Mike Nelson's Death Rat! by Michael J. Nelson Page B

does?”
    â€œNo one, Gus.”
    They stood for a moment in silence watching a thirty-five-foot preserved cherry log being set into the gable of Gus’s new home.
    â€œBow down before me, St. Paul,” said Gus quietly.
    â€œOw,” said Ross.
    D EATH RAT WORKS on a number of levels: On the one hand it is high adventure, man against nature, the elements gone wild. Yet on another level it slowly lays bare the emptiness and futility of man’s—and in this case, a man’s—hubris,” Ponty said while swabbing his face with a three percent hydrogen peroxide solution. He squinted into the bathroom mirror. “This is not to say that there isn’t something very cinematic about its story arc, if that’s what you’re asking.” The weather had remained unbearably hot for three weeks now, parching the lawns and heating Ponty’s attic writing space to a temperature beyond belief. This was not a worry, for Ponty and Death Rat were ready to go to market.
    â€œMister Feeb, I need the check for your part of the cable, or Beater says you can’t come in his room to watch it anymore, okay?” Scotty shouted from outside the door.
    â€œOh, right. Scotty, I hate to be a bother, but do you think you could cover me just for a week or two?”
    He heard a huge sigh outside the door.
    â€œFine.”
    Ponty donned his best dun-colored wool/poly-blend slacks and a pale yellow cotton/poly-blend short-sleeved, button-collar business shirt. Because Ponty’s license was still suspended, Sags drove. Soon both he and Ponty were sitting in thespacious lobby of Todd Fetters, Literary Agent, in the magnificently restored Pork Exchange Building in downtown Minneapolis, being offered water by Mr. Fetters’s model-thin assistant, Petra.
    â€œAnd, sir, would you like a water?” she asked Sags timidly, unsure exactly who or what Sags was supposed to be.
    â€œNo thanks.”
    Ponty looked past her at the walls, clutching Death Rat to his chest.
    â€œUm, I’m sorry,” Petra said looking at Sags, “but are there going to be two of you for the meeting?”
    â€œNo,” Ponty broke in. “He’s my ride.”
    â€œHe hit a cop and lost his license,” Sags informed Petra.
    â€œOh, dear.”
    â€œNot in the face, or anything like that. With his car. It was—”
    â€œThank you, Sags,” Ponty said.
    â€œIs it okay if I sit out here?” Sags asked.
    â€œOh, of course,” she said, though clearly it was not. She sat back down behind her desk and emanated disapproval.
    â€œNervous?” asked Sags.
    â€œNo, not really,” answered Ponty.
    â€œAw, why should you be? He’s gonna love Death Rat .”
    â€œThank you, Sags,” said Ponty, patting Sags’s knee.
    After a very long time they heard a burst of laughter from behind Fetters’s closed door, and a moment after it settled down, legendary local newscaster Daniel Turnbow emerged, followed by a sharply dressed young man that Ponty presumed was Todd Fetters.
    â€œDan,” Fetters said, laughing, “you have to tell that story to McDonald when we go to New York.”
    Dan promised he would, and just the promise of it made Fetters laugh again. The fact that the pair was planning to go to New York at some future date and repeat jokes to someone named McDonald somehow made Ponty feel ashamed and unsure of himself.
    â€œNow, get out of here,” Fetters said. When the door had closed behind Turnbow and Fetters’s delight had faded almost entirely, he turned to Sags.
    â€œSorry to keep you waiting, Mister Fleeb,” he said.
    Sags, lost in a magazine article about a rare endangered parrot, said nothing. Ponty made vague gestures with his body to try to get Fetters’s attention. Fetters only stared at Sags, a smile frozen on his face.
    â€œMister Fleeb?”
    â€œUm, Feeb,” said Ponty weakly, holding his hand up halfway like