generic seltzer water. The clerk at the register was excruciatingly polite. She seemed pleased to inform him that yes, the Happy Raven Hotel was about seventy miles up the highway, Bon voyage, sucker . He thanked her, went outside and chewed a fistful of aspirin, gulped the water.
Packs of urban cowboys trolled in pickups, spat tobacco at the gutters in well-rehearsed arcs. Some gave Conrad the evil eye, muttered to their partners, if they had any, to themselves if they didn’t. Country & Western tunes slithered from tin sheathes, coiled into his eardrum, tweaked the knob of his adrenal drip, caused a surge of testosterone that threatened to wake the prehistoric lizard. Opera for Marsh, Hank Williams for Conrad.
He revisited the photo shop and picked up his film. He sat on the bumper of the Cadillac and reviewed the stack flashcard style. Then he burned the pictures in a sodden pile, kicked the ashes to pieces as an afterthought. The ashes drifted across white and yellow parking stripes and were lost in the boundless fields.
V
The ludus went down at a mostly defunct strip mall just off the highway a few minutes after midnight. There was a film crew, a couple of equipment vans, the assorted handlers and hangers on attendant to these ludi. A small crowd, even for this. He’d placed a call to one of Uncle K’s former liaisons and arranged for a surgeon, a couple of emergency techs, and three security guys. The security guys dressed in suits and carried Uzis slung under their coats. Their leader, a short, mean looking guy with false teeth shook Conrad’s hand and said it was an honor to meet him.
Conrad strapped on a glorious plumed helm, a harness, greaves and boots. He wrapped his left fist in a cestus. The for-show-minimum. Across the lot the Finn was a terror with his oiled body and spiked-everything. The Finn opened his mouth and arched his back, sucking in oxygen. Conrad smiled without emotion and stared at the ground and waited for it to begin.
The Finn had killed his share of men, but they were lesser men, not first class talents. The last victim was a second-tier brute in Gibraltar; a real bloodbath, that one. Nothing for Conrad to scoff at, but nothing to worry about either. He’d watched the tapes, studied the taller man’s movements, his favored techniques. The Finn was a striker, a pugilist enamored of cestus and cleats, knees and elbows. Conrad wasn’t concerned with strikers; he was built to absorb that kind of punishment. A primer, a tune up for the real battles down the line. Easy money.
The Finn had killed many, many men, but lesser men. The Finn was killing Conrad.
The Finn’s fists were too fast, too heavy and they were everywhere. Conrad was strong, but strong couldn’t do much against fast this night and he was on his knees on the sticky asphalt in the crushed glass and gravel and it was all but over.
The grand, stony moon wobbled, lopsided and estranged. Its edges whickered against a whetstone of dark matter and coagulated fire, counterpoint to cosmic symphonies of gamma bombardment and imploding quantum particles. The moon shrieked below the threshold of human perception, reverberated in vast stygian chambers of rock and bone. Its light slopped as from a butcher’s pail overflowed; a lantern bloated on reeking whale fat, the ribs and spleen of every woodsman who had gazed upon it and trembled before the shutter shut and the bar dropped across the cottage door.
Conrad didn’t see the moon or moths as large as silver dollars fluttering their dance in its milky radiation. His head was bowed. He saw worm holes; he saw his hand, wrapped in iron-studded rawhide, as a dismembered starfish welded to concrete; he saw the dim hulk of a windowless cement façade, the flank of a mall, a forgotten mausoleum commemorated by graffiti and posters bleached to zero resolution.
Then the Finn kicked him in the face with the ball of a reinforced hoplite sandal, hard as horn and laced below the
Packs of urban cowboys trolled in pickups, spat tobacco at the gutters in well-rehearsed arcs. Some gave Conrad the evil eye, muttered to their partners, if they had any, to themselves if they didn’t. Country & Western tunes slithered from tin sheathes, coiled into his eardrum, tweaked the knob of his adrenal drip, caused a surge of testosterone that threatened to wake the prehistoric lizard. Opera for Marsh, Hank Williams for Conrad.
He revisited the photo shop and picked up his film. He sat on the bumper of the Cadillac and reviewed the stack flashcard style. Then he burned the pictures in a sodden pile, kicked the ashes to pieces as an afterthought. The ashes drifted across white and yellow parking stripes and were lost in the boundless fields.
V
The ludus went down at a mostly defunct strip mall just off the highway a few minutes after midnight. There was a film crew, a couple of equipment vans, the assorted handlers and hangers on attendant to these ludi. A small crowd, even for this. He’d placed a call to one of Uncle K’s former liaisons and arranged for a surgeon, a couple of emergency techs, and three security guys. The security guys dressed in suits and carried Uzis slung under their coats. Their leader, a short, mean looking guy with false teeth shook Conrad’s hand and said it was an honor to meet him.
Conrad strapped on a glorious plumed helm, a harness, greaves and boots. He wrapped his left fist in a cestus. The for-show-minimum. Across the lot the Finn was a terror with his oiled body and spiked-everything. The Finn opened his mouth and arched his back, sucking in oxygen. Conrad smiled without emotion and stared at the ground and waited for it to begin.
The Finn had killed his share of men, but they were lesser men, not first class talents. The last victim was a second-tier brute in Gibraltar; a real bloodbath, that one. Nothing for Conrad to scoff at, but nothing to worry about either. He’d watched the tapes, studied the taller man’s movements, his favored techniques. The Finn was a striker, a pugilist enamored of cestus and cleats, knees and elbows. Conrad wasn’t concerned with strikers; he was built to absorb that kind of punishment. A primer, a tune up for the real battles down the line. Easy money.
The Finn had killed many, many men, but lesser men. The Finn was killing Conrad.
The Finn’s fists were too fast, too heavy and they were everywhere. Conrad was strong, but strong couldn’t do much against fast this night and he was on his knees on the sticky asphalt in the crushed glass and gravel and it was all but over.
The grand, stony moon wobbled, lopsided and estranged. Its edges whickered against a whetstone of dark matter and coagulated fire, counterpoint to cosmic symphonies of gamma bombardment and imploding quantum particles. The moon shrieked below the threshold of human perception, reverberated in vast stygian chambers of rock and bone. Its light slopped as from a butcher’s pail overflowed; a lantern bloated on reeking whale fat, the ribs and spleen of every woodsman who had gazed upon it and trembled before the shutter shut and the bar dropped across the cottage door.
Conrad didn’t see the moon or moths as large as silver dollars fluttering their dance in its milky radiation. His head was bowed. He saw worm holes; he saw his hand, wrapped in iron-studded rawhide, as a dismembered starfish welded to concrete; he saw the dim hulk of a windowless cement façade, the flank of a mall, a forgotten mausoleum commemorated by graffiti and posters bleached to zero resolution.
Then the Finn kicked him in the face with the ball of a reinforced hoplite sandal, hard as horn and laced below the
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