The Bridge Trilogy Part 138

"Fine," Rydell said, which was almost always what he said if any- one asked him that.

"You are not 'fine.'You are injured. You may be bleeding internally."

Rydell halted in front of him, hand pressed to his burning side. "What did you do to that guy?"

You couldn't have said that the man smiled, but the creases in his cheeks seemed to deepen slightly. "I completed the movement he began when he struck you."

"You stabbed him with something," Rydell said.

"Yes. That was the most elegant conclusion, under the circ.u.mstances. His unusual center of gravity made it possible to sever the spinal cord without contacting the vertebrae themselves." This in a tone that someone might use to describe the discovery of a new but convenient bus route.

"Show me."

The man's head moved, just a fraction. Some birdlike acuity. Light winked, reflected, in the round, gold-framed gla.s.ses. He reached into the open front of his long coat and produced, with a very peculiar and offhand grace, a blade curved, upswept, chisel-tipped. What they called a tanto, Rydell knew: the short version of one of those j.a.panese swords. The same light that had caught in the round lenses now snagged for an instant in a hair-fine line of rainbow along the curved edge and the angled tip, and then the man reversed the movement that had produced the knife. It vanished within the coat as though a segment of tape had been run backward.

Rydell remembered being taught how you had to use something anything if someone was coming after you with a knife and you were unarmed. If nothing else you were supposed to take off your jacket and

roll it around your hands and wrists to protect them Now he imagined using the projector, in its bag, as a sort of s.h.i.+eld, to ward off the knife he'd just seen, and the hopelessness of the idea actually struck him as funny.

"Why did you smile?" the man asked.

Rydell stopped smiling I don t think I could explain he said 'Who are you~

ALL TOMORROW S PARTIES 197.

"I can't tell you that," the man said.

"I'm Berry Rydell," Rydell said. "You saved my a.s.s back there."

"But not your torso, I think."

"He might've killed me."

"No," the man said, "he wouldn't have killed you. He would have rendered you helpless, taken you

to a private location, and tortured you to extract information. Then he would have killed you."

"Well," Rydell said, uneasy with the matter-of-factness here, "thanks."

"You are welcome," said the man, with great gravity and not the least hint of irony.

"Well," Rydell said, "why did you do that, take him out?"

"Because it was necessary, to complete the movement."

"I don't get it," said Rydell.

"It was necessary," the man said. "There are a number of these men seeking you tonight. I'm

uncertain of how many. They are mercenaries."

"Did you kill someone else, back there, last night? Where those patches of dried blood and Kil'Z

are?"

"Yes," the man said.

"And I'm safer with you than I am with these guys you say are mercs?"

"I think so, yes," the man said, frowning, as though he took the question very seriously.

"You kill anybody else in the past forty-eight hours?"

"No," said the man, "I did not."

"Well," Rydell said, "I guess I'm with you. I'm sure not going to try to fight you."

"That is wise," the man said.

"And I don't think I could run fast enough, or very far, with this rib."

"That is true."

"So what do we do?" Rydell shrugged, instantly regretting it, his face contorting in a grimace of

pain.

"We will leave the bridge," the man said, "and seek medical aid for your injury. I myself have a

thorough working knowledge of anatomy, should it prove necessary."

198.

"Unh, thanks," Rydell managed. "If [could just buy some four-inch tape and some a.n.a.lgesic plasters

at that Lucky Dragon, I could probably make do." He looked around, wondering when he'd next see or

be seen by the one with the scarf. He had a feeling the scarf was the one he'd really have to watch out for; he couldn't say why. "What if those mercs scope us leaving?"

"Don't antic.i.p.ate outcome," the man said. "Await the unfolding of events. Remain in the moment."

In the moment, Rydell decided he knew for a fact his a.s.s was lost. Just plain lost.

199.

I.

G6B1346.

RA *AF.

1fl153 The 6B denoting a particular grade of movement, degree of accuracy, he knows, though the 346 is a

mystery. The broad arrow, central, the Queen's mark, her property. 53 the year of issue, but 172?

Could the boy somehow pry knowledge from these numbers, if the question could be put to him?

Somewhere out there, Fontaine knows, every last

49. RADON SHADOW.

FONTAINE finds the boy an old camping pad, left here by his children perhaps, and lays him back on this, still snoring. Removing the heavy eyephones he sees how the boy sleeps with his eyes half- open, showing the white; imagines watches ticking past, there, one after another. He covers him with an old sleeping bag whose faded flannel liner depicts mountains and bears, then takes his miso back to the counter to think.

There is a faint vibration now, though whether of the shop's flimsy fabric, the bones of the bridge, or the underlying plates of the earth he cannot tell: but small sounds come from the shelves and cabinets as tiny survivors of the past register this new motion. A lead soldier, on one shelf, topples forward with a definitive clack, and Fontaine makes a mental note to buy more museum wax, a sticky substance meant to prevent this.

Fontaine, seated on his high stool, behind the counter, sipping gingerly at his hot miso, wonders what exactly he would see, were he to follow the boy's course today via the notebook's recall function. That business with the Iockboxes, and Martial getting all worked up. Where else might the boy have been? But nowhere really dangerous, Fontaine decides, if he's only chasing watches.