THE CRASH OF HENNINGTON

Patrick Ness

Copyright

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

Fourth Estate

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

Published by Flamingo 2003

First published in Great Britain by Flamingo 2003

Copyright © Patrick Ness 2003

Patrick Ness asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

Photograph of Patrick Ness © Steve Double

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Source ISBN: 9780007292028

Ebook Edition © FEBRUARY 2011 ISBN: 9780007390342

Version: 2017-01-03

‘Souls have complexions, too: what will suit one will not suit another.’

GEORGE ELIOT Middlemarch

For Marc Nowell

And in memory of my remarkable great aunt, Ingeborg Utheim 1915–1999

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Prologue. In.

Part I. Welcome to Hennington.

1. The Solari.

2. A Confluence of Nudity.

3. The Crash on the Hill.

4. Luther in Limbo.

5. Maggerty.

6. The Mayor’s Office and its Discontents.

7. Father and Daughter.

8. Mathematica.

9. Hospitality.

10. The Crash at the Bridge.

11. Orthopediae.

12. The Melting Sanctuary.

13. Maggerty Eats.

14. Peter on the Move.

15. An Offer.

16. Why Archie Banyon Feels the Way He Does About Women.

17. ‘The Tale of Rufus and Rhonda'.

18. Mingle, Mingle.

19. Duty Calling.

20. In the Hours Before Morning.

21. The Crash Before Dawn.

Part II. There Are No Ends, Only Changes.

22. Marmalade Leviathan.

23. Comfort for the Uncomfortable.

24. Closing the Deal.

25. Maggerty in the City.

26. What Do You Want?

27. ‘Cleave’ Has Two Meanings.

28. Digitalis.

29. The Crash at the Pond.

30. It Always Comes Out Somewhere.

31. A Basic Question.

32. Opening the Deal.

33. Unsentimental Journey.

34. A Shot Across the Bows?

35. The Story of Cora, Jon, and Albert, as told to Eugene by Jon.

36. Max and Talon Discuss the Ramifications of the Weight of Cultural Pressures and Also Buy a Dog.

37. What Happened Between Luther and Archie.

38. Maggerty on the Move.

39. The Frustrating Aspects of Prophecy.

Part III. All Bets May or May Not Be Final.

40. Considering Variables.

41. The Lonely Hunter.

42. Refuge for the Weary.

43. Max Has The Same Conversation.

44. The Crash and The Injured Calf.

45. Class Reunion.

46. He What?

47. In Which Much News Is Confirmed.

48. Jarvis’ Sermon About the Brandon Beach Massacre.

49. An Unexpected Intransigence.

50. A Tentatively Happy Bleakness.

51. Post-Coital Powwow.

52. A Casualty.

53. Fallout.

54. Max and Talon and The Emu.

55. Sometimes It’s Just Sorrow.

56. And What of Eugene?

57. Fever Dream.

58. A Most Delicious Proposal.

Part IV. Commodities.

59. The Foster Downs.

60. How to Serve Man.

61. Ambushed.

62. Maggerty in Purgatory.

63. The Reasons Why We Do Things.

64. Rest.

65. I’m Begging You.

66. Young Man’s Fancy.

67. Old(er) Man’s (and Woman’s) Fancy.

68. The Prodigal.

69. Want.

70. The Worm, Aching to Turn.

71. Paradise Interrupted.

72. The Swinging Gates of Opportunity.

73. A Rush and a Push and the Day is Ours.

74. Banyon Enterprises.

75. Listen.

76. An End and a Beginning.

Part V. Hopeful Campaigns.

77. The Furniture Cave.

78. Letter To The Editor.

79. The Inevitable Disappointment By Those We Love.

80. How Things Add Up.

81. The Smell of Blood.

82. The Hard Bit.

83. Re-linking.

84. Triumph of the Will.

85. Getting to the Bottom.

86. The Debate.

87. Old Love.

88. The Immobile Journey.

89. The Schism, Arriving on Schedule.

90. Cracking Skulls.

91. An Invisible Threat, Real Nonetheless.

92. Not the Highest Bid, but the Earliest.

93. What We Wish For.

94. A Cold Dish.

95. Unprecedented Measures.

96. The Living River.

Part VI. Election Day.

97. One Up, One Down.

98. The Faces in the Distance.

99. Thrust, Parry, Feint, Touch.

100. The Message to the Light Wind.

101. In the Last Quiet Hours.

102. The Journey of Faith.

103. The View From Here.

104. War It Is, Then.

105. A Kindness.

106. Three.

107. Father and Son.

108. A Lover’s Hand, A Lover’s Breath.

109. Outside City Hall.

110. An Albert and Cora.

111. The Field of Battle.

112. The Messenger.

113. Who Are You?

114. Lair.

115. To The Faithful Departing.

116. Ashes, Ashes.

117. Out.

Keep Reading

Acknowledgements

About the Publisher

Prologue. In.

She smelled dawn even before the sun looked over the horizon. A low mist clung to the sleeping bodies surrounding her at intervals across the lea. Breath clouded up from her great nose in increasing puffs as wakefulness filled her body. She raised her head and glanced around the sloping green of the meadow.

The first one awake. Usual and expected. The way it should be and was.

She turned her head to the sunrise coursing down from the hilltop. A low flood of light illuminated the mist and cast the dozing members of the herd as gray, rocky islands in a sea of white. She breathed in as the morning reached her lips and, leaning back to gather the proper force of weight, hoisted herself to her feet.

Time to move into the daybreak.

Part I. Welcome to Hennington.

1. The Solari.

The front lobby of the Solari was made entirely of marble, even the sunlight. Any hotel guest – say, this one here, with the inappropriate clothes and the reminiscing smile – standing at the entrance to the second most opulent and expensive hotel in Hennington could see in detail the shiny yet persistently flat white-flecked black marble that made up the sprawling floor, though he would be hard pressed to find a seam, the expense apparently having been poured into the material’s quality rather than its beauty. Given that the outside of the Solari was as shiny and edged as a precisely folded piece of foil, it might be surprising to this particular visitor, though perhaps not, that the interior, with its deep black expanses peppered with spots and streaks of white, could be so ominous and still. A blanket of the universe wrapped up as a present, perhaps.

Stepping inside the lobby’s marble rhombus, the visitor would see marble planters, marble doorways, a marble waterfall tastefully placed beneath a marble sculpture (of a marble-worker), a marble bellhop stand (currently vacant), marble directional signs and an enormous single marble front desk, fully twelve meters long, in the shape of a sperm whale beaching itself seemingly because of unfathomable heartbreak in the deep, deep sea. Looking behind the behemoth, the guest, if he ventured further indoors, which it seems he has, would lay his eyes on the first organic thing he would have seen so far in the lobby of the Solari, representational whales notwithstanding: a person in the form of Eugene Markham, Solari front desk clerk.

It is with surly, unhappy Eugene that this story truly begins.

Eugene sat on his back-paining swivel chair behind the whale, thinking about suicide. Not seriously considering it, just mooning over the act in the manner of many a pale twenty-something with a broken heart. His girlfriend had left him for another man, a non-Rumour no less, but that had happened so often in life it was an insipid topic of insipid pop songs. Speaking of which, Eugene’s band, Dirges For Betty, hadn’t written any, pop songs that is, or at least any good ones or for that matter even any insipid ones, and Eugene was beginning to believe no one ever slept with the bass player anyway. Then there was the scaly chrysalia which had suddenly broken out all over his genitals and which was shaping up to be the only lasting legacy of his now-former relationship. And, oh, yes, he had just been demoted from catering to front desk. So one might forgive Eugene for being less attentive than usual when the shimmery-haired stranger – the selfsame guest who had sized up the Solari, now having made his way to the front desk – checked in. He (Eugene) was too caught up in wondering whether you slashed your wrists parallel or perpendicular to your palm and whether, since your palm was more or less square, this was even the right question to ask.

—Do you have any rooms available?

Eugene peeled back the skin from a hangnail on his thumb. The strip pulled off all the way back to the first joint. It bled and it hurt like hell, but it was also kind of impressive in its own macabre sort of way. Though he was unaware of it, Eugene cracked a smile.

—Now why would you want to go ahead and do a thing like that?

Eugene teleported back from his languor and at last noticed the man standing before him.

—Can I help you?

—I might very well ask you the same thing, my good fellow.

The man was dressed entirely in black, incredible given that Hennington was in the thick of summer, when Hilke’s Winds blew off the Brown Desert, turning the city into a humidity-free place of chapped lips, bloody noses and queer tempers, where the heat rarely dipped below forty during the day despite the best efforts of a calm, cool ocean that seemed as intimidated by the heat as those unfortunate Hennington residents without air conditioning, which, oh yeah, was another of Eugene’s problems. The man in black looked like he was either approaching or leaving behind fifty, but he exuded health like a pheromone. His skin was bronzed almost to the tan of Eugene’s own Rumour hue, but this man was no Rumour. His nearly black hair was clipped short and neat and contained, Eugene was surprised to find himself thinking, a well-nigh dazzlingly handsome sprinkling of gray. The man’s eyes were a green so light it neared pastel, contrasting, even highlighting, his long black coat, black shirt, black pants, black belt and black boots. All in all, a preposterous outfit in this weather. There was another thing. This man had, what was it?, an aspect about him, a warm calmness, a smile that invited, a glance that seemed to show patience as well as an invitation. Maybe it was something as simple as charisma. Maybe he was just an exceptionally good-looking man. Whatever it was, the result was this: Eugene liked fucking girls (a lot); nevertheless, he was aware of the erection pressing against the crotch of his uniform, causing the chrysalia to itch all the more.

—Let’s start again. I’d like a room.

The spell dissipated. Eugene’s confusing hardness faded. Something lingered, though, and Eugene’s mind, in its own ham-fisted way, toyed with the something that hovered around this man. If it hadn’t been for a single red pimple near the bridge of the man’s nose, Eugene might have convinced himself he was seeing a vision. Or even a god, maybe.

—How long will you be staying?

—I’m not sure. Just got off the train and I’m here. A week. A month. I’m not sure. What’s your name?

—Eugene.

—Tybalt Noth.

Tybalt Noth offered a hand. Eugene, surprised again, accepted the shake.

—Unusual first name.

—A ridiculous name given by ridiculous, if loving, parents. I go by Jon.

—So an open-ended stay is what you’re looking for?

—You have summed up the matter admirably.

Jon né Tybalt smiled.

—I’m visiting an old friend, you see. I don’t know when I’ll be leaving.

—An open-ended reservation ought to be fine. We’re not that crowded.

—Because it’s so damned hot.

The man betrayed not one drop of sweat, despite having recently arrived from the oven outside. Eugene took his identification and credit card and entered them into the computer.

—You might want to change clothes, sir. The heat doesn’t look to let up anytime soon.

—Call me Jon, please, and I know about the weather. I’m from here. I can remember many a pressure-cooker summer.

—Really?

Why was it so surprising that this man was a Hennington native? Yet it was, most definitely.

—I just haven’t been back in a long time. These are my traveling clothes. Trust me, Mr Eugene, I brought appropriate attire.

He took the card key Eugene offered him.

—Room 402.

—Thank you, Eugene.

—And my name’s Eugene if you need anything else.

Jon blinked.

—Thank you again. I’ll remember that. I hope you find whatever it is you’re looking for, Eugene.

He grabbed his bag, hitherto out of Eugene’s sight below the rolling back of the sperm whale. Eugene started making sounds about getting a bellhop, but Jon waved them off.

—I like to carry my own bag.

He smiled again, warmly and, it struck Eugene, incongruously for being dressed like a fallen angel. He turned and walked to the elevators. He seemed shorter than at first sight, but he moved with a sense of balance so sure and smooth that he seemed to glide. At the elevators, he turned.

—Is The Crash still hovering about town?

—Of course. They never change.

—Ah, that’ll be something to see again.

The elevator arrived. Jon disappeared into it. Eugene looked back at his computer screen. Jon Tybalt Noth’s return address was in the Fifty Shores, which meant that he had traveled three and a half thousand miles across the widest expanse of the Brown, by train, dressed in black. Eugene entered a note reminding the evening staff to check if Jon needed any other cooling amenities. He thought for a minute, erased the note, and decided to ask Jon himself at the end of his own shift.

Poor Eugene. He never knew what hit him.

2. A Confluence of Nudity.

Many years before she became the Cora Larsson, legendary Mayor of Hennington and remembered in a generation of matronymics, Cora Trygvesdottir went sunbathing in the nude and met the man who would become her husband. The scene: infamous Conchulatta Beach, that prime piece of land hooking its way over the southern entrance to Hennington Harbor, its crescent stretching from calm harbor to violent strait to calm ocean. Cora went alone, a not uncommon occurrence during a final year at college spent fleeing the daily catastrophes of two flatmates. Her natural inclination for serenity left her unable to really enjoy the boom crash of college life. That she excelled at it and later at law and still later at politics seemed to Cora to be the same sort of infuriating fate joke as penguins being such great swimmers: you did what you were good at and tried to ignore the fact that your flippers were really handicapped wings.

And so here was Cora, hatless and tanned, humming to herself, marching down to the beach, having parked her hasty in the last available slot. She carried a law coursebook, but even she knew that it was more or less a pretext. Henningtonians were not an especially beach-worshipping bunch, but neither were they beach-foolish. There were rules. The beach was a place where she could expect quiet and calm, especially if she read from an unattractive book of laws and even more so if she removed her bathing suit, de rigueur as the beach edged west. A naked sunbather was a serious sunbather, and Cora could wear her nudity as a shield against bothersome, over-friendly beachwalkers.

Along with her law book, Cora carried her hasty keys, a tube of sunblock with a much too low defense level, a small bottle of water, and a Mansfield U beach towel. She wore only sunglasses, sandals and a bikini, more appropriate attire having been left in the hasty’s trunk. For a Wednesday, the beach was crowded, but Cora made good time heading past the unseemly hordes of casual visitors. As she got further west, the families thinned and solitary sunbathers became more common. No one was in the water. It was hammerhead season and even with the iffy safety nets, you only swam if you were suicidal or drunk.

She grew faintly aware that the female-to-male ratio on the beach was beginning to tilt in favor of the men. She was a confident young woman, but still she relaxed a bit as the number of muscled, oiled bodies covered in the tiniest of suits began to grow. She removed her bikini top, bunched it in her hand, and received nary a glance from the men baking in the sun. Still further and the tiny suits shrunk all the way into not being there at all. She began to glance an impressive variety of penises in an ever-more impressive variety of states of excitement. Slowly, the lone sunbathers became pairs of sunbathers who now paused in their activities and watched Cora curiously as she passed. Seeking only solitude, Cora followed etiquette and kept her eyes to the middle distance, pausing just long enough to remove her bikini bottom once the danger of any male who might leer had thoroughly passed. Now on the ocean side, she selected a spot at the edge of some brush that led back to the base of the cliffs. She spread her towel, piled her belongings, and lay down to read.

She was awakened some time later by a voice.

—Good God, you’re about to burst into flames.

Cora opened her eyes, and the pain began there.

—Ow.

—No shit, ow, are you going to be able to walk?

Cora forced her eyelids the rest of the way up and saw her future husband, Albert Larsson, for the very first time. He was clothed only in sandals and a concerned expression. Cora turned a little and reached for something to cover herself up, but the excruciating pain from the burn quickly overtook any notions of modesty. She croaked out a question.

—Is it as bad as it feels?

She felt her lips crack as she finished the sentence. She tasted blood.

—I think you’re going to live, but we’ve got to get you inside somewhere.

And so Albert referred to himself and Cora as ‘we’ in the third sentence he ever spoke to her. Whenever she told this story in the years to come, both less and more often than you might think, Cora left out how suddenly comforted Albert’s simple ‘we’ had made her feel. If, as she believed, every story needed a secret, Cora’s was that she had loved Albert from sentence number three.

—Let me help you up. Slowly, now.

With much care and the lightest of touches, Albert got her to her feet. He gathered her few wayward things and delicately placed a hand on an unburnt spot to help her walk.

—You’re going to have this two-tone problem for a while. Your backside is as white as virgin pearl.

—A moan will have to suffice for a witty rejoinder.

—I’ll pretend to be dazzled.

She still could only barely see him, but her painful squints revealed first his nudity, second that he seemed Cora’s age or a bit younger (she was right but only just; when they met, they were twenty-two and twenty-one), and third that the reddish-blond hair on his head matched exactly the reddish-blond hair that led down from his belly button. What made a bigger impression was the kindness she felt in his hands. They were so gentle on her skin that they seemed to be the only thing keeping her from spontaneous immolation as they trudged back up the beach.

—How did you get here?

—I drove my hasty.

—Well, you’re not driving it home.

—Clearly.

—Do you have anyone who could come get you?

—My flatmates, I guess.

—I recognize that tone. Don’t worry. I’ll drive you, and let’s talk no more of it.

—Ow.

—We’re getting there.

Step by painstaking step, Albert supported Cora, and they walked, naked as a bridal bad dream the night before the wedding, past staring groups of volleyball players and disc throwers. Cora’s burn was so awesome there weren’t even any catcalls. The onlookers knew they were in the presence of something tremendous.

—Pavement.

Cora’s step jarred on the stone, sending a canvas of pain up her front.

—Ow.

—My car’s just right here.

—So close? You got here early.

—I’m not very proud to say.

Something occurred to Cora.

—Did you come to the beach naked?

—No. I was having sex with a man in the bushes behind you. We dozed, and when I woke up, he was gone and so were my clothes, towel and all various and sundry, save for the sandals I had somehow managed to not take off.

Cora let out a surprised laugh in the form of a grunt.

—I’m laughing less at the story than at your candor.

Through another squint, she could see him grin.

—I’m Albert.

—Cora.

—How about I take you to my lonely apartment, cover you with aloe, and put you in a cold bath, Cora?

—I’m in no position to decline.

Albert slipped off his left sandal, lifted up a flap, and pulled out his car key. Cora watched him with burnt eyebrows raised.

—You know, that’s a really good idea.

Some time later, after Albert more than made good on his promises, he wrapped her in a sheet, laid her on the couch, and fed her with bits of melon and cool water.

—I want to take you out to dinner to repay your kindness.

—Are you asking me on a date?

—You had sex with a man on the beach today. Are you askable on a date?

—It’s a big world. I like lots of things. I’m askable.

—All right then, I’m asking.

They married four months later. Though they occasionally indulged in sharing a boy, theirs was a rock-solid, faithful, and devoted union. Such was their bond, in fact, that by the time Cora was elected Mayor a surprisingly short seventeen years later, local Hennington argot referred to an especially strong contract as an ‘Albert and Cora’ to demonstrate its solidity.

3. The Crash on the Hill.

She was concerned about the dust.

The air smelled heavily of it, but it should have been too early in the year for there to be dust, although the last rains were well gone. There was ash in the dust as well and a distant smell of burning. She paused before she led the herd up to the top of the hill that marked the northern entrance to the descending fields, a place completely lacking in the malodorous homes of the thin creatures. This was just a grassy area, and she shouldn’t have been able to smell dust at all.

(An Arboretum groundskeeper leaned against his rake, watching The Crash from behind a stand of trees. He could see them grazing in the field, Maggerty mooning along after as usual, and he also had a pretty good guess where they were going to head next.

He frowned.)

She looked at the rest of the herd behind her. A lightness of mood permeated the group but left her unaffected. She was the only one who bothered at the dust in the air. The rest of the herdmembers shuffled aimlessly about, pulling at the grass with agile lips, some of the younger calves even playing, gamboling on the lea, if anything so bulky could ever truly be said to gambol. Lush green surrounded them. Families of birds sang to each other in the trees and to those symbiotic brethren who made a meal of the ticks and other annoyances in the herdmembers’ hides. A breeze teased its way through the glade where the herd was gathered, and to every herdmember there, save one, all was well.

She sniffed again, reaching with her nose, even squinting her eyes, their weakness more than compensated for by sensitive nostrils and nimble ears that now also turned and grabbed at any evidence that might linger in the air. Nothing. There was the usual amount of thin creatures scattered in the fields, easy to sense with their eerie strangled cries and halved footfalls, oddities not excepted by the thin creature who constantly followed the herd, also present in her catalogue of senses. Nothing out of the ordinary but the dust.

She snorted and waved her great horn to get the others’ attention. The message communicated itself through the group, and the herd began to file behind her. Yet even as they crossed into the ever more verdant gardens that leapt their way down the hillside, she could still smell the dust, its persistence meaning only one thing.

Hard times were coming.

4. Luther in Limbo.

Luther Pickett, beloved foster son of Archie Banyon and heir apparent to both the Chairmanship of Banyon Enterprises and the Banyon family fortune – though there was the matter of the last name – kept an immaculate desk in the middle of an overwhelming office. Taking up fully three quarters of the forty-fifth floor (the leftover fourth given to elevators and Luther’s four secretaries), it contained a conference room, a lengthy reception hall, a full bathroom with shower, an exercise room with spa and relaxation tub, a dining room, and a whole separate apartment where Luther could quite comfortably spend the night if he chose, which he never had, not once. Luther’s desk sat in the office’s main chamber, a room whose vaulted ceiling reached so high it took up a sizable portion of the forty-sixth floor, giving Luther a two-story wall made entirely of glass. In late afternoon, the sun poured in, filling the office to the brim with a spectacular view of Hennington out into the Harbor and beyond. Aside from Archie Banyon’s own office (the three-story penthouse with the pool, driving range, and ice rink; Archie was an athletic man), Luther’s office was the most impressive, most talked about, most envied, and to the extent that smaller budgets would allow, most copied in the city.

So it should surprise no one that Luther Pickett was desperately unhappy. Really, just look at his desk. A notepad, a file, a few papers, neatly stacked. A blotter, a telephone with intercom, a computer to one side. Barely anything else. No personal photos, no mementos from company milestones, no sample Banyon Enterprises products. Even the coffee mug was black and unmarked by logo or design. Most definitely not the outward reflection of an unfettered soul.

The minimalism (some would say sterility) reached to the gray carpet and on up the undecorated walls. After three years in this office, the intended inoffensive-yet-very-expensive abstract expressionist paintings were still packed in crates thirty stories below, waiting futilely for the day when Luther would finally allow them to breathe fresh air. And there was the silence, too. No bustle, no music, not even a hum from the air conditioning, just Luther’s pen scratching across a paper or the fading click of typing on the keyboard. Yet the atmosphere was not cold but melancholic, a funeral parlor’s viewing room rather than a prison cell, Luther the grieving relative and not the angry inmate. Luther at thirty-eight (grapevine verdict: ‘looks younger, seems older') appeared at once tense and exhausted. His tanned, handsome face rarely smiled, his broad chest rarely expanded into laughter, his step never betrayed any lightness. His secretaries worried frantically about him.

The intercom lit up.

—Yes, Lois?

—You’re going to be late for your 9.30.

Luther glanced at the clock.

—Shit. Call Jules, please, and tell him I’m on my way.

—I already have.

Archie Banyon and Luther Pickett had a thrice-weekly tennis match, played on the grass court Archie had installed on the uppermost floor of his own office. It was meant as a friendly game between friendly rivals, father-son in intent, if not perhaps in genuine feeling; still, it was not the corporate death-saga it might have been. Luther was strapping, tall, muscular. He was bald across the top and kept the rest of his hair cropped extremely short, a trompe l’oeil that made his head seem like a single sleek muscle as well. His tightly compacted litheness paired with a set of small silver-rimmed spectacles to make Luther look for all the world like a terrifically strong man trying not to appear so. In spite of this – and spite definitely entered into the equation – Archie Banyon had an impressive game and a more impressive tenacity. Luther usually lost two out of three, even given Archie’s extra five decades.

What the matches amounted to were three opportunities a week to speak with Archie. Three times a week to deliver the prepared speech that Luther had written and rewritten, the prepared speech that laid it all in the open at last and forever, the prepared speech that would probably kill Archie Banyon, not merely because of what it meant for Luther, but because of what it meant for Archie’s biological son, Thomas, a distasteful little caveat that helped matters not at all.

Luther gathered his tennis clothes and bolted to the elevators. He shot up through eighteen floors of computer banks and safes, film libraries and records, corporate histories and hidden crimes, eighteen floors of valuable information that Archie had placed between himself and Luther because he only felt comfortable if he was on one end and Luther on the other. —To protect it, Archie said, like sentinels. The elevator doors snapped open. Luther spotted Jules, Archie’s assistant, arranging Archie’s equipment off to the side of the court. Jules flashed Luther a wan, impish smile.

—Piss off, Jules.

—Is that any way to greet your umpire?

—Where’s Archie?

—Here!

Archie called from the far end of the court, behind Luther. Luther turned. One week. One week, and there would be no turning back. He would either give the speech or he wouldn’t. In one week, if he hadn’t said no, his silence would have answered yes.

5. Maggerty.

Maggerty the Rhinoherd was not the rhinoherd, but the misnomer served a humane purpose. Though the resolute, quiet and massive Crash needed no tending, the presence of Maggerty could only otherwise be explained by madness, an explanation with which the polite citizens of Hennington privately agreed but publicly tended away. The Crash offered no product, neither meat nor milk nor leather; their eating patterns were too erratic and wandering to be a real benefit to agriculture (there were no farms in the city anyway, which was where The Crash wandered more than half the time); and the individual animals were impossible to tame, ignoring Henningtonians with a determination that would have seemed like arrogance had The Crash not also asked so little in return: a few hay bales during drier times and the right to free range. The Rhinoherd did nothing but follow. He was more disciple than caretaker. Hennington sensibilities to the side, it was an occupation for a fanatic or an imbecile. Fortunately, Maggerty was both.

He was born in the farmland to the south of Hennington, the only son of middle class rent-farmers. Odd from the beginning, his destiny was set at six years old when he was kicked between two ribs under his left armpit by a goat he tried to suckle. This – the attempted suckling – was not done out of hunger but out of simple entrancement with the goat and its wheaty, dirty, shitty goat-smell. Crawling past the small, electric dairy works; past the Rumour farm-maidens tending to the hens and the sheep; under the nose of the giant Rumour overseer asleep in his chair, head cocked towards a computer terminal, one hand somnolently gripping the erection that raged in his pants as he (the overseer) dreamed; moving quietly through the gate, held fast so the latch didn’t clatter; literally following his nose to the furthest pen, Maggerty came face to face with the bored she-goat, munching her hay, distracted and oblivious.

Trailing his fingers on the wall, Maggerty circled the goat slowly. She took no notice of him after her initial sizing-up, exuding the offhand confidence so peculiar to farm animals who weren’t also sheep. She was a greenish brown with white bony legs and sharp – Maggerty was soon to discover – hooves. With caution, or rather, with reverence Maggerty placed a hand on the goat’s hide. The goat jumped a little, but it seemed to Maggerty to be more out of surprise than abhorrence. When he touched her again, she didn’t move.

He began to stroke her, slowly, like a pet. She had birthed a litter less than three weeks before, but her kids had already been taken from her. Her udder, plump to the point of hardness, glistened with a liquid Maggerty assumed to be sweat. He knew, as all farm children knew, that udders issued milk, and he was deliriously overcome with a desire to drink, to sup rich sustenance from the goat, to bring the pulsing, thrumming warmth of another existing aliveness into himself. A contempt was there, too, for the goat’s refusal to regard him, to notice his need, but that did not stop his desire for the milk.

He knelt. Heat buzzed in the air. He felt his heartbeat in his temples. A tingling spread over his body along with a sort of ecstasy, if he had known the word at six, but it was like the ecstasy of those screaming streetcorner preachers who haunted Hennington’s desolate east side and who would shit right out in the open and leave it stinking in the sun for want of interrupting their sermons. Maggerty leaned in and put his lips to one of the long teats. He had not even properly gotten his mouth around the nipple when the goat kicked him, slicing a deep, precise cut between two ribs just below his left armpit, leaving a wound that never healed. Never.

This was the unacceptable thing. A child ridiculously exploring a goat could be explained, heaven knew such things and worse had happened on southern Hennington farms since time immemorial, but a child with a wound that never stopped bleeding, never scabbed nor scarred, now this was a thing to be wary of. The expected ostracism and isolation followed ruthlessly in the farming community, ringing outwards from friends to schoolmates to teachers and onward, until finally Maggerty’s own mother regarded him only grudgingly on the rare occasions when she regarded him at all.

As he stumbled down the road after The Crash, Maggerty distractedly put his hand to the wound. Years and years and years had passed. The wound never got worse, but it never got better either. It also never stopped hurting, and it was this, the never-ending pain coupled with the oddity of the never-healing wound, that had driven Maggerty irretrievably into madness sometime in the teenagedom when he had picked up with The Crash, still accompanying them all these many long years later.

He ate grass and roots with them. He drank from the streams and canals and lakes as they did. He rarely approached them – the experience with the goat had taught him not to meddle with an animal that weighed one hundred times as much – but he also never left them, nesting with them through winters and storms, famines and droughts. He began to be called Maggerty the Rhinoherd not long after taking up his patronage. At first, municipal thought considered forcibly separating him from The Crash, but as he apparently did no harm to the animals and as they did not seem to mind or indeed acknowledge his presence, he was left alone.

And so it stood. Maggerty the Rhinoherd. Before the year was out, he would have a second never-healing wound, but only because it would first take his life.

6. The Mayor’s Office and its Discontents.

The speakerphone on Cora’s desk crackled.

—Mayor?

—What can I do for you, Adam?

—The Arboretum just called.

—Let me guess. The Crash bruised a blade of grass and molested a squirrel.

—More like trampled a rare species of terrestrial phalaenopsis. The botanists are screaming about irreplaceability.

—Adam?

—Yes, Mayor.

—'Terrestrial phalaenopsis'?

—That’s what they said.

—They couldn’t say ‘orchid', like normal folk?

—I guess they figured you’d know.

—On the basis of nothing.

—What should I tell them?

—That they shouldn’t have planted terrestrial phalaenopsi where one hundred rhinoceros could tread on them.

—Well, they are terrestrial phalaenopsis.

—And it is an equally terrestrial Crash. Surely there are paths The Crash doesn’t take. The botanists can plant their orchids there.

—I think all they want is a fence.

—In whose lifetime do they see that happening? The Arboretum’s been an open park for ninety years. That’s not going to change on my watch just because a bunch of botanists are crying over orchids.

—I like orchids.

—I have another call, Adam. Issue settled.

She released his line and pressed another flashing light.

—Yes?

—Deputy Mayor Latham on the line.

—Put him through. Max? Make me happy.

—Unlikely, I’m afraid.

—You can’t make the fundraiser.

—I can’t make the fundraiser.

—This is my thought, right this second: ‘Why do I even bother?’

—Talon is sick.

—Oh. Well, all right then. What’s wrong with her?

—Battery Pox.

—Poor thing. Started the shots?

—We’re driving home from the doctor’s office right now. She’ll be fine. She’s just throwing up all over everything.

—And a sitter is out of the question?

—Cora …

—All right, all right, all right, I’m civilized. I’ll just have to work myself up for a sparring match with Archie Banyon.

—He can’t be too upset if I have a sick daughter.

—He won’t be upset at you. He’ll be upset at me.

—You can handle Archie Banyon.

—I know I can handle Archie Banyon. Doesn’t mean I look forward to it. Where are you now?

—Driving down Eighth. Just about to cross Medford.

—Look out for The Crash. They’re around there somewhere.

—The Arboretum called, didn’t they?

—I don’t want to talk about it.

—Sorry about tonight.

—I don’t want to talk about it.

But she did.

—How can you expect to be elected if I do all your campaigning for you?

—You got elected four times. Why fix something that’s not broke?

—Don’t be cavalier. They’re not going to make you Mayor just because I tell them to.

—They might.

—Well, yes, they might, but still, Max—

—I’ll make it up to you.

—So you say. Are you even going to vote?

—Mercer Tunnel. Breaking up. Gotta go.

—Liar.

She cut him off and pressed a private speed dial.

—We’re flying solo tonight.

—Hi, sweetest. Max pulled out again?

—Yep.

—How does he expect to get your job if he never shows up to anything? Politics is nasty and brutish, but you at least have to play at it.

—Talon’s got Battery Pox. Apparently, she’s vomiting everywhere.

—How vivid. All right, whatever, we’ll pull in the dough for him once more.

—He says thanks.

—No, he doesn’t, but at least he means it.

As was his wont, Albert disconnected without saying goodbye. Cora dialed her secretary.

—Angie, get me Archie Banyon on the phone, please.

—Max canceled again, didn’t he?

—Just get Archie on the phone and let me out of my misery.

She clicked off and saw lines lighting up as Angie tracked down Archie Banyon. Cora steeled herself. He would let her off, but he wouldn’t do it without making her pay.

7. Father and Daughter.

Max Latham was trying to become Mayor of Hennington, but he wasn’t trying very hard. He still wasn’t sure if his heart was in it, which he often thought should have been proof enough that his heart most definitely was not in it. There was the sticky question of destiny, though. He had worked for Cora nearly thirteen years, since he was fresh out of law school, first as an intern with a brilliant mind for policy – if a little less so for politics – then as an advisor, then as Chief of Parks, until his current position as Deputy Mayor, the youngest person ever to have held such a post. Now, with Cora retiring after twenty adored years in office, everything had crystalized, just at this moment, for him to fulfill an awaiting slot in history, to step forward and seize the waiting gold ring, to set so many records atumble.

If elected, and as there was no present credible competition and as he was riding on Cora’s enormous popularity, getting elected seemed almost foregone, he would be Hennington’s first Rumour Mayor, quite a coup when Rumours were still, if you believed the census takers, a minority in the city. He would also be the youngest Mayor ever in the Recent Histories, beating the record by the two years he was younger than the previous recordholder, Cora, on her first election. Max had yet to even breach forty. More esoterically, Max would also be Hennington’s first unmarried Mayor, the mother of his daughter having drowned before plans for their wedding could be finished. All these impressive footnotes that would be for ever attached to his name.

And yet.

He looked in his rearview mirror for a glimpse of Talon, piqued in the back seat.

—How’re you feeling, sweetheart?

—My head weighs a hundred pounds.

—We’re almost home. Let me know if you need to throw up again.

—Okay.

Talon at ten was the spitting image of her father, high cheekbones, dark wavy hair, skin on the lighter side of the usual Rumour tan. But she had her mother’s chin cleft, a mark that could still spark fresh pain in him when he saw it, even all these years later. Max slowed his car to watch The Crash, still so magnificent after uncountable sightings, wander across to a side street. He idled to a stop as the last animals lumbered through the intersection. The Rhinoherd shuffled along with them twenty paces behind.

—Look, honey. The Crash.

—I can’t sit up, Daddy.

—Of course, sweetie, I’m sorry. We’re almost home.

Was not being sure if you wanted to run for Mayor a good sign that you shouldn’t run for Mayor or a good sign that you had enough self-doubt and introspection that you were in fact a perfect candidate for Mayor?

—Daddy?

—Yes, sweetie?

The sounds of coughing. Max turned around and stroked the back of Talon’s head while she retched into the bag the doctor had given her.

—Just take your time, honey. It hurts less if you relax.

He felt sweat dampening her hair as he stroked it.

—Take all the time you need to, sweetheart. We’ve got all the time in the world.

8. Mathematica.

Jacqueline Strell sat in her office and bathed in numbers. They flooded her desk in wave after wave, pages of numbers blocked in charts, scraps of numbers scribbled in pencil, computer analyses of numbers bracketed and cross-referenced to other rivers of numbers filed away in the cabinets behind her, numbers on cards, numbers on machine readouts, numbers on computer screens, numbers on the desk itself put there when, in a flurry of activity, Jacki chose not to flip over a page but continued onto the hard wood. Even her fingernails sported numbers, whimsically painted there this morning when she was in a whimsical mood. The time was rapidly approaching when she would need more whimsy. Oh, yes.

Her office nestled in the back half of the Hennington Hills Golf Course and Resort Administration Building. She loved it. Spacious table tops flung out from her desk in wings towards her office door, room enough to keep the flood of numbers churning and churning in their never-ending whirlpool. Cabinets lined the three walls behind her and to her right and left, streams and cauldrons of bubbling, stirring, steaming numbers. She had fourteen different clocks decorating her walls, all set to the same time but all with different number fonts.

This was the reason Jacki was an accountant: she, alone among everyone else she had ever known, understood infinity. This understanding was innate. No epiphany, no trumpet blast of the everlasting had ever filled her brainpan. The eternal had always whiled away its time in her gray matter. She had been intimate with the infinite from the time she could even speak such words. The human mind was not supposed to be able to truly grasp the never-ending, but she could close her eyes and set her mind running off into forever, tripping lightly away on a line with no beginning and no end.

This was the reason Jacki understood infinity: she understood numbers. Infinity, aside from its unfathomable physical existence, could only and would only ever be expressed in numbers. Jacki looked scornfully on the small-minded ‘appreciation’ of the layman towards an infinite set. ‘Really, really big, then even bigger'. They didn’t see it. Jacki saw it. More, she felt it, smelled it, could almost touch it. Numbers adding and adding and adding and adding exponential upon exponential upon exponential and then all those numbers were still as nothing because infinity remained, brightly spilling itself infinitely forward.

Jacki leaned back in her chair and sighed. She was tall, generously boned, with loopy brown hair that matched the gawky, unconfined sprawl of her body. She rubbed her hand across her high forehead, inside which was an increasingly throbbing ache. Yes indeedy, it was time for whimsy again, most definitely. She opened the top drawer of her desk and pulled out a vial and syringe. With practiced movements, she filled the hypodermic, tapped it for bubbles, raised the hem of her skirt, and injected her thigh with 50ccs of the purest Forum you could get anywhere in Hennington.

Because there were three more things about Jacki:

1) Besides being an accountant with a comprehension of infinity, she was totally, utterly, wholly, paralytically and absolutely addicted to Forum.

2) Because of this, Jacki also worked as a prostitute for her boss, Thomas Banyon, biological son of Archie Banyon and general manager of the Hennington Hills Golf Course and Resort, lent out to clients to feed a specific need, thereby pleasing Thomas and causing him to provide her with more Forum, although of course never quite enough. These shifts were in addition to the full day’s work she put in as Thomas’ Head Accountant. Never let it be said that Thomas Banyon lacked a darkling sense of humor.

3) And all of this was true because, at age forty-one, with her youngest child fifteen years old, Jacki still produced, on a daily basis, nearly two pints of breast milk, and there were a surprising number of men who would pay a surprising amount of money for just such a delicacy. Thomas Banyon was not a man to let potential income go unexploited.

Her phone rang. Alone in her office, she mouthed an expletive.

—Hello?

—Jacks.

Jacki frowned, but the Forum was already dribbling its way through her veins and she began to feel her consternation melt away, butter in boiling water.

—Yes, Mr Banyon?

—I have a clip for you tonight. Are you up for it?

As if there was a choice involved.

—Of course, Mr Banyon. It would be my pleasure.

—It’s Councilman Wiggins. You remember the good Councilman, don’t you?

Remember? She had to put salve on her nipples for nearly a week after the good Councilman displayed a tendency for toothiness. This memory too, though, floated away into the shimmering mirage of the drug.

—Certainly, Mr Banyon. What time?

—Say ten?

—All right. Ten it is. Usual place?

—Usual place.

—I’ll be there.

—I truly appreciate that, Jacks. I’ve got some really wonderful merchandise here that I had been hoping to share with you. I want to thank you for giving me the opportunity.

—I’m grateful for your indulgence, Mr Banyon.

—You’re a good girl, Jacks.

He clicked off. Jacki closed her eyes. She was deep into butterscotch warmth now and glorious waves of light and color filled her head. The anguish, thank the heavens, was winding its way clockwise down the drain, spiraling blissfully out of her presence.

God bless Forum. Forum’s name be praised.

9. Hospitality.

—Mr Noth?

Eugene Markham knocked again. After a lengthy pause, Tybalt ‘Jon’ Noth opened the door. He was wearing one of the Solari’s bathrobes. His hair was wet, and he held a towel in his hands. Still, he smiled when he saw Eugene.

—Eugene! What can I do you for?

—I was just checking to see if everything is to your satisfaction.

—Slow day for you then?

—Yes.

—And you still have yet to manage a proper smile.

Eugene almost smiled at this, but not quite.

—That was pitiful, Eugene. And enough of ‘Mr Noth'. I told you to call me Jon.

—All right, then. Jon. Is everything to your satisfaction?

—I’ve only been here long enough for a shower, but the bathroom fulfills most accepted definitions of nice.

Jon smiled again, more warmly this time. Maybe he was a preacher. Maybe that was it.

—Are you some kind of preacher?

—How is it that I just know this surliness is something you’re trying to overcome and that there’s a perfectly personable individual in there somewhere struggling to get out rather than just plain old dour Eugene?

—You smile a lot, is all I mean.

—Your perception is bizarre, Eugene, but somehow, perhaps accidentally, it may even be correct. Interesting.

Eugene blinked. He wasn’t sure if he was being agreed with.

—So …

—I have been called a preacher in my time, Eugene, but even then, it could have been wrong. As for now, definitely not.

Eugene blinked again.

—'Why don’t you come on in and talk for a while, Eugene’ is what you’re waiting for me to say, yes?

—I don’t mean in any male-male sex kind of way, but—

—I didn’t think you did. Why don’t you come on in and talk for a while, Eugene?

Eugene, surprising even himself, smiled, stepped over the threshold, and entered Jon’s room.

10. The Crash at the Bridge.

Once, early on in her time as leader, the search for food had forced her to take them across the bridge that flung itself over the bay away from the city, a difficult, frightening and lengthy journey. The whole way along she could only smell salt water and the noxious metallic scent of the boxes that the thin creatures rode in. The wind drowned out all sound as the herd picked its way through the stopped boxes, the thin creatures inside staring out impassively. It was slow going, with much nervous lowing and braying among the members of the herd until, perhaps inevitably, disaster struck. About two thirds of the way across, some of the older animals started to panic, the confinement of the bridge causing a claustrophobia unknown to them even in some of the city’s starker alleys.

She attempted to keep some sort of order, firmly shaking her head, stepping forward and back. She snorted and affected a prance to try to hold their attention, but the wind snuffed her out. An old male began to get aggressive in his fear, knocking some of the smaller animals out of his way. An old female stumbled, accidentally pushing over a pregnant mother. The final stroke was the appearance of a flying box carrying some of the thin creatures. (— … so avoid the Firth Roundabout if you can at all. And finally, it looks like we’ve got a serious traffic jam on the Harbour Bridge, caused by The Crash of all things. As you can see from SkyCam5, cars are just at a standstill. Looks like rush hour’s going to be even longer tonight all over the city. Back to you in the studio . . .) Hovering to the side of the bridge, the box brought a swirling roar that proved too much for the more nervous animals. They turned and charged, running full gallop back the way they had come, leaving her and more than half the rest of the herd standing near the far end of the bridge.

The herd must not divide.

She ran to overtake the fleeing animals, to try to get in front of them to lead them again, to get them off the bridge and back into a calmer state. She arrived too late for some. The aggressive old male had given himself a mortal wound charging into the scattered boxes over and over again, his horn cracked, his ears bleeding. The old female who had knocked over the expectant mother had been turned against and was being forced over the side by a cadre of enraged herdmembers blinded by fright. She reached the group only in time to see the old female vanish over the edge with a low, terrified moan.

She quickened her pace, passing charging herdmembers on her right and left, weaving through the thin creature boxes, some of which were trying to move out of her way and only causing more problems. Her mouth foamed at the effort, her ears filled with the roar of her blood, but near the end of the bridge, almost a mile later, she was in front of the herdmembers that were fleeing. Assuming her entire authority in what she did next, she turned, faced the entire herd, and stopped right at the line where the bridge returned to the soil. Astonished, the escaping herdmembers careered to a halt in front of her. There were pile-ups as those charging behind were slower to stop, but eventually she faced the herd in its entirety, save for the two now lost. Even stopped, chaos still rattled the members as they jostled and tussled, some still panicking to get off the bridge.

She paced in front of them purposefully, walking back and forth, back and forth, until all heads were turning following her movements. With a loud snort and without slowing her step, she turned and headed away from the bridge. The animals followed her in shaky unison. In a short amount of time, the bridge was cleared of all animals except for the dying old male, who thankfully had knocked himself into unconsciousness before he died.

It was difficult to lead, but she led them once more.

11. Orthopediae.

Thomas Banyon was born with legs so bowed he was said to have been straddling his mother’s womb rather than resting in it, that his mother had wished for a boy and had given birth to the wishbone instead, that his parents had copulated on horseback, in a tunnel, with pliers, et al. Fortunately, his parents had been – his father still was – very, very wealthy: erstwhile Hennington City Council Members, owners of the Hennington Hills Golf Course and half of everything else in Hennington, stables full of horses, maids in the houses, unused yachts. These remarks about his legs were never said to Thomas Banyon’s face. This did not mean he was unaware of them.

Before Thomas had been alive a year, his parents had paid for five surgeries to correct his legs. He had three more by the time he was six and had not actually learned to walk until he was seven. He attended rigorous physical therapy on up into adolescence with Joe. Joe, ‘Just Joe', the therapist, was a former soldier who had served with Thomas’ grandfather in the Gentlemen’s War nearly fifty years previous and was purported to be the best physical therapist in Hennington. But Joe, and there’s really no getting around this, was an out-and-out sadist. His stated goal from day one was to get Thomas to cry.

Said Joe, in that indecipherable accent of his: —No pain, no advancement.

Years passed, and Thomas’ pleas to his parents fell on four deaf ears. The sessions grew longer and longer, with Thomas holding out for as long as he could against the onslaught of drills, weights, endurance tests, water exercise, and on and on. If Thomas had been able to fake crying, if Joe had taken even one small modicum less of obvious pleasure in inflicting the torture, Thomas might have grown up to be an altogether different person. But being of a spiteful, resentful disposition, he had developed the two natural and inevitable results.

Thomas Banyon had grown very strong, and Thomas Banyon had grown very mean.

At sixteen he was asked, because of his family’s position, to escort one Rebecca Turkei to Rebecca’s coming-out cotillion. Thomas, whose now vaguely straighter legs had the muscular mass of an elephant, could not dance, would not dance, and scorned the very idea of dancing. Rebecca, being a nice girl if a bit unobservant of behaviours human, responded by smiling, saying things like ‘Oh, pooh', and ‘You old grouch', never imagining for one moment that Thomas might be serious. On the big night Thomas, thinking the matter clarified, squired Rebecca down the winding staircase to the adulation of the white-gloved crowd below. When, at the bottom of the stairs, the crowd parted, the music began and Rebecca turned to Thomas to begin the traditional dance, he was sure he had been duped. Thomas Banyon, already most of the mammoth size he was working to become, loudly yet clearly spouted at Rebecca Turkei a most foul four-letter word that reached the ears of every guest and sister-debutante at the cotillion. To punctuate the oath, Thomas took his boutonniere and crushed every last carnation petal in the palm of his hand. He left Rebecca standing stricken and alone. She moved out of Hennington not three weeks later. ‘Medical school’ was the given reason, but everyone knew the most Rebecca Turkei had ever expressed about medicine was ‘Ouch'.

As punishment, because cotillions – however ridiculous to even Thomas’ father Archie – were not to be taken lightly, Thomas was made a gardener at the golf course. Delivering an astonishing blow to precedent, Archie Banyon even declined to send Thomas to college. Said his father with a wan smile, —You can pick up the trade on the job. Externally at least, Thomas took the hint from the gardening assignment, but he knew just exactly how much he would pick up about business from tending to a golf course. Ever the surprisingly smart son, though, he kept his opinions to himself. Not coincidentally, this was the time Luther Pickett arrived on the scene. Suddenly, Thomas had a pre-teen younger brother, an orphaned son of some fucking shipping clerk in some obscure fucking Banyon Enterprises satellite investment. Luther was described by Archie to Thomas as having ‘promise'. The implication was obvious. Well, so fucking what? Thomas would learn all about fucking ‘promise'.

Despite the unstated intentions of his father, Thomas did learn quite a bit from the golf course. Important things like where and when to seize what power and for how long and just how to use it once you got it. Gardening turned into supervising turned into course designing at a rapid and bloody rate. Privately, Thomas’ father approved of the casualties left in Thomas’ wake, admiring the ambition of an otherwise thwarted youth, but Archie Banyon blanched a little at the glee Thomas seemed to feel in it. Publicly, though, the father simply smiled and kept promoting his son. Inside of ten years, brief but still too long for pretty much anyone but Thomas to work at a golf course, Thomas Banyon, bandy-legged, bad-tempered, debutante-insulting son of a billionaire, was CEO of Hennington Hills Golf Club and Resort and loving it. What should have been a dishonorable, low-salaried (for an heir), do-nothing job had somehow morphed into a private fortune and personal pleasure, because nepotism or no, Thomas was very good at what he did: mainly terrifying his subordinates and keeping his members happy. Surprisingly, Thomas found the latter as entertaining as the former. He gained a reputation for providing for the illicit tastes of the richer and seamier sides of Hennington, which as usual were often one and the same. Drugs? Thomas could purloin a selection to fill a convenience store. Inside information? Thomas could make and break fortunes simply by frowning instead of smiling. Sex? Now, sex was where Thomas flourished.

Sex, oh, could Thomas acquire all kinds of sex for whatever persuasion was requested. Whilst a mere gardener, Thomas had already seen the perks that a quick hand job received from a grateful married man in a sand trap. You only had to do the actual act a few times before the more delicious avenues of blackmail opened. Thomas didn’t need the money, but he discovered quickly how having power over someone turned into other advantages. When those men and women thought they were taking something from the bulky, muscular, smiling, friendly teenager, Thomas knew otherwise.

Nowadays, the locker-room jerkoffs and sauna blowjobs, the limousine pussy-eating and private apartment fuckings (of pussy and ass; opportunities were opportunities) were left behind as mere child’s play, the youthful desire to put in the personal appearance. Almost all of his employees at Hennington Hills had extra, special duties that Thomas required of them now and again. Peter Wickham, the waiter with the delightfully elegant sexual organ; Jacki Strell, the milk-bearing accountant; Maggie Bonham, the gift shop manager about whose head-giving epic poems should have been written; silver-haired chief chef Hartley Chevalier, who appealed quite dramatically to equally silver-haired women; Paul Beck, assistant mechanic, whose sad eyes and cunnilingual talents left him very little time to actually fix any of Hennington Hills’ vehicles; Tracy Jem-Ho, barmaid with a whip. And so on. All of these people owed Thomas something, and none of them would, should ever think of leaving. Besides, Thomas thought, he treated them well, paid them well, never asked them too far over the edge, certainly not to any point where they couldn’t come back. He cared about them, he thought. Any of the entertainment might disagree, but Thomas was sure that was beside the point.

Upon his perch in the golf cart from which he surveyed his grounds and shook the hands and caressed the egos of its utilizers, Thomas Banyon was offering JH Williams Roth VIII an imported cigar of the highest purity and utmost illegality.

—Taste good?

—Exquisite. Like a young girl just having smoked the finest cigar.

—I can arrange for you to make the comparison first hand, if you’d like.

—I was unaware that I had to ask any further than I already have.

JH Williams Roth VIII raised his eyebrows haughtily. Thomas smiled. This prick would get his cigar-smoking girl. He would also get a raging case of the Mud. Maybe Thomas was a gofer and a pimp, but you didn’t treat him like one. The mobile phone in the cart rang. He lowered his voice, turning away from the prying ears of the soon-to-be-oozing JH Williams Roth VIII.

—Thomas Banyon.

—It’s Luther.

—Hello, brother.

—I was wondering …

A long pause. Thomas liked making him wait.

—He’ll be there at the usual time, Luther.

—Thank you.

Luther hung up. Thomas smiled to himself. Wasn’t providing what people wanted all the power you ever really needed?

12. The Melting Sanctuary.

The scented smoke whorled around Jarvis Kingham’s bearded face and on up into the shafts of light fingering through the corrugated skylight. Other than the row of candles marking the entrance to the sanctuary across from Jarvis’ pulpit, the skylight was the only source of illumination. It wasn’t much. Jarvis’ nose was filled by incense, plain old candle smoke, and a spectacularly effusive cloud of sweat emanating from his parishioners. Didn’t any of these people use antiperspirant?

Be nice, Jarvis, he thought.

He coughed and tried to stifle a second by clearing his throat. Despite his years of training, despite his strongly felt and sincere devoutness, despite his recognition of its place as the holiest of holy days in the Bondulay religion, Jarvis had never really cared for the Collingham Sacraments. The service was, frankly, the dreariest of the entire Bondulay sacred calendar: a dark room filled with candles on a hot summer day with pew upon pew of worshippers overdressed in their too-hot church finest sweating up a storm. What fun. Jarvis shifted his shoulders a little under his thick, wool robe. Droplets gathered to form rivulets of sweat cascading from his armpits and ample stomach. His eyes stung from the salt, and his fingers left wet prints on the pages of the Sacraments. Water, he thought, even as his lips sounded out the canticle.

—And, lo, the man who would be penitent before the Almighty shall have his transgressions rescinded without question;

—And, lo, the woman who would be penitent before the Almighty shall have her past wrongs erased without recompense.

Jarvis made a quick pass with his tongue to catch the drops of sweat dangling precariously from his mustache.

—But the penitence does not end at the expunging of past faults;

—The true penitent carries on in a never-ending quest to keep their past lies from being spoken again;

—To keep their past wrongs from being committed again;

—To keep their past thievings from being stolen again;

A verb-subject problem that seemed to have arisen in the translation.

—To keep their past grievances from being redressed;

—So say the Sacraments.

The congregation answered, a little wistfully in the heat, —And so say we all.

At least you get to sit down, Jarvis thought, then pushed the thought immediately away. The Collingham would have been slightly more tolerable if it weren’t also so long. Jarvis had been speaking for almost an hour and had only gotten through four canticles. There were seven to go. He shifted his feet and noticed that a quite literal puddle of sweat had formed between his sandals. Oh, Heavens above, he thought, enough is enough.

—Good people, I think, perhaps, in deference to today’s rather …

And here he paused to give both weight to the word and to signal a reluctance to make his request, a reluctance he no more felt than he did current personal comfort.

—… astonishing heat, I am wondering, perhaps, if it might not be prudent to move directly to the canticles of blessing.

He was surprised to hear some mumbling among the parishioners.

—And grant ourselves some comfort on this day of atonement.

The murmuring grew into outright conversation, and so quickly, too. Jarvis couldn’t quite believe his ears, but he was hearing protests. As achingly somnolent as they were, did they actually want to go through seven more canticles? A lone but distinctive voice rose over the murmurs. Jarvis only just halted a cringe. Theophilus Velingtham stood in the sweltering darkness to speak. Theophilus had been Head Deacon forever, at least since long before Jarvis, and spent most of his time as a one-man performance review committee.

—Father, I, and I believe the rest of the congregation, would find it difficult to countenance your request.

—I beg your pardon?

Even given Theophilus’ penchant for self-righteous droning, the man couldn’t seriously be suggesting two more hours.

—The Collingham Sacraments are our highest holiday, Pastor. What does a little discomfort mean to the true penitent?

More murmurs, this time of assent.

—How can a little overheating, and I’ll grant you, it is rather warm in here—

There was some appreciative chuckling. Theophilus wore a smile that Jarvis could see even in the dimness of the sanctuary. He tried hard not to also read malevolence there.

—I was only thinking of the extremity of the discomfort, Deacon Velingtham. Surely, the Collingham was not meant as an exercise in suffering.

—Surely what better situation could there be for the transgressor to reflect upon the gracious penitence of the Sacraments than to receive those Sacraments in a session of extreme discomfort?

There were calls of ‘hear, hear’ and ‘amen’ from the crowd now.

—It must be forty degrees in here, Deacon, maybe forty-five. I’m thinking of the safety issues—

—I, for one, am willing to risk it for the precious absolution that the Collingham offers.

Now there were outright calls of agreement.

—Continue on!

—The entire Collingham!

—Praise be to the Sacraments!

Theophilus’ voice again, splitting the room like a cleaver.

—I think of Sarah the Downhearted in the desert, walking mile after mile to gather the cactus leaves necessary for her—

—Yes, Deacon, we are all familiar with the parable.

—I was merely—

—Do you all really wish to proceed?

If he was going to have to do all eleven canticles then he might as well get on with them without having to listen to Theophilus blabber about a parable taught to children. The veritable shouts of ‘yes’ from the congregation sealed the matter.

—Well, I must say I am heartened and delighted and much humbled by your reverence for the Sacraments. It strengthens not only my faith in the text, but my faith in you, my good people. Blessed are you, and faithful. You are truly children of the Sacraments.

Zealots, Jarvis thought, and cautioned himself again on his lack of charity. He caught a glance of Theophilus sitting down again in the gloom, a look of sour triumph on his face. Jarvis stifled another unkind thought and looked back to his text.

—Then if you’ll all turn with me to the beginning of canticle five …

13. Maggerty Eats.

The circumstance wasn’t noteworthy, but the sensation was.

Maggerty was hungry.

He had, more or less, ceased noticing hunger years before. The constant swirly, inky fog in his brain helped to push the subject away, and he had also managed to achieve a certain self-sufficiency that kept the deepest pangs in abeyance. He knew where to get fruit in the Arboretum, where to get vegetables from the larger local gardens, and where easiest to steal prepared goods from those shopkeepers who turned a blind eye when Maggerty ambled in. No one wished the Rhinoherd any ill and all did their distant best to see that he was provided for. Even in these conditions, if Maggerty got hungry enough, he would just eat grass with The Crash. It tasted unspeakable, but he had also learned the habit of ignoring his tongue.

So, in fact Maggerty was often hungry, but rarely noticed because there was always something in the way of provision, making it more accurate and more disturbing, then, to say now that Maggerty was aware that he was hungry. Acutely aware. The fruits on the trees were smaller than usual; the vegetables in the gardens also. The prepared goods were still theftworthy, but Maggerty had caught the eyes of more than one shopkeeper frowning at his repeat business. The grass was also different. There was still plenty of it, of course, there was always plenty of grass, but Maggerty’s tastebuds were becoming less successful at ignoring the bitterness, mainly because they had only been taught to ignore the sickly sweetness of the greenest grasses of Hennington.

No, there was no doubt about it. Maggerty was hungry, hungry enough to momentarily clear his fogged brain and require him to take notice. His stomach paced up his torso in gurgly steps. A little while later it paced back down. He followed it with his attention every time, fingering his wound distractedly. Beneath the grime and under the lowered face – but oddly enough not underneath a beard; it remained one of the central mysteries of the Rhinoherd that he never grew facial hair, never grew it for there was certainly no way he could be shaving it off – Maggerty frowned. It was an effort for so expressionless and calcified a face to show much emotion, but there it was, an honest-to-goodness frown.

Somehow Maggerty knew the leader of the herd was also bothered about the grass. He had been with The Crash long enough to have seen her assume her leadership, albeit reluctantly, and had followed the herd faithfully through her entire tenure as leader. He could tell when she was bothered, even when it seemed the other animals in The Crash couldn’t. There was a look to her, a shaking of the head, a leveling of the eyes, there was something that Maggerty keyed into through the murk in his brain, something that addressed the unsettled aspect of him, which was a considerable aspect indeed. Maggerty, that wariest of suspects, could follow wariness in others, even rhinoceros, especially rhinoceros, with nary a batted matted eyelash.

He plucked a pinkish-green cherry from a wan cherry tree tucked away in the northern corners of the Hennington Arboretum. The branch did not give up the under-ripe fruit willingly, and Maggerty nearly mashed it into nothing before he got it off the limb. When he finally ate it, it was so sour the tears temporarily blinded him. He let out a little gasp. After his vision cleared, he noticed the leader of The Crash regarding him. Not looking, but sniffing in his direction, her spearhead ears rotating this way and that, taking their measure of him. He croaked out some words to her.

—They’re green. Not ripe yet.

She looked off into the distance, but somehow Maggerty could tell she was still giving him her attention. She snorted, shaking her head and shuffling her front feet.

—What’s going on?

But of course she had no answer. She turned and moved off further among the rest of The Crash, all grazing happily in the green lea. They were in an area where a concentration of aeries hovered at the top of nearly every tree, homes to the massive Hennington Grey Eagle. She directed her attention to the treetops, as if pondering a question. Maggerty looked up as well. The huge nests seemed abandoned, ghost nests waiting to fall. The eagles were nowhere to be seen.

—Where did they go?

And again she had no answer.

14. Peter on the Move.

Peter Wickham unplugged the charger from his motorcycle and maneuvered out of the garage. His waiter’s uniform was neatly folded into a back compartment. Underneath his protective jacket and helmet, he was dressed in an expensive pair of black pants and a white, frilled shirt that was ridiculous. Big Boss Thomas Banyon had selected it though and thus discussion of its merits stopped there.

Peter had been brought from over the border the year before by Thomas Banyon, ostensibly as a waiter, but really because one of Thomas’ regular young bucks had the gall to go and get himself murdered, under circumstances Thomas preferred not to spell out, leaving him short one Rumour boy to lease for general entertainment. Thomas’ experience was such, though, that the word ‘general’ rarely applied for long, and Peter ended up being not quite so ‘general’ after all. It turned out that Peter had a member just subtly shaped, curved, and pliant enough to be a perfect fit for those male and female clients whose tastes tended towards the mysterious pleasures of the anus. Thomas being Thomas, Peter had to work as a waiter anyway, so tonight he had pulled a full shift at Hennington Hills Golf Course and Resort’s Savannah Restaurant before heading out to what had turned into a regularly scheduled Wednesday-night clip. He pushed the cycle onto the freeway out of town heading for the immaculate but somehow sad home of one Luther Pickett, businessman.

Peter was remarkably unresentful of his clips. He wasn’t foolish enough to ever believe that Thomas Banyon would for one second make good on his promises of releasing Peter after the three-year work permit was up when Peter would be able, theoretically anyway, to look for work away from his sponsor. Peter brought in too much money and too many intangibles to the Golf Course and Resort, and he was well aware he would be used until his looks, talents, and penis were no longer so often requested. But that was the future; it would take care of itself. He shared in none of the griping the other employees of Hennington made about old men with bad smells or fat women with pudgy, inept fingers.

There was no doubt Peter had gone through his share of awful clips: the woman who, after sex, had walked into her bathroom and calmly died of a cerebral hemorrhage; the teenage boy who, halfway through the act, had begun to insist that Peter start punching him; the man who had held him at gunpoint demanding that Peter fuck his large, blonde dog, not believing Peter when he told the man that he had requested the wrong employee. Thomas, in an act that could have been mistaken for kindness, had released this last man from the clip list. You never threatened the entertainment. Never. Unless, of course, that was your particular brand of entertainment.

Despite all this, as Peter drove towards Luther’s home, he was heartened, even a little excited. Though never having been with a man during his whole life across the border, Peter had unexpectedly made the rookie mistake of falling dangerously and recklessly in love with Luther Pickett, the boss’ stepbrother. Somehow, through his three or four clips during the week, through all the fakery and fucking he performed, through all the varying degrees of hygiene and taste that he put up with, this regular Wednesday appointment made up for it all.

He rounded a long curve in the freeway and slid down the offramp. He turned up into the hills, humming to himself as he went. Luther’s house was at the end of a private road, removed from most neighbors and traffic. A lovely house, Peter thought for the nth time as he parked his bike to the side of the garage. When he walked around to the front door, Luther was already there, waiting for him.

—Peter.

—Hey, Luther.

They kissed.

—Come in. I made chook. Hope you’re hungry.

Here was another thing: Luther Pickett seemed to be the only clip in the history of Hennington Hills to make dinner for the entertainment.

—Smells good.

—I hope so. I’m a little worried about the spices.

They stopped at the entrance to the kitchen for a longer embrace and kiss.

—It’s good to see you.

—I’m very glad to be here.

And there was the sad look again, the look that had caused Peter to fall.

—What’s wrong?

A laugh.

—Oh, you know, the usual.

—Yes, but you never tell me ‘the usual'.

—Just a little personal failure today. Nothing to worry about. Here, take off your jacket. Get comfortable.

—Do you like this shirt?

—Sure.

—You don’t have to lie.

—Then, no.

—I don’t like it either. Banyon insisted I wear it. Said it was all the fashion, as if he would know. Do you have a T-shirt I could borrow?

—Absolutely.

Luther disappeared for a moment and returned with a shirt. He watched while Peter changed. He sighed.

—Are you sure nothing’s up?

—I’m sure. Don’t worry about it. We’re here to have a good time.

‘We', thought Peter.

—Why don’t we eat then? And after that, I can help you relax.

—I’m all for that plan.

Luther smiled, and there was genuine warmth in it, Peter was sure.

15. An Offer.

—Good veal. Your room service has performed well, Eugene. —First I’ve ever had.

—First room service?

—First veal. I’m Rumour. We don’t normally go for veal.

—Oh, that’s right. It’s seafood or nothing, isn’t it?

—The Official Entrée of the Rumour Nation.

—And what nation would that be?

—A hypothetical one, so far.

—So far? There are ambitions afoot to make it not hypothetical?

—If you believe my father.

—Do you?

—Do I what?

—Believe your father.

—Before or after he died?

—Either.

—Then no and no.

—Ah, the bitterness of youth. We’re ignoring the, what is this?, crumb cake would be my best guess. —Blueberry-cinnamon bundt.

—How very exact.

—I work here. I’ve seen the menu.

Jon cut his way into the bundt with a knife. A quivering blueberry goo slumped out of the middle of the slice.

—I think that’s as far as I’m willing to go.

—You’re not going to eat it?

—Look at it.

—It looks good.

Eugene cut himself an enormous piece. He seemed so pleased while eating it that Jon could have sworn he heard him humming. He was humming. A tune, even.

—What are you humming?

—What?

—That song. What are you humming?

—I’m not humming.

—Yes, you were. Just now.

—No, I wasn’t.

Said with an unusual sternness that Jon took as a dismissal of the subject. So be it.

—All right then. You weren’t.

—It’s almost eight. I should be going.

—There’s no need for that just yet.

—I thought you had somewhere to go, too.

—Not tonight.

—Why would you spend the first night of your vacation in a hotel room?

—It’s not a vacation. I told you, I’m visiting an old friend.

—Well, still. Why stay here? Why not visit your friend?

—I have found out she’s occupied this evening.

—She?

—She. Old passion from my past, I’m afraid.

—And she doesn’t know you’re coming so that’s why she’s occupied.

—How very observant from one who has seemed heretofore so opaque. I mean that as a friend.

—No, I know fuck all about most things. My girlfriend just dumped me.

—?-ha. So you’re currently attuned to the caprice that is occasionally named ‘woman'.

—What?

—Women can sometimes ruin you.

—Goddamn right.

He angrily speared another quivering bite of bundt.

—What do you want to be, Eugene?

Eugene smiled sourly, blueberries in his teeth.

—You mean when I grow up?

—How old are you?

—Twenty.

—Then, yes, definitely, when you grow up.

—I don’t know.

—Surely there must be something.

—Nope.

—At all?

—At all. I wanted to be a musician. I’m a bass player.

—If you are a bass player, then why the past tense? Sounds like you’re already a musician.

—Fuck it, I don’t want to talk about it.

—Surely you don’t want to work here the rest of your life?

Eugene said nothing, shoving more bundt into his mouth.

—How would you like to come and work for me?

—You just met me.

—I’m an excellent judge of people.

—Not if you’re offering me a job.

—Self-deprecation is more destructive than you can possibly imagine, Eugene.

—A job doing what?

—Being my assistant.

—I’m flattered, but like I said—

—Look, I don’t want to bed you or your single-tracked mind.

He turned his full gaze on Eugene. Apple-green eyes resting in a lined, deeply tanned face. Cropped salt-and-pepper hair pulling back from strong temples. A small nose resting above a generously lipped mouth. A chin that only seemed on the weaker side until you heard the voice pouring from above it. Eugene began to sweat. He felt his skin pulling into goosebumps. He was entranced, trapped.

—I am not an average man, Eugene, and I don’t mean that in a boastful way. In fact, it has often worked to my detriment, but I do know a few things. My destiny is here in Hennington. I’m not prepared to share that destiny just yet but know this, I am not mistaken, misled, or delusional. I’m not just offering you a job, Eugene, I’m offering you a chance. A chance to be there.

And then it was gone, vanishing like steam off an athlete. Jon leaned back and smiled with a casualness that seemed to emerge from nowhere. Eugene could only cough for a moment before he spoke.

—Why me?

—Why not you?

—Why would you want me to work for you?

—I’m not sure. Doesn’t it seem right, though?

—You just met me.

—So you’ve said. I told you. I’m a good judge of people.

—I just met you.

Jon shrugged.

—You’ve got blueberry dribbling down your chin, Eugene.

It was a full moment before Eugene took his napkin and wiped the blue conflagration from his face, but by then he was already a former employee of the Solari Hotel.

16. Why Archie Banyon Feels the Way He Does About Women.

—Maybe I can talk her out of it. It’s not too late. Ballot’s not for another four months. She could get a waiver on registration. Tell the people she’s reconsidered because of their support. She’d be re-elected by fucking acclamation if it came to that. She’s fifty-eight years old. She’s got at least two more terms in her. Three, even.

Archie Banyon’s limo was caught in traffic, which meant that Jules was going to have to listen to even more of this blather than usual.

—I’ve known her for ages now. Ages. Since before she was Mayor. She was my lawyer, don’t you know, and a right pain in the ass she was then. Right pain in the ass she is now, but a damn fine Mayor. Damn fine. She shouldn’t be retiring. Don’t trust that Max. Seems like a nice enough kid, but ‘kid’ is the problem word there. Cora’s got more sense than Max does. Hell, Max’s little whipper’s got more sense than Max does, and she’s what, ten?

—Maybe the Mayor wants some time with her family.

—What fucking family? She’s got Albert and whatever stud they’re currently fucking. That’s not family. That’s not even a card game.

—Would it be out of place for me to ask you to cut down on the cursing?

—Yes.

—I thought so.

—I don’t understand people who get power and then just give it up. Just say, ‘Oh, what the fuck, I just don’t want it anymore. I’m retiring.

He literally spat the last word, contemptuous saliva hitting the limo’s floor.

—Not everyone’s like you, Mr Banyon.

—And thank God for that. What a pain in the ass the world would be then.

—Would it be out of place for me to agree with you?

—Out loud, yes.

—I thought so.

—And what for the love of God does she see in Max?

—If you don’t mind me saying so, your opposition to Max Latham seems out of proportion to anything he’s done.

—I’m not against Max Latham. I’m for Cora Larsson.

—And why would that be exactly? Again? Sir?

Archie’s history was populated by the ghosts of dead women. He should have known something when his first wife was named Belladonna. Archie and Belladonna married young and desperately in love. Belladonna, whose formidable bearing and pomegranate lipstick eschewed any attempt at a nickname, gave birth to four daughters in rapid succession: Dolores, Soledad, Ariadne, and Proserpina, Belladonna’s sense of humor showing an appealingly dark shade. When Thomas was born, Archie intervened. Belladonna had wanted to call him Actaeon.

Archie’s mother, who had died when Archie was a teenager but who at the time of his wedding could be dealt with as a sad memory rather than the ominous beginning to a macabre chain, had been strict and loving with Archie until her death, instilling him with confidence, kindness, and a respect for self, a parenting trick that Archie was constantly sad not to have learned. Archie’s mother was the reason he loved women so much and also the reason for the manner in which he loved them. Not in the big-rack-hot-ass sort of way that his friends so perplexingly did. Archie just found them easier to talk to, easier to share a meal with, easier to take advice from. It was clear to everyone that Archie had found a wondrous and powerful match in Belladonna, a brilliant, passionate, dark-eyed lawyer who was the only daughter in a family of eight sons.

Belladonna’s misfortune was to thumb her nose at fate one too many times. One day, when Poison and her daughters Pain, Solitude, Corrupted Innocence and Bad Marriage were sunbathing on the fourth-story roof of Archie’s northeast Hennington estate, an earthquake opened up the ground and reduced the building and the five women to rubble. Archie had been inspecting a vineyard on a horse which hadn’t even thrown him during the tumult. Thomas turned up later full of unsatisfactory explanations.

Archie’s grief, a deep and powerful thing even if he hadn’t been by then the richest man in Hennington, was finally only mollified by an endocrinologist called Maureen Whipple, a name Archie thought inoffensive enough not to anger the gods. Copper haired with copper-rimmed eyeglasses, Maureen was an amateur lepidopterist and singularly devoid of risky imagination. But she liked Archie quite a bit, and he liked her quite a bit right back. Eleven days after their fourth wedding anniversary, she was killed when a derailing train hurtled through her windshield.

Archie’s third wife, Anna Grabowski, about whom the less said the better, barely made it down the aisle before perishing in a trapeze mishap.

His fourth wife was a devil-may-care whirlwind named May Ramshead. Eight years older than Archie, she was a zoologist with a wild streak. She rappelled off of cliffs, swam with sharks, and had spent time as a rodeo clown. Two and a half years of blissful marriage later, May died peacefully in her sleep when her heart failed.

Archie finally took the hint and settled, at age sixty, for a single life with female friends. That was when he met and hired Cora Larsson. Contrary to the whisperings of those few existing enemies of Cora, Archie wasn’t responsible for Cora’s success. True, Archie had sent Cora poking into some fishy business dealings of then-Mayor Jacob Johnson, but it was Cora who had followed the now-infamous trail to the mysterious death of Johnson’s father and the millions stashed away in accounts under the name of Johnson’s mistress, a story so familiar it needs no rehashing here.

It was, however, Archie’s suggestion, with a helping hand from Albert, that Cora run for Mayor some twenty years ago. Archie was thirty years Cora’s senior, but he was, if the truth be known, in love with her and always had been. Thank goodness she was already married to Albert and also that Archie realized marriage to him meant certain death. He merely had to be her friend. He gave her money and advice when she ran for Mayor and threw the inaugural ball when she won. She was also the reason Banyon Enterprises hadn’t cheated the city in over two decades. Archie respected her too much to ever want to face the disappointment of her certain litigation. He loved her, and that was that, more than enough reason to support her.

—What’s with this traffic?

—It seems to be clearing up, sir.

—Thank God for that.

—Yes, sir. Thank God, indeed.

17. ‘The Tale of Rufus and Rhonda'.

—How’s your head, baby?

—I want to cut it off.

—But then you wouldn’t have one at all.

—I don’t care.

—Medicine’s not helping?

—I guess. It makes me tired.

—Try to sleep, then.

—I can’t keep my mind clear. It races and races and it’s all just thing after thing after thing.

—That’s the fever, darling. It can’t be helped.

—I’m so tired.

—Do you want me to tell you a story?

—Don’t you think I’m a little old for that?

—Do you think you’re a little old for that?

—Depends on the story.

—I’ll make it age-appropriate, how about that?

—Maybe.

—Okay, let’s see. ‘There was once a girl named Talon …’

—Stop. I don’t want to be the heroine.

—Why not?

—I just don’t. Please?

Max thought for a minute.

—All right. How about this?

There once was a great king called Rufus the Swarthy. (—What was he king of?) He was king of all the land. (—Which land?) He was king of all the Southern Lands. (—What were they called? —Just flow with me here, Talon.) He had arisen to the throne after his father was killed in a great war with the people to the North that had raged on and on for generations. King Rufus didn’t believe in war. (—That’s a pacifist, right? —Very good.) He had seen war take the lives of all of his friends and classmates and all the rest of the young men in his land. Now it had taken the life of his father, and King Rufus decided enough was enough. He was going to end the war, once and for all.

The war had gone on for so long, hundreds of years, it turned out no one could remember what the war was being fought over. So the first thing King Rufus did was send his Royal Researchers to work. They worked night and day for months on end, going back further and further into history, searching the research, combing the catacombs, delving into the delvements. (—Is that a word? —Probably.) At last, on a bright, cold morning, they found the reason. Forty-seven generations before, the King of the Southerners had stolen a rhinoceros out of the Northern King’s private zoo. (—That’s it? —Wars have started for less. —But that’s stupid. —Precisely.) King Rufus couldn’t believe that so many thousands of lives and hundreds of years had been wasted on something so small, especially since both the cities of the North and the cities of the South had grown over time despite the war and each side had more than their share of zoos chock-full of rhinoceros.

He decided a symbolic gesture was in order. He would give a present to the ruler of the Northerners, who during this time was Queen Rhonda the Stout. King Rufus ordered his kingdom’s zoologists to select the top male and female rhino from his stock and prepare them for a journey to the North. Rufus himself would then deliver them to the Queen in person, unaccompanied by any guard. He sent word to Queen Rhonda’s court of his plan, and she sent word back that he would be allowed to make the journey unmolested.

For one hundred and twenty-two days, King Rufus walked with the male and female rhinoceros towards the North’s capital city, through sun and rain, light and dark, all alone save for the rhinos. The three lived off the land, Rufus hunting game for himself and finding lush spots for the rhinos to graze. At last, late one afternoon, King Rufus reached the castle doors of Queen Rhonda. He entered through a long hallway that led from chamber to chamber, on and on and on through one hundred separate rooms, the male and female rhinos with him at every step, until finally, he reached the throne room of Queen Rhonda. (—And she was beautiful and they fell instantly in love. —Yes and no. They fell in love, but she wasn’t beautiful. —Oh, I like that.)

‘The Stout’ turned out to be a kind nickname for the Queen. Exceedingly short and overwhelmingly plump, Rhonda nevertheless exuded a kind of vitality and vigor that struck Rufus’ eye immediately. Now, it should be said that looks-wise, Rufus was no great shakes either. (—Good.) His wild mane of red hair was so long that it often tangled itself in his equally long beard. Underneath all the hair and matting was an extremely handsome if overly thick-fingered man, but on the surface he seemed like a golem made of burlap. Plus, he had a cold sore. But it was love at first sight for them both anyway. And for that, the Northern cities and the Southern cities rejoiced. Everyone everywhere was equally sick of the war.

Queen Rhonda immediately accepted the gift of the male and female rhino, and offered her kingdom’s hospitality to King Rufus while the details of the armistice were worked out. One day later, the Queen, with Rufus’ permission, also ordered her lawyers to draw up a pre-nuptial agreement. They attended feasts together, hosted parties welcoming delegates from Rufus’ kingdom, and generally spent a lot of time staring into each other’s eyes and sighing.

But all was not well. There was a wizard in Rhonda’s court named Ted. (—Ted? —Yes, Ted. —Ted the Wizard? —Yes, may I continue?) Ted had never loved Rhonda but had arranged with her father at her birth to be the one to marry her when she reached adulthood. Fortunately for Rhonda, her father had died when she was a child, also fighting the war like King Rufus’ father. (—Aw, Dad. —It’s just a fairy tale, honey. Don’t worry.) By the time Rhonda came of age, she had exercised her queenly powers to have the agreement with the wizard voided, for she had no desire whatsoever to marry a man who was only interested in her power. She regarded him as more annoying than evil, though, so she kept him around and had ceased giving him much thought after the matter was settled.

Ted hadn’t forgotten though, and when he learned of the wedding plans of Rufus and Rhonda, he finally realized his chance for revenge. Working with all the black magic at his command, calling on all the evil forces he knew or was at least acquainted with, using every last magic chemical he had in his storehouse, every trick he ever learned, he cooked up an evil curse. Revenge would be his.

The wedding day arrived, sunny but cool. Nearly every resident of both kingdoms had crowded onto a huge field to watch the ceremony. Even the male and female rhino were present, chewing happily away on the grass. Rhonda the Stout stoutly rhondled her way down the aisle to her awaiting groom. Rufus had been cleaned up for the occasion and swept up his bride-to-be for a pre-ceremonial kiss.

This was where Ted popped in.

‘STOP!’ he cried with a booming voice. ‘I, Ted the Splendid, curse this union.’

There were gasps among the guests. Rhonda wasn’t impressed.

‘What is it now, Ted?’ she asked.

‘I curse this union thusly,’ said Ted. ‘Marry if you will, love if you will, rule if you will, but kiss at your peril.’

‘Meaning …?’ Rhonda said.

‘If you kiss the lips of your beloved,’ said Ted, ‘both of you will transform immediately and forever into rhinoceros, of the type that brought this cursed union together in the first place.’

‘You can’t do that, Ted,’ said Rhonda.

‘Oh, but I can, Your Majesty. And have done.’

‘Ted, as Your Sovereign,’ said Rhonda, ‘I command that you lift this curse.’

‘Too late, Your Majesty,’ said Ted. ‘What’s done cannot be undone.’

With that, he let out an evil wizardly laugh and disappeared in a plume of foul-smelling green smoke.

Rufus and Rhonda didn’t know what to do. They were standing at the altar, waiting to consummate their vows, and bring peace at last to the Southern and Northern cities. Thousands of expectant faces watched silently as Rufus and Rhonda stared into each other’s eyes.

‘What should we do?’ asked Rufus.

‘There seems to be only one thing we can do,’ said Rhonda.

They kissed. (—Oh!) In a flash, where the King and Queen were standing, there were suddenly two rhinoceros, face-to-face, each with a crown hooked over their respective horns. Slowly, they turned to face the crowd, and without a word, for everyone knows rhinos can’t speak, they walked back up the aisle, pausing only to be joined by the male and female rhino already present. The two kingdoms watched as the four rhinoceros ambled for the horizon and set to grazing.

The townsfolk stood in silence for a while. Nobody knew what to do. Then someone from the South remembered that Northerners were said to go to the bathroom where they slept, and the Southerner felt the need to mention this to a Northerner nearby. Then someone from the North remembered that Southerners were supposed to have scars on their backsides from having their tails cut off when they were babies, and the Northerner felt compelled to ask a Southerner to show it to him. Then someone from the North spat on someone from the South. Then someone from the South slapped someone from the North.

A new battle began that day, one so intense that King Rufus and Queen Rhonda and the other two rhinos were forgotten. When one hundred years had passed and the new, even-worse war had destroyed both kingdoms so thoroughly that even their histories had been erased, no one among the few remaining survivors could remember where the wandering crash of rhinoceros had come from. The end.

—So but wait. Is that where The Crash comes from?

—No, sweetie, I just made that up. It’s as true as any other story, though, I suppose.

—Why did Rufus and Rhonda kiss each other?

—I guess they loved each other so much they would rather have spent their lives as rhinos than not be able to kiss.

—But rhinos can’t kiss.

—Says who?

—But didn’t they know about the war starting up again?

—Probably.

—But didn’t they have a duty to their kingdoms, then?

—Yes, but it’s a moral question. Which is more important? Love or peace?

—What’s the answer?

—That’s the whole point, there is no answer.

—How is that supposed to make me sleep? I’m going to be up all night debating love versus peace. I’m ten, Dad. I have no idea.

—Okay, what about this one? ‘There was once a chipmunk named Terry who was having trouble getting his library card renewed—’

—Good night, Dad.

—Oh, good, a laugh at least. Are you feeling better?

—A little.

—Think you can sleep?

—I think so.

—Okay, baby. Do you want me to stay with you a while until you do?

—Yes.

—My pleasure, honey.

18. Mingle, Mingle.

—Archie! Good to see you.

—That’s overly solicitous for you, Cora. Is something wrong?

—Not even a moment for pleasantries, huh?

—Don’t tell me. The Boy Prince is a no-show yet again.

—Why weren’t you a detective, Archie?

—Because I preferred to be rich. What’s his excuse this time?

—His daughter’s sick.

—If it’s anything less than plague, I’m not buying it.

—It’s Pox.

—Did she get the shots?

—Yes.

—Then he could have gotten a sitter.

—Archie—

—I left my kids home on plenty of nights when business called.

Another voice came in from behind.

—It’s a different day and age than when we were young, Archie.

—I’m thirty years older than you, Albert. There’s no ‘we’ involved at all, though I suppose you knew of this conspicuous absence as well.

—Family called, apparently, and it’s actually thirty-one years. But how are you this fine evening?

—My arches are falling.

—Isn’t that the first line of a sonnet?

Cora took Archie by the arm.

—Come. Eat something. You’ll be happier.

—Oh, yes, why don’t you rub my belly and tell me I’m a good dog while you’re at it.

—Has that been the secret all along?

—What’s to stop me from just going straight back home?

—Archie, please. Now the situation is this.

—Would you get me a whiskey, Albert?

—Straight up but very, very cold, if I remember correctly.

—Good lad.

—The situation, as I said.

—Yes, get on with it.

—Is that Max isn’t here because his little girl is sick. None of these people are really here to see him anyway. They all want to hobnob with me.

—I know that’s my preference.

—So Max gets sympathy points for brave single fatherhood, as well as for having his priorities straight.

—His priorities straight? What if a tidal wave is heading for the city but Max’s daughter has a little cough?

—It’s a different time now, Archie.

—The second time I’ve heard that inside of five minutes.

—Only because it’s true.

—Is it?

—Yes. We’ll have an in absentia fundraiser. It’ll be the talk of the town.

—It might be the talk of a very, very dull town, but even only there if it was the first time it had happened.

—The last time was my fault. A head of state had died. I had to send a representative.

—Poppycock. Oh, God bless you, Albert.

—That ought to smooth the evening out a bit.

—So, I’m an alcoholic, now, am I?

—Isn’t that really something for you to decide for yourself?

—Why did you marry this man again?

—He has an enormous penis.

—So ‘it’s not the size that counts’ has been a lie all along?

—'Fraid so.

—Bring me another, then, and let’s get this thing over with.

—Champagne?

—What I’m concerned about is the Bondulay creeping into our schools if he’s elected.

—What do you get when you cross a Rumour with an octopus?

—I think he’s very handsome.

—Harold, please. This is neither the time nor the place.

—I don’t think his race is an issue at all.

—Do you have any Cluvot?

—I’ve heard he’s part of the Rumour Underground.

—Creeping how?

—Oh, please, he hasn’t looked at a woman since his fiancée died.

—I don’t know but it sure can pick a head of lettuce.

—That doesn’t mean he won’t ever.

—Any what?

—Oh, you know how they are.

—Oh, yawn. Everyone knows that doesn’t exist.

—It sure doesn’t seem to be.

—Harold!

—'They'?

—I think he’s wrapped up in being a father.

—Oh, sure, you act shocked now, but you’ll be laughing on the car ride home.

—They call it a cultural experience and then suddenly we’re all listening to their music.

—And she’s such a sweet little girl, too.

—Secret societies control all centres of government.

—Cluvot. It’s from the North.

—I wonder what he looks like naked.

—I most certainly will not.

—What does that have to do with religion?

—He’s Rumour, so probably a hairy chest.

—And you’ll be telling everyone you know at the office tomorrow.

—Maybe Hennington’s a little more enlightened than we thought.

—You’re paranoid.

—Not necessarily. I went out with a Rumour guy in college, and he was smooth.

—Are you really this clueless, Harold?

—You sure he wasn’t waxed?

—There aren’t any wines from the North.

—It’s all stepping stones, is what I’m trying to say.

—Nobody was doing it back then.

—What? What did I say?

—Doesn’t mean he couldn’t have tweezed.

—It’s made from pears.

—A whole chestful of hair? I doubt it.

—Stepping stones.

—Precisely. I mean, he’s leading in the polls and the city’s what? A quarter Rumour?

—Have you even seen him here yet?

—Little baby steps until all of a sudden we’re overrun.

—To think otherwise is naïve.

—I heard someone say something about his daughter being sick.

—I have no response to that, except of course that the answer is no.

—That’d be just like him to stay home with her.

—Max is a Rumour.

—I’m not even sure Max Latham is a member of the Bondulay Church.

—Have you ever even met him?

—Forget it, then.

—If even that.

—No shit, but he should at least be able to take a joke.

—I prefer to think of it as sanity.

—No, but it just seems like the kind of thing he’d do.

—Of course he is. He’s Rumour. They all are.

—I think it’s something to be proud of.

—Champagne?

Albert declined another glass with a wave of his hand.

—There are some well-nigh terrifying people here, Archie.

—But terrifying people with money. That’s the important thing.

—I’d wager half of them aren’t even registered on our side of the hustings.

—Max is going to win. You always put money on the winner, no matter who you might vote for.

—Tragic but true. Makes for a nicely tense party though, don’t you think?

—I always feel like I’ve barely escaped with my life.

—That’s because you have.

—Where’s Cora?

—Over there. Hijacked by Harold Baxter. A rescue might be in order.

—Let her stay. Punishment for allowing me to be here and Max to not.

—She is my wife. A rescue is chivalrous. Come with me.

—No, I … Harold, how are you, you old son-of-a-bitch?

—Doing well, Archie. You know, I was just telling Cora here that—

—Cora, my dear, I’m leaving.

—But you just got here.

—Ninety-three minutes ago. Everyone is as cocktailed-up as they’re going to be. Besides you’ve already gotten my money and the milkings of most of the rest of this crowd.

—He even got money out of Miriam Caldwell.

—Good Lord, Archie. Did you have to join her church?

—No, no, she’s terrified of me. It was easy. But as I’ve said, I’m leaving. Walk me to my car.

—Of course. Nice talking to you, Harold. Albert, be a dear and get me another soda water.

—Certainly.

Cora and Archie walked towards the car park.

—Cora, I have concerns.

—I suppose I’m not surprised.

—I’m wondering if we’ve got a bit of a paper tiger on our hands here.

—Don’t worry, Archie. The campaign is months away, and though you admittedly haven’t had an opportunity to hear it, Max can be a very persuasive campaigner in his own way.

—He’d better be, is all I’m saying.

—What’s on your mind, Archie?

—There were some rumblings in the crowd in there.

—Rumblings about what?

—About Max being Rumour.

—Oh, Archie, you can’t be serious.

—I’m quite serious. He’d be the first. I’m not sure they, them, in there, are sure they’re ready for it.

—But everyone knew that going in. His poll numbers are high, he’s viewed with integrity—

—He’s still a Rumour. It could be the old story that people are afraid to say they wouldn’t vote for him because they don’t want to look prejudiced.

—I suppose I can see your point, Archie, but don’t you think we’re past that? We’ve had Rumour Councilmembers, Rumour Department Heads—

—I’m not saying he’s not going to win. I’m just saying it might be tougher than you, we expect it to be.

—I don’t have any illusions that there might be an element out there that might not vote for a Rumour.

—The trouble is that it’s a volatile element that could be open to persuasion as well as growth in size.

—Persuasion by whom? He’s unopposed.

—Just because there’s not a credible opponent now doesn’t mean there won’t be at some point.

—Who?

—I don’t know, Cora. Good grief. I’m speaking hypothetically. Just keep your eyes open is all I’m saying. This could be a bigger challenge than it appears on the surface.

—I wasn’t born yesterday. My last race was against Jake Caldwell, remember? All those churchkin of Miriam’s with their picket signs, pretty much calling me a wayward wife who should go back to the kitchen. Whoever thought those loonies would get thirty per cent? But at the end of the day, the voters did the right thing, and they’re going to do the right thing this time.

—Fair enough, but stay on your guard.

—That’s very sweet, Archie. I appreciate your help tonight.

—I hardly did it to be sweet.

—But you did it anyway.

—And thank God it’s over. Ah, there’s the limo.

—Have a good night, Archie.

—Remember what I said, Cora. I’m an old man. Our bodies make up in clairvoyance what they lose in malleability. There are rumblings afoot. Whether they’ll bring anything noteworthy to pass is anyone’s guess.

Albert came up behind her as Archie sped away.

—Here’s the soda water.

—Thank you, my love.

—What did Archie want? A percentage of Talon Latham’s future income?

—He thinks Max is going to have problems because he’s Rumour.

—Well, no shit. A secret conference just for that?

—I guess he wanted to impress upon me the gravity of the issue.

—?-ha, he was drunk.

—Looked that way. Let’s go back inside.

—Must we?

—Duty calls.

19. Duty Calling.

Deep in the distant far side of Hennington Hills Golf Course and Resort, Jacki Strell waited on the bed for Councilman Wiggins to finish his cleanup in the bathroom. The excitable Councilman had spilled all over himself inside of twenty minutes. As usual, he had tried to hold out and Jacki had attempted the methods she knew to slow him down: giving it a finger flick on the head, grabbing a single pubic hair and pulling it out, etc. All to no avail. Given that the entertainment was informally scheduled for an hour, Jacki faced the familiar problem of dead air with Councilman Wiggins. Most of the time, they tried half-heartedly to bring him to a second climax, a climax for Jacki, of course, being the furthest thing from either of their minds. He usually just ended up biting too hard on her nipples while fumbling ineffectively with her round bottom.

Jacki sighed pleasurably. She had so much Forum in her bloodstream that Councilman Wiggins could bite away and she wouldn’t even notice until the next day rolled around and salve would be required for her inflamed, maltreated aureoles. Taking Forum was like kicking back in a hot bubble bath you could take along anywhere. The world became one movable, ongoing massage. It was fair to say she couldn’t remember what life was like before Forum, back in those non-prostitute, number-filled days with her sons and ex-husband, but one of the side effects of Forum was the peculiar accompanying belief that all of a sudden there wasn’t a life before Forum, that it was always there, that it would always be there, that no problem was ever too big or too unpleasant that it couldn’t be washed away in the enveloping stream of Forum. She barely registered the Councilman coming out of the bathroom looking both sheepish and peeved.

—I thought you said you were going to learn some new things to keep that from happening.

—It’s okay—

She blanked on his name.

—Darling. It happens to a lot of men.

—But you said you could slow things down, that it wouldn’t be a problem.

—I did slow things down, but let’s face it, you’re a little soldier who wants to shoot as soon as he gets to the firing line.

—Little.

She sighed, but didn’t lose the smile from her face.

—I don’t mean literally little. I meant it as a term of endearment.

—I’m not little.

He was. He was almost six inches shorter than Jacki, a good two stones slighter, and his genitalia, while proportional, were on the smaller side of what Jacki had seen in her most recent business days.

—No one’s saying you are.

—You just did.

—I didn’t, but we were having such a fun evening. Come here. Come back to bed. We’ll have a nice, relaxing time for the rest of the hour.

Wiggins looked skeptical.

—Maybe we can make you go twice.

—You think so?

—Honey, I’m sure of it.

What were these words? Where did they come from? She didn’t even call her children ‘honey', had never addressed her husband during the eleven years they were married as ‘darling'. And what were these clothes? She was a mathematician, for pity’s sake. Mathematicians didn’t wear rubber panties or silicon bras with zippers down the front of each breast. Accountants sure as hell didn’t wear black hosiery attached to a black metal band that gave a slight electric shock when touched. At least not on a regular basis, they didn’t. Who was she? Who was she right now?

Sometimes with Forum came the Lions, and they could kill you if you let them drag you away. Jacki closed her eyes and fought. Forum had a vibration, and while Councilman Wiggins resumed sucking down her nutrient-rich breast milk (also, incidentally, Forum-rich; Councilman Wiggins had quite unknowingly developed his own habit), she concentrated on working her way back into Forum’s vibe. She could even see it when she closed her eyes. It was honey-colored and shimmering and just out of her reach.

Breathe, Jacki, breathe.

The Lions were at her heels, trying to drag her back to the present, if she could just, if she could only, if she could—

There it was. Oh, my, yes. There it was.

Everything’s all right, honey. Nothing could be finer, darling.

Was she talking aloud?

She exhaled slowly, and her unconscious hand tenderly stroked the Councilman’s thinning brown hair.

20. In the Hours Before Morning.

The questions were as old as time itself, but no less rigorous for their familiarity:

Are there reasons for love? And are they all intangible? If not, what if intangibles are the only things I have? Am I justifying all of this for my own wishful thinking? Is that love then, or is it just rationalization? Is this what we do when we’re in love? Is there nothing real? Or is he just beyond my reach? And what does he think of me? Is he reminded of me during the rest of the week? Does my name enter his mind at work? Do I exist for him when I’m not here?

Peter hadn’t slept much. He glanced over Luther’s slumbering neck at the clock. It was still a little while before dawn. Staying for the whole night was another rarity in a clip, especially since Luther had already paid and Peter had logged in a completion over the phone hours ago. He put his face to the back of Luther’s neck, inhaling a funk that verged on the offensive but steadfastly remained deeply sexual. It was a smell only lovers got. A stranger would have wrinkled his nose at the presumption.

Luther stirred.

—Are you awake?

—Oh, sorry, Luther. I didn’t mean to wake you.

—I wasn’t sleeping.

—Me neither.

—Why not?

—Just thinking.

—What about?

—Just things. How about you? You’ve got to get up for work in a couple of hours.

—I know.

—So why are you awake? I don’t go on shift until tonight. I can afford to waste sleeping time.

—It’s not as if I’m choosing to.

—What’s bothering you?

—It’s nothing.

—I’ve heard that before.

—You wouldn’t understand.

—Do you have any idea how insulting that is?

—Sorry. I didn’t mean it that way. I only meant that I don’t quite understand it, and that’s why I’m awake, because I can’t figure it out.

—Maybe I could help you.

—You wouldn’t want to get involved in my problems.

—Why wouldn’t I?

In the blue darkness, Luther turned to face Peter.

—Why would you?

Luther’s eyes reflected the moonlight that crept in through the slats in the windowblinds. He held on to Peter’s arm and peered deeply into Peter’s face, as if the answer were literally written there and he would have to make it out in the dark somehow. Peter could feel the pressure of full attention. Here was, if not the moment, then certainly a moment, a turning point where wished-for but unexpected advancement just might be possible, where the door opened a crack and a small light flung its way toward the promising. Peter couldn’t catch his breath. He could actually feel the sweat coming off of his brow.

But, curses until the end of time, it was too early for him to rise to the occasion.

—I think … I mean, you’re a great guy.

—Oh. Well. Thanks. That’s very sweet.

He kissed Peter on the forehead.

—I think you’re great, too, Peter.

—I just mean—

—You don’t have to say any more. It’s all right. Just me and my boring problems. Let’s just try to get some sleep, okay?

Luther turned back around, away from Peter. Peter nuzzled closer to him. Neither of them slept during what remained of the rags of the early morning, Luther lost in his thoughts, Peter berating himself for not saying something, anything better. And so neither of them found out what there was to find out, neither of them spoke when the opportunity was there. Which was too bad, because if either of them had had that tiny bit of bravery available right at that moment, so much of what followed could have been avoided.

21. The Crash Before Dawn.

It was still dark, and the sleeping bodies of the herd were scattered across the Arboretum’s wide main field like boulders thrown from a volcano. Maggerty slept in a nervous curl at the base of a tree, somnolently shooing away a murder of dream crows that pecked at his bare dream feet. A clear sky huddled overhead, the stars whispering in urgent tones about some universal matter or other. There was no artificial light on the hill of fields, but the moon was bright enough to cast crisp shadows of the many clutches of snoozing rhino hillocks. All was quiet. It was late enough for the olive bats and Hennington flying foxes to have finished their nocturnal feedings and scoot themselves off to inverted slumber. Even the breeze had settled down to rest.

But she was awake. She wasn’t upset, she probably couldn’t have even been called troubled, but there was definitely a disquiet in her. For hour upon hour now, she had been unable to work it out. She was lying down and had pulled distractedly at the grass within reach of her lips until a bald spot had appeared in a semicircle around her. Even then, she kept at it until she tasted nothing but dirt. Finally, she just sat up, twisting her ears this way and that, listening for the usual sounds of the deepest part of the night, hearing some, not hearing others.

Everything was wrong and nothing was. Her nostrils could smell the hint of dust in the air, yet that in itself wasn’t troubling. The eagles weren’t in their nests, but maybe they had just started mating season a few weeks early. The grass tasted bitter, but maybe something had just gotten into the groundwater. Maybe her anxiety was misplaced. The rest of the herd didn’t seem to notice anything wrong. The birthrate had held steady, and the nine calves that had been born this year were neither more nor less healthy than in previous years. The last animal to die was almost two years ago when an ancient male was unable to pull himself out of a mud bog and the animals had to mill around helplessly while he slowly bleated his way to death by dehydration. There was no disease in the herd, no malnourishment, no hoof or skin malady.

So what was bothering her? The herd might be oblivious but the thin creature that always followed them had sensed something, too. He gave off a horribly forlorn and confused smell in the best of times, but lately it had increased to the point of almost being distracting. He also stuck closer to the herdmembers than he had before, even daring to nap in the middle of the herd while they grazed. It didn’t prove anything, but at least she wasn’t alone.

The sky began to change color, glowing slightly along one horizon. She hadn’t rested all night, but forcing herself, she laid her head down onto the dirt mat to snatch whatever slumber she could before full-fledged daybreak. It was still a long while before she finally slipped off to shallow, fitful sleep.

Part II. There Are No Ends, Only Changes.

22. Marmalade Leviathan.

Eugene’s first job for Tybalt ‘Jon’ Noth was the procurement of a car (—Something black, Eugene, maybe a convertible, a sun roof at the very least), so when Eugene pulled up in front of the Solari in his brother’s seventeen-year-old orange Bisector, the one with the sideboards that kept killing old ladies before they moved the bus benches further away from the road, to say that Jon was non-plussed was quite possibly to understate the matter.

—And just what under the expanse of great blue heaven above is this?

—It’s my brother’s.

—Is he adopted?

—It’s the only car I could find.

—What a curious search that must have been.

—Well, I just thought that, you know.

—Oh, I don’t have even the slightest idea where you’re going with this, Eugene.

—Anyone can get a rental car.

—Of course they can. That’s the whole point. Convenience, you see, matched with desire. It’s called capitalism.

—I thought, I guess, you wanted something, I don’t know, singular.

—Singular?

—Yeah.

Jon blinked.

—Singular.

—My brother’s on a fishing boat for the next four months.

—So this … mobile clown cutlery is at our disposal.

—Look, if you don’t like it, I can get you something different. I just thought—

—I know. Singular.

—Fuck it, I’ll take it back.

—No, wait.

In truth, there was something spectacular about it, if Jon was going to be honest about things. The car was gargantuan with a long sloping roof that ultimately made its way to a third row of seats near the back. The half-dome hood swooped down to meet the twelve-bar radiator with a thud that could have raised mountains. Eugene’s brother had gotten the optional fifth door that served as a convenient escape hatch in case of fire or police stop. And then there were those lethal protruding sideboards. Bisector, It Divides the Road, had quickly entered the lingo as Vivisector, It Dices Wide the Old. Uniambic perhaps, but accurate. Eugene’s as-yet unnamed brother had kept it spotless and buffed to a point where both the wooden and chrome parts shone with equal glare. Such a monstrosity could never have been called beautiful, but it certainly was something. Singular, indeed.

—I’ve either grossly over-estimated you, Eugene, or grossly under-estimated. Either way, I’m curious as all hell as to how things are going to go.

—So you’ll use the car?

—'Car’ doesn’t quite cover it, does it?

—You’re not the easiest person to figure out, you know that?

—You’ve no idea.

Jon opened the passenger side door. Eugene looked surprised.

—I’m driving?

—Wouldn’t you rather drive?

—Yeah, but—

—If I’m going to be seen in this Day-Glo meteorite, I think being chauffeured is probably the only route to take. Wouldn’t you agree?

—Whatever you say.

—That’s what an employer likes to hear.

Eugene shook his head. Jon smiled.

—Good. It’ll be easier if you think I’m loony.

—What’ll be easier?

—To City Hall, Eugene.

—City Hall?

—I have an appointment with the Mayor.

—The Mayor.

—Yes.

—Don’t tell me she’s—

—Yes, she’s the friend.

Eugene turned the key. A sound like a two-story house being shat out the asshole of a zebra ripped through the dashboard. Jon had to strain to hear what Eugene said next.

—She’s married, you know.

—Yes.

They exchanged a long look until Eugene finally shrugged, put the car in gear, and thrust off in a cloud of purple smoke.

23. Comfort for the Uncomfortable.

Jarvis Kingham’s lifelong intellectual ambition had always been academic theology and that he ended up a practicing priest instead was maybe not the ironic hair-splitting that some of his more cynical friends presumed. For was not active ministration simply theology in action? While he had moments where he wished he could spend more time with his books and while the vigor of some of his parishioners sometimes scared the daylights out of him – Head Deacon Theophilus Velingtham to name just one – the benefits, both personal and spiritual, more than rewarded the decision he had made to follow this slightly divergent path.

He actually remembered the exact moment. An already bearded seventeen year old, he had entered the Bondulay Divinity School up in the Mallow Hills southeast of Hennington, a place packed with seminary students, sand blown over the hills from the Brown, and really nothing else save for the occasional chuckwalla or poisonous rattleback. This was six years after Currie vs Madam Montez’ School for the Sensual Arts, so by that point female seminary students were fully integrated into school life. Celibacy rules, even the temporary ones among students not studying for the priesthood, were still in force – no court was ever going to have any say over that issue – but the number of ‘immaculate’ conceptions at the school among female students was less than the all-male faculty had feared and predicted. As a matter of fact, the salutatorian of Jarvis’ graduating class was the one and only Lyric O’Mahoneyham, overthrower-to-be of Archbishop Carl Sequin, and probably on her way to the Bondulay High Papacy had Hennington’s future not taken the route it did.

(At that point, though, that was all a good ways off – and still remains a ways off now, though becoming uncomfortably close for more vaguely clairvoyant Henningtonians. If Archie Banyon’s body had been more specific about what awaited, he might not have given up smoking after all.)

Jarvis toddled along unremarkably and had just begun his third year when he met the woman who should have been the love of his life. Her name was Diana. Long brown hair cascading in waves around a breathtaking face without a trace of make-up; a serious, challenging brow that let you know you had better have more to your argument than just opinion; a nose slightly too wide over lips slightly too crooked placed on a face just slightly too large. Diana was stunning, not in the euphemism-for-beauty way, but actually stunning, as in it was difficult to find words for small talk when you first met her and equally difficult not to feel like you were trying to squirm out of the truth when she questioned your ideas. Most of the cocksure, popular, handsome boys at the seminary were terrified of her, and there was more than one malicious and erroneous story floated along the grapevine by those who felt threatened, which was more or less everyone.

Jarvis, on the other hand, too engrossed in his studies and too chaste in his temporary celibacy vow to notice any female, wouldn’t have registered Diana at all if she hadn’t insulted him publicly during a History of the Sacraments seminar. The class had reached the contentious subject of Hildegard Robham’s schism from the Bondulay during the Gentlemen’s War. In the old story of Pacifism pitted against The Regrettable Use of Force, Jarvis had taken the mildly surprising but by no means unprecedented position of agreeing with Robham’s pacifist principles. Diana had turned to face him from her seat in the seminar, nostrils blazing.

—I suppose I can understand your abhorrence to war, but to eliminate all use of force under every circumstance is naïve, suicidally idealistic, and in the most morally repugnant sense shirks adult responsibility. Pacifists allow their consciences to be free while still subsisting on the fruits of war.

Jarvis tried to argue back, but it was too late. He was already in love.

—How can you call the anonymous killing of strangers you’ve never met morally justified under any humane religion?

—In a theoretical argument about an uncomplicated world, you’re completely right. In this world, however, your argument is complete sheep’s balls!

—Miss Avisham!

—Sorry, Professor, but suppose, whatever-your-name-is, we’d taken a pacifist stance against Pistolet? Where would we be then?

—Don’t you believe the moral high ground would have eventually won out?

—Eventually? Eventually? You arrogant, self-satisfied, brainless pile of treacle. How many more people would your ‘eventually’ have allowed Pistolet to kill? How many more millions deserved to be tortured, raped, and murdered because of your grand ‘eventually'?

—Surely you concede that if we’d acted earlier on, with diplomatic means—

—I concede nothing! War is a horrible, atrocious, awful, awful thing, but war was not the monster, Pistolet was. You’re applying an absolute principle to an in-absolute world.

—But we’re talking about dogmatic philosophy, not practicum.

—And you’re hiding behind your hot air, you coward!

Diana held up the main textbook for the course.

—The world doesn’t exist in this. The world exists out there.

Jarvis didn’t have time to duck before the book connected with his nose and broke it. Later, remarkably not expelled and courteously walking home the newly bandaged and cotton-packed Jarvis, she had clarified her points.

—I’m sorry about your nose, but you were completely in the wrong.

—That’s all wight—

—I just get so mad at scholars who cave themselves in book-learning and then in perfect riskless safety advocate an adherence to the Sacraments regardless of the real-world human suffering it causes. It’s immoral. I get sick of the skewing of God’s messages to further some intellectual ideal. That’s why I threw my book at you.

—It’s okay—

—Don’t you think the central message of the Sacraments is to care for your neighbor as if he were your brother? And if that message has to be applied imperfectly in an imperfect world, then so be it. It’s our moral responsibility to God to do the best we can in the situations He provides to us.

—I’m wif you all de way—

—I don’t want to waste my time bothering with all this esoteric nonsense that keeps you completely out of God’s big, messy, wonderful world. That’s the whole reason I’m entering the priesthood.

—Me, too.

Snap judgment guided by passion that it was, the priesthood turned out to be a surprisingly good fit. Jarvis excelled in his studies, turned out to be a better orator than he expected, and was able to take most of his classes with Diana. He was aware of the perversity of only being able to please the woman he adored by entering lifelong celibacy for her, but dumber things have been done in the name of love. When graduation day arrived, he and Diana hugged platonically. Before he set off on his first assignment less than twenty miles away in urban Hennington, he went with her to the docks in the Harbor, from where she was to set sail for her assignment, across the ocean on the entire flip side of the world map. They waved as the ship set to sea, her long hair tangling wildly in the wind, his beard catching flecks of sea foam. As she disappeared over the horizon, Jarvis realized how easy it would be to keep his vow of chastity. The only woman he ever loved was receding thousands of miles away, and Jarvis’ desire receded with her. He had heard that sex was overrated anyway – sweaty, sticky, brief, and ultimately depressing. He tucked away his tired, sad, and sore heart, telling himself he could probably get more joy out of gardening.

In this, he was entirely correct, though the measure of his joy was not reflected in the bounty of his garden. He had long since accepted that his fingers were many shades away from green, but that didn’t stop him from celebrating small victories: a tomato large and red enough to be edible; a double-digit strawberry harvest; blueberries that didn’t make the church children vomit. He had once managed an avocado and parsnip pie for an after-church potluck that the Widow Jesslyn Mitcham had even called ‘tart in the best sense of the word'. This morning, he was on his knees, trying to coax a clutch of basil leaves into taking root. The man at the greenery had told him that basil was the best seasoning to use for the summer squash he anticipated (hoped hoped hoped for) in a month or two. Coincidentally, basil had been on sale that day, so Jarvis had purchased a few cuttings to try to grow in his garden.

—You can do it. Here’s some water to make the ground lovely and moist, and these little blue pellets will make you grow green and tasty. You’re going to love it out here. It’s a beautiful place, if you’d only make that little bit of effort.

—Father Kingham?

Jarvis sat upright and stared down at his basil in surprise.

—Am I interrupting?

Jarvis swung around and looked up.

—Mrs Bellingham! Of course you’re not interrupting. For a minute there, I thought my basil was talking to me.

—Oh! I say!

—Or would that be ‘my basil were talking to me'? No matter. What can I do for you this fine, warm, beautiful day?

—Do you have a few moments, Father?

—Always.

He motioned her inside the church to his office and sat her in a chair opposite him across his desk.

—What’s on your mind?

She gave a slightly embarrassed little frown.

—It’s kind of silly, Father.

—Coming from you, Mrs Bellingham, I highly doubt that.

—That’s very kind, Father, but, well …

—You can feel free to tell me absolutely anything, sister. Not only do you have my strictest confidence and good faith, you’ve also got a legal system that says that I never, ever have to tell anyone.

Mrs Bellingham smiled.

—All right, then. How can I begin? I’m not a superstitious woman, Father.

—I’ve always admired your levelheadedness.

—But lately, I’ve been having these dreams. She paused.

—Dreams, Sister?

—Well, one dream in particular, but over and over again.

—Is it an especially bothersome dream?

—Yes, to be frank. She paused again.

—Why don’t you tell me your dream, Mrs Bellingham? And take your time.

—If you insist. And she told him.

24. Closing the Deal.

—The secret is all in where you place your feet.

—Mm-hmm.

—If you get them square with your shoulders, then step a little bit apart, you can just let your center of gravity carry the swing away from you.

—You don’t say.

Thomas Banyon pulled another drag on his cigarillo as he waited for Armand Odom, President and COO of Odomatic Incorporated, purveyors of fine dried and canned meats, to just shut up and take his fucking swing already. They had been at the fifteenth tee for nearly ten minutes while Odom shifted and wiggled and realigned and rebalanced and talked and talked and talked. Thomas was letting the prick win, currently by all of two strokes, and Odom had got it into his head that Thomas should be the beneficiary of his own obviously superior skills and knowledge. Thomas held the smoke in his lungs. The things you went through to get a new customer.

—See, I think your problem might be that you’re rushing it, pushing yourself to just hit it as hard as you can without first getting the feel for your tee.

—Interesting.

—I mean, we can talk more about your putting problems when we get to the green, but remember, putting doesn’t matter if you can’t get there first.

—Makes perfect sense.

Thomas closed his eyes and dragged again on the narcotic-spiced cigarillo. They were made specially for him by a shady agribusinessman from over the border and contained a delightfully mild narcotic formed when one particular species of beetle laid its eggs on the leaves of one particular species of shrub, of which shrub the shady agribusinessman owned every single known specimen. When the beetle eggs hatched, the grubs would, in an action apparently unique in the natural world, attack and eat only the stems of the fern, causing the leaf to fall to the ground whole, beetle-egg husks still attached. The husks decomposed as the leaf dried up, igniting a most unusual chemical reaction that resulted in a dried fern leaf with black speckles. These leaves were then gathered by trained harvesters, mixed with regular cigarillo tobacco, and then hand-rolled in zero-humidity humidors into slender, smoke-able sticks. The whole process cost an obscene fortune, but the results were exquisite: a smoke that elated without cloudiness, relaxed without lethargy, and painted the world pink without painting it red. Thomas received them gratis. The shady agribusinessman, whose name was Dylan or Declan or some D name Thomas always forgot and preferred not to know anyway, recognized a good retailer when he saw it, and Thomas was the best retailer of shady agribusiness products in all of Hennington. The wholesale boxes of Maria John, posh, itch, Brown Dog, and katzutakis arrived like clockwork every fortnight, along with a fresh box of TB’s Special Blend.

—Now watch where my arms are when I bring the club back. Can you see how I’ve only got my elbows just slightly crooked? And look where the head of the club is.

Thomas kept his eyes closed.

—I see.

It was worse at the green.

—Your approach wasn’t bad, but did you see where I placed mine? I purposely hit it long to take advantage of the slight incline.

Thomas had purposely hit his own ball short to take advantage of a subtle groove he knew rested just below the hole. Now, he would have to shank even that. He blew smoke out of his mouth and reinhaled it through his nose. Odom missed his putt, sending it wide.

—See, I pushed it, just like you do the tee shots. That’s what happens when you rush. Goddamnit!

Thomas was going to have to three-putt a one-meter shot to keep this moron in the lead. He wondered whether it was possible to miss the hole that many times without looking drunk or blind. He picked up his ball and pocketed it before Odom could complain.

—I’ll give you the hole. Why don’t we call it a day and get some drinks inside? On the house, of course.

—But how will you learn?

—I think I’ve got enough to absorb today.

The clubhouse barmaid, Tracy Jem-Ho, was ready in the clubhouse with cocktails, one with twice the alcohol for Odom, who remarkably was still protesting.

—But a real sportsman would never quit a game in the middle.

—You were ahead. Your victory was inevitable.

—Still, a final score has a certain—

—We water the course every Thursday. We would have been wet by the eighteenth hole.

—You don’t water every morning? Pre-dawn watering is generally considered par for the course, if you’ll excuse the—

—Every pre-dawn except Thursday, when we water at this time.

—What on earth for?

—Drink up, Mr Odom. It’s free.

—Whew. Strong one.

—That’s the way we like them here at Hennington Hills. Now. Mr Odom.

—Could I get another one of these?

—Of course. Tracy? Have you met Tracy?

—It’s a pleasure.

—Interesting you should put it that way, Mr Odom.

—I beg your pardon?

Thomas paused. Was nothing ever easy? But then, easy wasn’t fun, was it?

—Surely you’ve heard one or two stories regarding all that we have to offer here at Hennington Hills.

—Oh, yes, it’s a beautiful course, and I hear the others are just as nice. The grounds are quite something.

—But you must have heard, I don’t know, a story or two? Regarding the facilities?

Tracy placed another drink in front of Odom. Thomas could tell by the small amount of blue at the bottom that this one was nearly pure alcohol. Good girl.

—I’m not following you.

—About the things we can also provide besides those things that are only, how can one put it, apparent on the surface.

—I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.

Oh, for fuck’s sake.

—You didn’t just come to me for a round of golf and a country club membership, Mr Odom.

—What else would I have come for?

Odom took another long draft from his cocktail schooner, set it down on the countertop, and looked Thomas straight in the eye. He didn’t say another word. You’ll pay for this, Thomas thought. Literally, in amounts you’ll barely be able to afford but will somehow be unable to keep yourself from spending. I will take you down, and I will do it in the worst possible way, by making you beg me for it.

—We offer our members amenities not available at your run-of-the-mill country club. We are also expert providers in the more, shall we say, sensual areas of relaxation that the modern businessperson is so often in desperate need of.

—Uh-huh. And what would those be?

Enough.

—It matters very little if you’re taping this, Mr Odom. I’ve investigated your background, and I already have some interesting tidbits that would keep you from using any recording against me. So if you’re working undercover to take care of some past ugliness, why not turn it over to me rather than let the soiled hands of law enforcement make you a puppet? And if you’re recording this for your own protection at a later date, I can assure you from experience that such protection is both unnecessary and irrelevant.

Odom’s face went ashen. Gotcha, fucker, and on a guess, no less. Odom took another drink and remained silent.

—I can’t think of any reason why your entry into Hennington Hills should be anything other than a pleasant, worry-free experience for both of us. Come. Give me the tape.

Odom drank again, then slowly reached in his pocket and pulled out a micro-recorder.

—How did you know?

—It’s not uncommon. Trying to get me to say the first questionable thing and so forth.

—It was for the second reason, by the way, my own protection. I’m not undercover or anything.

—I know.

—How?

—Is it really important? What’s important is that you’re here, that we’ve gotten past these awkward formalities, and that you begin to learn all the wonderful things we can offer you at Hennington Hills.

—So what they say is true?

—Where have you been, my good man? I thought I’d at least gotten past the level of mere hearsay.

—And I can join?

—Mr Odom, I wouldn’t think of letting you leave without joining.

Thomas smiled as Tracy set down an already-completed application form in front of Mr Odom.

—You’ll see the membership fees are a bit steep, but we think they’re worth it. I’m sure you’ll agree.

Odom took the pen lying next to the application and signed it without another word. He set down the pen and took another drink.

—I’m sorry about the tape.

—Already forgotten.

—It’s just, you see—

—Say no more, Mr Odom. You were merely protecting yourself. It was admirable.

—So … I’m in?

—Irretrievably.

—When can I start?

—You’re almost there, Mr Odom. You just need to answer me one simple question.

Thomas took a last long drag and extinguished the end with a slow turn in the ashtray.

—What’s the question?

—I want you to think about this clearly, Mr Odom – may I call you Armand? – Armand, because it’s the most important part of your application, the most important question we have here at Hennington Hills. The question is.

—Yes?

—What do you like?

25. Maggerty in the City.

The young man in the apron swept the sidewalk in front of the store with a petulant snap of his wrists. He was the son of the owner and would naturally have rather been doing anything else in the world than sweeping the sidewalk in front of the store. It was hours before noon, but the sun was already promising another hot day, perfect for the illegal No Margin Surfing off of Darius Point that the young man, whose name was Jay, loved to sneak away to with his friends. NMS was a sport for those who thought themselves invincible, hence only those under twenty were ever interested. You paddled your board out over currents that could grab you and pull you down three hundred feet, collapsing your lungs before you even had a chance to scream, but that was only if the sharks, which were everywhere, didn’t get you first, which they would eventually. Jay had already lost three fingers on his left hand down the gullet of a hammerhead. No big deal. Forty-one stitches didn’t take all that long to heal. But the currents and the sharks were only the beginning. If you managed to make it around the Point alive, what awaited were waves sixty feet high traveling at forty nautical miles an hour. If you then actually managed to catch one of these monstrosities, you still had to navigate it perfectly to expel yourself out the end of the tube and into open water before the wave slammed you into the solid rock cliffs that comprised the western side of Darius Point. None of this was at all possible without being thoroughly twinged on itch which, if it didn’t help your navigation much, at least got you out on the water in the first place. No Margin. Meaning no mistakes.

Jay ran his hand absentmindedly over the flat packet of itch in his back pocket. He looked up at the sun again and frowned. Fuck, man, it wasn’t fair. He went back to pushing the broom angrily across the concrete. He was just about finished and ready to go back inside (and maybe, just maybe, say sayonara to the old man and take off for some NMS anyway, maybe if the old man was sleeping, maybe), when Maggerty stumbled down the street, heading right for the store. Jay looked around for The Crash and saw them passing along a cross-street one block up. Maggerty’s reason for straying was obvious. Jay’s father sold produce in slanted racks out in front of the store, packed full with the morning’s delivery of apples, oranges, cantaloupes, strawberries, blackberries, haggleberries, and huge, pink bonnet melons with the vines still attached, as well as a generous helping of yesterday’s white corn and a solitary jumbo kiwi sweating juice through its hide of erect hairs.

Maggerty reached the middle of the street and stopped about ten yards away. Somehow, without even looking up, he seemed to notice the young man with the broom standing in front of the piles of fruit. Traffic had been cut off by The Crash up at the main intersection, so there were no cars to honk Maggerty off. He shifted from foot to foot, looking at different patches of ground that hopped into and out of his line of vision.

Here was a moment of expectation. If there had been no one there, Maggerty would simply have taken something and the morning would have continued onward. But there was someone there and so this moment was necessary. He had made his peace with it. He knew that he had only to stay where he was before he would either be given food or he would not. Sometimes this latter version of events involved being chased away, but not often. Only wait, and something would eventually happen to kick the day forward again. His breathing slowed. He touched his wound and brought his fingertips briefly to his nose to smell the nature of the suppuration. He tapped his bare, filthy toes on the warm blacktop and scratched between his buttocks. He waited for an outcome.

Jay rubbed his hand across the packet of itch again and stared at the Rhinoherd. He had never seen him this close before. He had only heard the regular town folklore of Maggerty – something about a goat and fairly obvious madness – along with all the usual talk at the high school, where ‘Maggerty’ was pejorative for any poor kid with a hygiene problem. But at this hour of the morning, when the sun was already squint-worthy and shadows turned you into a mountaintop, there was only himself looking into the street at the Rhinoherd, who seemed to be dancing in a shuffling, fidgety sort of way. A faint, foul smell reached Jay’s nostrils, but it was more animal than filth, more sad than disgusting.

He walked slowly over to the fruit without taking his eyes off of Maggerty. He took hold of an orange and palmed it up into the air and down again. He leaned backwards against the wood of the fruit rack and felt the itch pressing from his back pocket. Silently but with the efficient motion of a muscled No Margin Surfer, he tossed the orange underhand towards the Rhinoherd. It hit Maggerty in the shoulder and rolled clumsily to the pavement.

Maggerty roused from his stopped-time stupor. There was fruit at his feet. He reached down to pick it up. A bonnet melon rolled across the concrete into his reach. An apple appeared there, too, and then a soft, wet jumbo kiwi. It was as much as Maggerty could carry, and he scooped them up into his arms. He stumbled away down the street back towards the already disappearing Crash, pressing the fruit into his mouth.

Jay watched the Rhinoherd turning the corner a block away. He touched the itch in his pocket again without realizing it and reluctantly returned to sweeping.

26. What Do You Want?

—You wanted to see me, Cora?

—Have a seat, Max.

—So it’s one of those kinds of talks.

—Actually, come to think of it, maybe you are in trouble. You’re the one who’s going to have to figure that out, I think.

—Why do I feel like I did when my parents wanted to know if I smoked hash in the eighth grade?

—Did you?

—Smoke hash? No. But then again you already know that. ‘No skeletons allowed', if I remember my first job interview correctly.

—I was merely being a smart politician, Max. However megalomaniacal it may sound, I do have a legacy, and I don’t want to leave it to just anyone. Which brings us conveniently to the point.

—Look, I’m sorry again about the fundraiser, but Talon was sick.

—Yes, I know, that’s not the issue. We raised over eighty thousand for you last night. That puts your pot at over 1.2 million. More than enough for airtime, signs, get-out-the-vote projects, the rest of your campaign staff. In short, pretty much enough for the whole race, including your inauguration ball and hair of the dog the morning after. Now, if you would just start your campaign any time in the near future, why, that would be lovely, too. Oh, don’t sigh at me, Max. I’ve known you for ten years. Something’s going on, and I want to know what it is.

—Nothing’s ‘going on'.

—Then answer me this simple question. Do you want to be Mayor or don’t you? Because if you don’t, you’d better tell me right now, as in this morning, or a lot of people are going to be plenty peeved. Fundraising is bad enough, though I am happy to spend my evening touting your real and considerable assets. That’s not bull. I think you’ll make a great Mayor. But explaining to all those folks whose behinds are wet with my saliva why their money might not be going where they thought it was would be much worse.

—I said, I’m sorry for not being there.

—Not the point. I know you model yourself as a kind of brooding idealist—

—I do not.

—You do. You do, and that’s fine. Money to soup kitchens, needle-exchange programs, hunger relief for The Crash, all good stuff, but it’s the idealism catch that’s been around forever: in order to accomplish anything idealistic, you have to first be in a position of power to do something.

—That’s not quite true. Volunteers implement a lot of idealistic ideas.

—Oh, for God’s sake, Max, quit being argumentative. It’s a simple equation. Idealism without implementation equals moral impotence. I know you find politicking distasteful, so do I, but why come this far just to not get over that final qualm? Is it a case of nerves? Is it a matter of requiring a simple pep talk? Because I can do that if that’s all you need. But I’m worried that it might be something more. Well, not worried exactly, but aware that something’s at work here. So stop being evasive and start talking.

—Cora, there’s nothing I could tell you that would ease your mind.

—So don’t ease my mind. Shake it up a bit. I’ll manage.

—All right then. It’s this whole question of the inevitability of it all.

—You mean the election being a foregone conclusion?

—Well, yes, in a way, but I also mean for myself. I haven’t done anything since I got out of law school except work here and stay on this career fast-track. I’ll be forty in three years, and I’ve never done anything else.

—My suspicion is that that’s probably just cold feet, Max. It’s natural to question your motivation, especially just as you’re about to join the battle to move to the next level.

—I wouldn’t believe you’ve ever gotten cold feet about anything.

—Every time I’ve run. Hell, I get cold feet when I decide where to go for dinner. ‘Do I really want noodles?’ Perfectly natural, even more so for someone like you who’s introspective to a rather large and annoying degree. You commit five years of your life by becoming Mayor, more if you include the campaign.

—It’s not the time commitment that bothers me, although it’s odd to think that Talon will be about to graduate from high school before my first term is up. I don’t like to think I’d be slighting her. But more to the point it feels as if I’ve been heading for this and only this from the beginning, that Mayor is what I was destined to be. At least that’s what people seem to say when they talk to me, that fate has selected me out because of whatever reasons fate has and everything’s lined up to lead me directly to this, as if I’ve had no choice in the matter.

—But it’s hardly as if this has been handed to you, Max. You’ve worked hard to do what you’ve done, to get where you are. This hasn’t happened to you. Surely there must have been some motivation there, if not just right this second, then at some point. And if you had it once, you’ll have it again.

—That’s just it. I look at my life, I look at my daughter, and sometimes I can’t remember how I got here.

—So are you saying you don’t want to be Mayor or that you don’t know?

—I’m saying I don’t know.

—Is this serious enough to make you drop out of the campaign?

—I don’t know. Maybe.

—Well, I’ve got to be honest if it kills me, I suppose. It’s not too late to quit. You’d lose a little face, and there are people who’d be mighty disappointed, but four months is enough for someone new to step in if they had to. I’ve no idea who, frankly, but you need to do what you need to do.

—I don’t know if I want to quit. I’m not sure.

—Then how about this? Why not take tomorrow off and just have a three-day weekend? Spend a ton of time with Talon, don’t think about the campaign, although you’ve been doing a pretty good job of that on your own already, and just, I suppose, reflect. Search your heart and mind, Max. Being Mayor is something you shouldn’t do half-assed. There’s a lot of nonsense you have to put up with, and the job is only worth it if it’s worth it to you.

—I’m not sure that’s going to help.

—It either will or it won’t. Do it anyway. Unfortunately, the way things lie, I’m going to have to know one way or another when you come in on Monday. As much a martinet as it might make me, I want to have some say over who the next Mayor is, and if you’re out, there are a mind-boggling number of things to be done.

—All right. Sorry for the wrench in the plans.

—No, no, my fault. I’ve been the advisor in this whole thing. I thought you were having doubts, but I thought they’d take care of themselves. I was wrong. Take the weekend. Hell, go home right now. Let me know what you decide on Monday, okay?

—I can agree to that.

—My grandmother always told me that if you search yourself top to bottom, then there’s no such thing as a wrong decision. Whichever way you decide will ultimately be the right way, Max. I trust you.

—I’m assuming your grandmother didn’t tell you the part about how we sometimes make wrong decisions so we can be taught unpleasant lessons.

—Of course she didn’t. My grandmother was a very smart woman.

27. ‘Cleave’ Has Two Meanings.

Luther Pickett was born in Tishimongo Fair, that small, incongruously wet burg stuck deep in the crook of the Molyneux Valley, near the disputed Mohair Pass on the mountain border to the Rumour Land. Besides its more common and justified reputation as a literary bedrock – being the birthplace of both Joan Reachpenny and Christina Ungulate, as well as the summer home of Midge and Lolly Tottering and the location of the Alms Hotel where Shelbert Shelbert famously ended his life with Fergus Pangborn’s triple-barreled rifle – Tishimongo Fair was also the primary production spot of Archie Banyon’s Vallée de Molyneux Merlot, a ‘deeply spicy wine with a tart sensuality’ that made Hennington society matrons blush as they reached for another sip. Lachlan Pickett, Luther’s father, was the winery’s head of distribution. Having been raised by teetotalers, Lachlan knew effectively nothing about wine, but he was good with a clipboard, had a strong profile with a virile haircut, and exuded a calm confidence that deflected attention away from what was marginal competence at best. He had all the usual blessings of the physically beautiful: an equally beautiful wife, an array of jocular friends, and a golden son with a beatific smile and the usual knack for sports. This last, of course, was Luther.

The memories of Luther’s childhood before the tragedy were lit by warm, soggy sunlight. Tishimongo Fair caught both the rain from the mountains on either side and the heat that came north from the Rumour deserts. Long, steamy summers melted into long, steamy winters. The family wasn’t especially wealthy – Luther’s mother Annika was a stubbornly unsuccessful portrait photographer – but he could never recall wanting for anything. He remembered his home as a casual place with friends dropping by for dinner parties, baby showers, the whole list of middle-class fêtes. Luther was popular at school, did well in his studies to the surprise of his perplexed but proud father, and was a child of whom the dreadful word ‘potential’ was often applied. In short, he was happy, which just couldn’t last.

At twelve, the tragedy, shocking enough in its casualness to hit the newspapers and ultimately enter Tishimongo lore, came along and took Luther’s parents. On an unusually chilly autumn night, the Pickett family slept soundly in their beds. Sometime during their slumber, a Caucasus Asp, out of season and no doubt freezing to death, slithered into their house through an open vent near a basement window. The basement, unfortunately, also served as the master bedroom for Lachlan and Annika Pickett. The snake, sensing the room’s most potent source of heat, slowly coiled itself under the sheets, between their warm, dozing bodies.

First Annika stirred and was bitten, then Lachlan. Neither of them woke up before their deaths, witnessing only sudden and permanent ends to dreams. Wondering about breakfast, young Luther found them lying there the next morning. He jostled his father’s shoulder but was unable to rouse him. When he did the same to his mother and touched her exposed, cold skin, he realized something more was at work than simple oversleeping. His jostling awakened the snake, which now realized that its haven had cooled. The Jungle Dangers training Luther had taken at school probably saved his life. He stayed completely frozen while the red-and-white-speckled asp slunk across the floor to another snug sanctuary at the bottom of the linen closet. Luther dialed Crisis Services on his parents’ phone and waited, wide eyed and quiet, on the front walk until the paramedicals arrived.

At the same time, Archie Banyon was in town, making the dreaded annual inspection of his Molyneux vineyards. The dismal weather was not encouraging. His merlot required day after day of steamy sun, to the point where the grapes almost boiled on the vine. Drear could turn the year’s harvest sickly sweet if it stuck around too long. He was irritable and opprobrious and growing increasingly furious with the head shipping clerk for having the insolence to be late to a morning meeting where he would be asked to share his portion of the blame for the weather. Archie had, in fact, gone as far as making a great show of firing Lachlan Pickett in absentia in an attempt to strike fear into the vineyard’s other managers. He was mid-rant when the police showed up.

There is no more potent driver of charity than saving face, a fact which coupled nicely with the realization that Archie had also been in a vineyard when his wife and daughters had perished. He felt some fateful request was being made of him. Perhaps it was a reprimand for firing a dead man. Conversely, maybe the fates were giving him a child as recompense for the loss of his own. Whatever the reason, Archie adopted the blond-haired, serious-browed Luther without hesitation, sweeping him out of Tishimongo Fair and installing him in a hilltop mansion overlooking Hennington.

To Archie’s surprise and delight, Luther immediately turned out to be the ‘son I feel I’ve never had', always whispered out of earshot of Thomas, of course. Young Luther Pickett – he never considered giving up his last name, and Archie, in a rare show of modest sensitivity, never pushed it – was courteous, intelligent, hard-working, and showed an interest in Archie’s work. All of which could also be said of Thomas Banyon, aside from courteous, but Luther was just so much more likable. He wore none of Thomas’ surliness, none of that considerable anger that threatened to flash in inappropriate places, and perhaps most importantly, none of that resentment that made Archie seethe. Moreover, Luther owed him. Archie Banyon was a kind and generous man, but he was also rich, a rich that went very deep down. He was more comfortable being owed than owing.

What Archie completely failed to see was that Luther was also in an ongoing, all-consuming state of shock. When Luther found his parents’ bodies lying peacefully in their beds, he realized that the world could not, would not, and should not ever be counted on. Luther, perhaps even subconsciously, accepted that whatever Archie gifted him with was bound to be snatched away sooner or later, a feeling that was probably responsible for his extraordinary success in business. He had unwittingly given up having any stake whatsoever in the outcome. Therefore, his work was relaxed and confident and bravely risk-taking. He made Archie Banyon a breathtakingly huge amount of money, and he never, on some level, expected to see a penny of it.

And then suddenly, everything changed the day he met Peter, a spur of the moment appointment that Luther had allowed himself to be privately talked into by Thomas one unlikely Boxing Day at Archie’s house. Peter had opened up a future, an actual one, not the fantasy ones he expected to evaporate at any precarious second. Peter ignited something – why not, let’s call it love – deep down somewhere in Luther’s dusty internal file room. Whether it worked out, whether Peter reciprocated, aside from being wished for, hoped for, longed for, was in some ways beside the point. In an instant, Luther remembered himself. In a second, he saw how past futures had failed to fall away as he had expected them to. In a moment, he realized how vicariously and almost posthumously he was living. In a day, he knew that he didn’t want the future as it was now laid out before him. He woke up from nearly three decades of willful self-ignorance.

This was what he had to tell Archie Banyon before the spring board meeting next Wednesday, the board meeting where Archie was going to name Luther Acting Chief Executive Officer, responsible for all business of Banyon Enterprises until Archie Banyon’s death, at which time the ‘Acting’ would be removed from Luther’s title. What Luther realized, at long, long last, was that he did not want it, not any of it. He loved Archie Banyon dearly, would do almost anything for him, but that future was not his. It was a proxy future, a temporary one that had been allowed to run on too long.

The only problem with telling Archie that this future was impossible was that telling Archie was also impossible. And if both his choices were impossible, what was there to do?

28. Digitalis.

They were coming for her.

She couldn’t open her eyes, but she knew they were in the room. She could hear them, almost like a breath, almost like they could breathe. More, she could feel them, knowing their presence like she knew her own. These weren’t the Lions. The Lions she could handle. These were something else. They wanted her. And they were here. Why wouldn’t her eyes open? It was so much worse in the dark. A scurry across her bare foot. A twitch at her bare hip. A twinge on her oh God bare cheek. The rustling of their movements filled the room, and with just the slightest change in the air, they were on her.

Jacki finally thrust open her eyes but only appreciated the briefest moment of relief before she realized the nightmare had followed her. Numbers, black, filthy, crawling, clamoring, skittering numbers flooded the room and covered her body in a writhing, undulating mass. She leapt to her feet, barely able to keep her balance from the extra weight. The numbers stuck to her like frenzied leeches. She tried to brush them off with her hands, but they burst under her palms until she found herself covered in their viscera. She opened her mouth to scream, and the numbers poured in and down her throat.

—My God, what’s wrong with her? Is it a seizure?

—Looks like it. Can you hear me, Ms Strell? Ms Strell?

The numbers crawled down to her stomach, up her nose, and into her ears. They had somehow gotten beneath her skin, and she saw their shapes pushing out from the palms of her hands. They wormed their way beneath her eyelids, and she could feel them making their way to her brain. I’m dying, she thought. I’m going to die in terror and agony. Help me help me help me help me. She reached back for a final scream and mercifully lost consciousness.

—Give her the water.

—Ms Strell? Can you take some water? I don’t think she’s awake yet. Ms Strell? Jacki?

Jacki was aware of some vague shaking at her shoulders. Something slapped her face. You’ve got the wrong one, she thought. Meg from the stables is the one who gets slapped.

—What was that? It looked like she was trying to talk.

—It was all slurred. I think she’s drunk.

—High more like it. I mean, that sound she made, like she was seeing something horrible.

—Which one does that to you?

—Katzutakis? No, wait, I think Forum is the big hallucinating one.

—Katz is the one that makes you frantic. It must be Forum, but why would she be on Forum?

—Why do you think?

—Surely he can’t make her do clips.

—He makes everyone do clips.

—But we’ve got the immigration thing. What would he have against her?

—That she’s a Forum addict.

Jacki felt cold all over. She began to tremble, growing more violent as the seconds crawled on.

—Uh-oh.

—Should we call him?

—No way. This is probably somehow his fault. She needs a hit.

—Where in the world are we going to find a hit? I wouldn’t even know what one looks like.

—If she’s addicted, she’s got to have some on her.

—She’s naked.

—I mean check her desk.

Jacki could hear some sounds in the background, echoes wrapped in echoes. The numbers were gone, but she was so cold. Her vision began to go white.

—This has to be it. And here’s a syringe.

—Give it to me.

—You’re going to inject her?

—Look at her. She’s going to die otherwise.

—Do you know how?

—No, but I can take a guess. Hold her arm still.

—Oh, my God.

—Here goes nothing.

—Oh, my God.

Honey ran through her veins, and she was warm again.

29. The Crash at the Pond.

While the others pushed past her, she stood and regarded her muddy footprint. This was it then, the final clue. It was too early for the grass to be bitter. It was too early for the air to smell so much of dust. It was too early for the eagles to have left their aeries for more verdant hunting grounds. And now, it was definitely too early for the water to have pulled back far enough for mudflats to emerge at the pond’s edge. Drought was coming, was already here in the smaller places, poking its nose at the corners of things. She had lived through a drought when she was a calf, but even with the help of the cubes of dried grass and small stone ponds of water that had seemed to appear from nowhere throughout the city, she had watched many of the older herdmembers and a good number of the younger ones grow weak and finally die. It was a horrible time, the days filled with endless droning sun, the nights filled with the bleats and moans of herdmembers mourning both their hunger and their dead. Lean times had come and gone since, but nothing like that terrible season. Nothing, that is, until what now hovered on the horizon, poised to reach in its hot, dusty fingers and snatch the last blade of grass from them.

She looked out at the herd, squinting to see as they lowered their heads and drank, the water lapping at their toenails. Some of them, perhaps many of them, perhaps even herself along with them, would be dead by the end of the season. Hardship was natural, even drought was natural, yet still the burden on her was far from light, and deep in her crowded, instinctive brain, there was the unpleasant coldness of doubt. She walked slowly over to the water’s edge to join the other herdmembers in a drink. Stopping, she sniffed the air and turned to look behind her.

Something grabbed her horn.

She jolted herself back and wrenched her head up into the sky. She heard a short cry as one of the thin creatures fell down into the shallow water, away from where its grip had been on her nose. She gathered herself quickly and looked down into its eyes, staring back up at her. She was not afraid, only startled. The thin creatures had never been any danger to the herd and especially not one this tiny. She brought her massive head down for a closer sniff. The herd nearby stopped to watch, all eyes on her, straining against their collective myopia, as she took in the smells of the thing. It was mostly sweet with a faint sickly odor of food too ripe, of mother’s milk gone bad. It must be one of their calves, and a very, very young one by the smell and size of it.

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