the familiar spirits that give him voice.

George Rathbun: "Bottom of the ninth, and the home team is headed for the showers, pal. But the game ain't OVER till the last BLIND man is DEAD!"

Henry Shake: "I'm talking to you, Jack Sawyer, and I don't want you to flip out on me or nothin'. Keep cool and listen to your old friend Henry the Sheik the Shake the Shook, all right? The Fisherman paid me a visit, and when he left here he was on his way to Maxton's. He wants to kill Chipper, the guy who owns the place. Call the police, save him if you can. The Fisherman lives at Maxton's, did you know that? He's an old man with a demon inside him. He wanted to stop me from telling you that I recognized his voice. And he wanted to mess with your feelings ¡ª he thinks he can screw you up by killing me. Don't give him that satisfaction, all right?"

The Wisconsin Rat: "BECAUSE THAT WOULD REALLY SUCK! FISH-BRAINS WILL BE WAITING FOR YOU IN A PLACE CALLED BLACK HOUSE, AND YOU HAVE TO BE READY FOR THE BASTARD! RIP HIS NUTS OFF!"

The Rat's buzz-saw voice ends in a fit of coughing.

Henry Shake, breathing hard: "Our friend the Rat was suddenly calle

d away. The boy has a tendency to get overexcited. "

George Rathbun: "SON, are you trying to tell ME that ¡ª "

Henry Shake: "Calm down. Yes, he has a right to be excited. But Jack doesn't want us to scream at him. Jack wants information. "

George Rathbun: "I reckon you better hurry up and give it to him, then. "

Henry Shake: "This is the deal, Jack. The Fisherman's not very bright, and neither is his whatever, his demon, who's called something like Mr. Munching. He's incredibly vain, too. "

Henry Leyden folds back into the chair and stares at nothing for a second or two. He can feel nothing from the waist down, and blood from his right hand has pooled around the microphone. From the stumps of his fingers comes a steady, diminishing pulse.

George Rathbun: "Not now, Chuckles!"

Henry Leyden shakes his head and says, "Vain and stupid you can beat, my friend. I have to sign off now. Jack, you don't have to feel too bad about me. I had a goddamn wonderful life, and I'm going to be with my darling Rhoda now. " He smiles in the darkness; his smile widens. "Ah, Lark. Hello. "

At times, it is possible for the smell of blood to be like laughter.

What is this, at the end of Nailhouse Row? A horde, a swarm of fat, buzzing things that circle and dart about Jack Sawyer, in the dying light seeming almost illuminated, like the radiant pages of a sacred text. Too small to be hummingbirds, they seem to carry their own individual, internal glow as they mesh through the air. If they are wasps, Jack Sawyer is going to be in serious trouble. Yet they do not sting; their round bodies brush his face and hands, blundering softly against his body as a cat will nudge its owner's leg, both giving and receiving comfort.

At present, they give much more comfort than they receive, and even Jack cannot explain why this should be so. The creatures surrounding him are not wasps, hummingbirds, or cats, but they are bees, honeybees, and ordinarily he would be frightened to be caught in a swarm of bees. Especially if they appeared to be members of a sort of master bee race, superbees, larger than any he has seen before, their golds more golden, their blacks vibrantly black. Yet Jack is not frightened. If they were going to sting him, they would already have done it. And from the first, he understood that they meant him no harm. The touch of their many bodies is surpassingly smooth and soft; their massed buzzing is low and harmonious, as peaceable as a Protestant hymn. After the first few seconds, Jack simply lets it happen.

The bees sift even closer, and their low noise pulses in his ears. It sounds like speech, or like song. For a moment, all he can see is a tightly woven network of bees moving this way and that; then the bees settle everywhere on his body but the oval of his face. They cover his head like a helmet. They blanket his arms, his chest, his back, his legs. Bees land on his shoes and obscure them from view. Despite their number, they are almost weightless. The exposed parts of Jack's body, his hands and neck, feel as though wrapped in cashmere. A dense, feather-light bee suit shimmers black and gold all over Jack Sawyer. He raises his arms, and the bees move with him.