The Damnation Game Part 45

70

Whitehead was not afraid to die; he was only afraid that in dying he might discover that he had not lived enough. That had been his concern as he faced Mamoulian in the hallway of the penthouse suite, and it still tormented him as they sat in the lounge, with the buzz of the highway at their backs.

"No more running, Joe," Mamoulian said.

Whitehead said nothing. He collected a large bowl of Halifax's prime strawberries from the corner of the room, then returned to his chair. Running his expert fingers across the fruit in the bowl, he selected a particularly appetizing strawberry and began to nibble at it.

The European watched him, betraying no clue to his thoughts. The chase was done with; now, before the end, he hoped they'd be able to talk over old times for a while. But he didn't know where to begin.

"Tell me," Whitehead said, seeking the meat of the fruit right up to the hull, "did you bring a pack with you?" Mamoulian stared at him. "Cards, not dogs," the old man quipped.

"Of course," the European answered, "always."

"And do these fine boys play?" He gestured to Chad and Tom, who stood by the window.

"We came for the Deluge," Chad said.

A frown nicked the old man's brow. "What have you been telling them?" he asked the European.

"It's all their own doing," Mamoulian replied.

"The world's coming to an end," Chad said, combing his hair with obsessive care and staring out at the highway, his back to the two old men. "Didn't you know?"

"Is that so?" said Whitehead.

"The unrighteous will be swept away."

The old man put down his bowl of strawberries. "And who will judge?" he asked.

Chad let his coiffure be. "G.o.d in heaven," he said.

"Can't we play for it?" Whitehead responded. Chad turned to look at the questioner, puzzled; but the inquiry was not for him, but for the European.

"No," Mamoulian replied.

"For old times' sake," Whitehead pressed. "Just a game."

"Your gamesmans.h.i.+p would impress me, Pilgrim, if it weren't so obviously a delaying tactic."

"You won't play, then?"

Mamoulian's eyes flickered. He almost smiled as he said: "Yes. Of course I'll play."

"There's a table next door, in the bedroom. Do you want to send one of your b.u.m-boys through to fetch it?"

"Not b.u.m-boys."

"Too old for that, are you?"

"G.o.d-fearing men, both of them. Which is more than can be said of you."

"That was always my problem," Whitehead said, conceding the barb with a grin. This was like the old days: the exchange of ironies, the sweet-sour repartee, the knowledge, shared every moment they were together, that the words disguised a depth of feeling that would shame a poet.

"Would you fetch the table?" Mamoulian asked Chad. He didn't move. He had become too interested in the struggle of wills between these two men. Much of its significance was lost on him, but the tension in the room was unmistakable. Something awesome was on the horizon. Maybe a wave; maybe not.

"You go," he told Tom; he was unwilling to take his eyes off the combatants for a single instant. Tom, happy to have something to take his mind off his doubts, obliged.

Chad loosened the knot of his tie, which was for him tantamount to nakedness. He grinned flawlessly at Mamoulian.

"You're going to kill him, right?" he said.

"What do you think?" the European replied.

"What is he? The Antichrist?"

Whitehead gurgled with pleasure at the absurdity of this idea. "You've been telling . . ." he chided the European.

"Is that what he is?" Chad urged, "Tell me. I can take the truth."

"I'm worse than that, boy," Whitehead said.

"Worse?"

"Want a strawberry?" Whitehead picked up the bowl and proffered the fruit. Chad cast a sideways glance at Mamoulian.

"He hasn't poisoned them," the European rea.s.sured him.

"They're fresh. Take them. Go next door and leave us in peace."

Tom had returned with a small bedside table. He set it down in the middle of the room.

"If you go into the bathroom," Whitehead said, "you'll find a plentiful supply of spirits. Mostly vodka. A little cognac too, I think."

"We don't drink," Tom said.

"Make an exception," Whitehead replied.

"Why not?" said Chad, his mouth bulging with strawberries; there was juice on his chin. "Why the f.u.c.k not? It's the end of the world, right?"

"Right," said Whitehead, nodding. "Now you go away and eat and drink and play with each other."

Tom stared at Whitehead, who returned a mock-contrite look. "I'm sorry, aren't you allowed to m.a.s.t.u.r.b.a.t.e either?"

Tom made a noise of disgust and left the room.

"Your colleague's unhappy," Whitehead said to Chad. "Go on, take the rest of the fruit. Tempt him."

Chad wasn't certain if he was being mocked or not, but he took the bowl and followed Tom to the door. "You're going to die," he said to Whitehead as a parting shot. Then he closed the door on the two men.

Mamoulian had laid a pack of cards on the table. This wasn't the p.o.r.nographic pack: he'd had that destroyed at Caliban Street, along with his few books. The cards on the table were older than the other pack by many centuries. Their faces were hand-colored, the ill.u.s.trations for the court cards crudely rendered.

"Must I?" Whitehead asked, picking up on Chad's closing remark.

"Must you what?"

"Die."

"Please, Pilgrim-"

"Joseph. Call me Joseph, the way you used to."

"-spare us both."

"I want to live."

"Of course you do."

"What happened between us-it didn't harm you, did it?"

Mamoulian offered the cards for Whitehead to shuffle and cut: when the offer was ignored he did the job himself, manipulating the cards with his one good hand.

"Well. Did it?"

"No," the European replied. "No; not really."

"Well then. Why harm me?"

"You misunderstand my motives, Pilgrim. I haven't come here for revenge."

"Why then?"

Mamoulian started to deal the cards for chemin de fer.

"To finish our bargain, of course. Is that so difficult to grasp?"

"I made no bargain."

"You cheated me, Joseph, of a lot of living. You threw me away when I was no longer of any use to you, and let me rot. I forgive you all that. It's in the past. But death, Joseph"-he finished the shuffling-"that's in the future. The near future. And I will not be alone when I go into it."

"I've made my apologies. If you want acts of contrition, name them."

"Nothing."

"You want my b.a.l.l.s? My eyes? Take them!"

"Play the game, Pilgrim."

Whitehead stood up. "I don't want to play!"

"But you asked."

Whitehead stared down at the cards laid out on the inlaid table.

"That's how you got me here," he said quietly. "That f.u.c.king game."

"Sit down, Pilgrim."

"Made me suffer the torments of the d.a.m.ned."

"Have I?" Mamoulian said, concern lacing his voice. "Have you really suffered? If you have, I'm truly sorry. The point of temptation is surely that some of the goods be worth the price."

"Are you the Devil?"

"You know I'm not," Mamoulian said, pained by this new melodrama. "Every man is his own Mephistopheles, don't you think? If I hadn't come along you'd have made a bargain with some other power. And you would have had your fortune, and your women, and your strawberries. All those torments I've made you suffer."

Whitehead listened to the fluting voice lay these ironies out. Of course, he hadn't suffered: he'd lived a life of delights. Mamoulian read the thought off his face.

"If I'd really wanted you to suffer," he said, snail-slow, "I could have had that dubious satisfaction many years ago. And you know it."

Whitehead nodded. The candle, which the European now lifted onto the table beside the dealt cards, guttered.

"What I want from you is something far more permanent than suffering," Mamoulian said. "Now play. My fingers are itching."

71

Marty got out of the car and stood for several seconds looking up at the looming bulk of the Hotel Pandemonium. It was not completely in darkness. A light, albeit frail, glimmered in one of the penthouse windows. He began, for a second time today, across the wasteland, his body shaking. Carys had made no contact with him since he had started on his journey here. He didn't question her silence: there were too many plausible reasons for it, none of them pleasant.

As he approached he could see that the front door of the hotel had been forced. At least he'd be able to enter by a direct route instead of clambering up the fire escape. He stepped over the litter of planks, and through the grandiose doorway into the foyer, halting to accustom his eyes to the darkness before he began a cautious ascent of the burned stairs. In the gloom every sound he made was like gunfire at a funeral, shockingly loud. Try as he might to hush his tread, the stairway hid too many obstacles for complete silence; every step he took he was certain the European was hearing, was readying himself to breathe a killing emptiness onto him.

Once he reached the spot he'd entered from the fire escape, the going got easier. It was only as he advanced into the carpeted regions he realized-the thought brought a smile to his lips-that he'd come without either a weapon or a plan, however primitive, of how he was to s.n.a.t.c.h Carys. All he could hope was that she was no longer an important item on the European's agenda: that she might be overlooked for a few vital moments. As he stepped onto the final staircase he caught sight of himself in one of the hall mirrors: thin, unshaven, his face still bearing traces of bloodstains, his s.h.i.+rt dark with blood-he looked like a lunatic. The image, reflecting so accurately the way he'd pictured himself-desperate, barbarous-gave him courage. He and his reflection agreed: he was out of his mind.For only the second time in their long a.s.sociation they sat facing each other over the tiny table, and played chemin de fer. The game was uneventful; they were, it seemed, more evenly matched than they'd been in Muranowski Square, forty odd years before. And as they played, they talked. The talk too was calm and undramatic: of Evangeline, of how the market had fallen of late, of America, even, as the game progressed, of Warsaw.

"Have you ever been back?" Whitehead asked.

The European shook his head.

"It's terrible, what they did."

"The Germans?"

"The city planners."