Part 31 (2/2)
”So, this guy Melford Kean has the money,” Doe said.
”That's right.”
”And you'll help me find him.”
”I will.”
”And when I find him, I'll get my money?”
”Yes,” I said. ”I don't think it's that hard to understand.”
”It ain't hard to understand your words,” Doe said. ”Just why I should be expected to believe such a bulls.h.i.+t story.”
”Why can't you believe it?” I asked, almost pleaded. I was sure I would be able to save myself with this, or at the very least buy some time in which Aimee Toms might save me or I might think of something.
”Mostly,” Doe explained, ”because Kean's been working with me.”
And there he was, walking out of the shadows, grinning at me.
”Do you really think I'm strange looking?” Melford asked. ”First you tell people I'm gay, and then you tell them I'm funny looking. That's hurtful.”
And in the dimness of the pig barn, under the flas.h.i.+ng vents, he looked more than strange: He looked vampiric. His hair stood out, his face was long and pale, and his eyes were wide-not childlike wide, but insane wide. How had I not noticed it before?
”How could you do this to me?” I cried out. I felt the urge, almost unbearable, to leap up and rush him, but Doe's gun kept me in place.
”You want me to explain myself to you when you were just about to sell me out? That's pretty hypocritical, don't you think? Look, I went to Jim when I realized there was money missing, and he and I have been tracking it since yesterday. And our efforts led us to you. I thought you were clean at first, but then all the evidence pointed to your outsmarting me and getting the money out of the trailer. I think you'd better start talking.”
Melford somehow believed, truly believed, that I had the money. Maybe he thought the encyclopedia business was all bulls.h.i.+t, or maybe he found out that I hadn't told him about the Gambler. Maybe because he played and manipulated and lied, he thought everyone else did as well, and that my complaints and fears and hesitation had all been in the service of tricking him. And maybe he'd killed b.a.s.t.a.r.d and Karen for no more complicated reason than he wanted money, and now he was willing to kill me to get it, too.
I hadn't wanted to see it before, but there it was. It was ideology. The one thing about which Melford hadn't lied. We see what we think is there, not the truth. Never the truth.
”This is bulls.h.i.+t,” I said with a kind of indignation I didn't know I could summon. But it was bulls.h.i.+t. That was the thing. It was unadulterated, cosmic bulls.h.i.+t.
Doe studied me for a moment and then turned to Melford. ”You come to me. You tell me you can hook me up. Now I better not find out that you've been f.u.c.king with me.”
”I'd never f.u.c.k with you, Jim.”
”Don't sweet-talk me, a.s.shole.”
”Then how about this? I want my cut, so I've got no reason to f.u.c.k with you.”
”You sure he's got it?”
”Can't be sure of anything in this crazy world. Some people think the lunar landing was a hoax. Of course, that wasn't really in this this world.” He paused and observed Doe's expression. ”I'm pretty sure he's got it.” world.” He paused and observed Doe's expression. ”I'm pretty sure he's got it.”
”Okay,” Doe said. ”Let's take it outside.”
”What happened to feeding him to the pigs?” Melford asked.
”I have a better idea.”
With the glare of the sun in my eyes, they marched me toward the waste lagoon. I could barely breathe for the fear and the stench, and I thought that I did not want to die with the smell of s.h.i.+t in my nostrils. I didn't want to die at all, but I knew that as options tightened, goals grew more meager.
I knew Doe and the gun were maybe ten feet behind me, I could hear him walking with his wide, awkward gait. Melford was between the two of us, I suspect because whatever deal he and Doe had struck, there was no trust there.
Doe told me to stop at the lagoon's edge, where the stakes in the dry earth marked the perimeter and the flies buzzed a greedy, manic hum. A single black mangrove tree, its roots gnarling into the pond, provided a modic.u.m of shade.
Doe told me to turn around. The two men stood next to each other, but only for an instant. Doe gestured at Melford with his gun. ”Go stand over there a little ways. I want to be able to keep my eye on you.”
”You don't trust me?”
”f.u.c.king s.h.i.+t, no. I'll trust you when I got my money and I never hear from you again. Until then, I figure you're about to double-cross me. That's how you survive in this game.”
”Does that mean I should figure you're about to double-cross me as well?” he asked.
”Just stand on over there and stop p.i.s.sing me off.”
”Always good advice when talking to an armed man at the sh.o.r.e of a waste lagoon,” Melford said. He took a few long strides over toward where Doe had been gesturing, so now he was the third point of an equilateral triangle. Doe probably figured he could keep an eye on Melford from there, but not shoot him accidentally if he needed to fire at me. Something like that.
I tried to resist making eye contact with Melford. The powerless rage I felt at that moment was so great that I couldn't endure looking at the source of those feelings. I had broken into a criminal's hotel room, I had gone snooping around Jim Doe's backyard, I'd been in a raid on an animal test facility, I'd faced Ronny Neil Cramer, and I'd gotten the girl. I had, in short, faced down powerless Lem and replaced him with a new Lem, one who took charge of his own life. And now I was being held at gunpoint on the sh.o.r.e of a sea of s.h.i.+t, betrayed by a man I should never have trusted in the first place.
Despite my wishes, I made eye contact anyhow. A flash of something impish crossed his face. And he winked at me and with one finger pointed toward the ground.
I felt the thrill of exaltation. A sign, though an unclear one. The wink I understood-a universal sign, after all. But what did the ground mean? What did any of it mean? Had Melford screwed me over or not? If he hadn't, what was I doing here? What was he planning on doing about Doe? No, I could not a.s.sume this was anything but a trick, a ruse to put me off my guard. But to what end?
”How you like that s.h.i.+thole?” Doe asked me.
”Compared to other s.h.i.+tholes, or compared to, I don't know, an orange grove?”
”You think you're mighty tough, don't you?”
I had to stifle the urge to laugh. Doe was buying the tough thing. That was something. Not much, but something. ”I'm trying to make the best of a difficult situation,” I said.
Melford c.o.c.ked his head slightly. The impish look, the winking companion, was gone. He looked like a bird studying human commotion from a distance, studying it with an amalgamation of curiosity and obliviousness. In the sunlight, he looked slightly less h.e.l.lish than he'd appeared in the pig shed, but only slightly. Now he was only cadaverous and mean.
”I always wanted to see someone drown in a pool of s.h.i.+t,” Doe said. ”Ever since I was a little kid.”
”You also wanted to see someone get eaten by pigs. I guess life is all about making choices.”
”It looks to me like I'm going to get at least one wish. Now, before we even start negotiating, I want you to step on in there. Wade in until you're about waist deep. Waist deep in the waste.” He laughed at that.
I looked at the lagoon. I wanted to stay alive, unpunctured by bullets, but there was no way I was going in there. No way. Besides, once I did, I was nothing more than the walking dead. I'd never be able to escape. I had to get away, but if I did that now, I'd be dead in seconds. The determination to die on the run faded like a drop of food coloring in a still lake. I would go along with what they asked. I would stall for what time I could get, and each second I would hope for something, some miracle, maybe in the form of a county police car or a helicopter or an explosion or something.
”Come on,” Doe said. ”Move.”
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