Dead Mann Walking (18 page)

He shook his head no.

“Why? This how you get your jollies?”

He stiffened and shook his head no again.

“What, then? It's going to hurt you more than it will me? Little hard to believe, don't you think?”

Grandpa pointed at the vat. “That's what the acid's for, to make it easier.”

“What do you mean, easier?”

“You'll see,” the old man said. He and Watt put some thick gloves on; then, with a nod from the high priest, Grandpa put his hands on Ashby's shoulders.

“No!” I shouted.

I tried to move. Watt grabbed me from behind, but I managed a quick kick to his groin. I prayed it'd put him down, but he mumbled something about chemical sterilization and got me in a bear hug. My arms were pinned, and seconds later my feet were dangling off the ground. I grunted and kicked, but any strength I had was useless.

Ashby looked very worried. “Heh-heh.”

Mr. Mask put a yellow-gloved finger to his lips and said, “Shhh! Shh!”

Ashby stared at him like he was watching a cartoon. I could see how he'd make the mistake. Watt tightened his bear hug until my ribs felt ready to crack.

Grandpa turned and whispered to me, “Don't tell him. It won't change anything. You'll only scare him.”

“Sweet of you to be so concerned,” I said, croaking more than talking. “What's he going to do with the kid's head? Keep it as another souvenir?”

His eyes flitted to the duffel bag, then back to me.

Grandpa gritted his teeth. “He doesn't want
his
head. He's an experiment. The acid should destroy him faster than fire.
Completely
. You tell him what's going to happen, he'll spend his last moments thinking about it. What do you think would be best for him?”

“Killing all three of you and getting out of here. But I guess I shouldn't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.”

Ashby's head twitched from me to Grandpa to Watt to the mystery man.

“Are we going to find Frank? Heh-heh.”

It may have been my imagination, but when the kid said
Frank
, it looked like one of the bowling balls in the duffel bag twitched.

Christ, I didn't want to think about it.

Gramps gave Ashby a paternal smile. “You'll see Frank in a second. First you gotta take a little bath.”

“I don't like baths. Heh-heh.”

“Even for Frank?”

“Frank didn't say take a bath. Frank said to run.”

“That was a game,” Grandpa said. “Game time's over. Now it's bath time.”

He hooked him by the arm and walked him toward the vat. Ashby looked back at me with a grin that deserved to be a picture in the dictionary, next to the word
insipid
.

“A bath. A bath for Frank, heh-heh.”

Death, real death. I knew there was worse than that, and hell, maybe it would be better if he didn't know it was coming. What did he have to look forward to, anyway? Fuck. Moral questions are easy when the situation's black and white. The tough shit is figuring out the lesser of two evils. You can't win, but you have to choose anyway. I decided that the bigger evil would be satisfying the son of a bitch with the headgear. If he was for it, I was against it.

“Ashby, for fuck's sake, fight!” I screamed. “Poke his fucking eyes out! Kick! Scratch! They
killed
Frank and they're going to kill you!”

“Killed Frank? Killed Frank? Heh-heh?”

Moving fast for his age, Grandpa snapped off a glove, yanked my head back by the hair, and stuffed it down my throat. But I'd made my point.

Ashby screamed, writhed, whirled, twisted, and kicked. Good for you, Ashby.

I tried to help, if only by fighting Watt. I pulled and kicked, but my best didn't impress him at all. As for Ashby, well, for a second it looked like he was actually getting away from the old geezer. Instead he flew sideways into the concrete. Grandpa had thrown him to the ground to avoid the kicks. Then the old man plopped himself down on Ashby like a cowboy roping a calf, slapped another set of cuffs around his ankles, and tied his knees together.

As Ashby writhed, the masked man shook his head at me like it was my fault. I would have said if he didn't like it he should take his vat and go home, but there was this rubber glove in my throat. It filled my mouth and throat with an acrid taste that I was sure wasn't healthy even for dead things. I only hoped it wasn't burning anything important.

I wanted to scream. I tried. I tried to scream as Watt chained me to a support beam, tried again when the two of them hefted Ashby into the air. I kept trying as I pulled against the chains so hard it felt like I was breaking my own bones. When I heard Grandpa caution Watt to be gentle in order to avoid spills, yeah, I tried screaming then, too.

As they hoisted him up and over, the kid's eyes looked like they were trying to pop out of his skull and run away without him. I froze. Watt and Grandpa, as if they were dumping fresh-cut potatoes into a deep-fryer, let go and hopped back.

With a final, “Heh-heh,” Ashby disappeared. The viscous green crap didn't even splash as it swallowed him. It was so thick, it just made a sickening plop, like radioactive pea soup.

The liquid churned like water not quite willing to boil. Maybe Ashby was struggling as the acid ate him. I thought I saw a bone-white elbow rise above the surface, but it was gone before I could be sure. After a minute or so, the churning slowed. Swampy vapors, a lighter green, hovered on the surface. The chemical odor was joined with a smell like burning meat.

“Most of it's gone now,” Grandpa said. “I think the bones take a little longer.”

Even he looked a little grossed out, but our host was absolutely fascinated, intent as Ashby had been on Misty. To him, this was the equivalent of something shiny.

After another minute, the liquid, slightly darker, stopped moving altogether. For the first time, I believed something other than fire, or being ground by a millstone, could kill a chak.

The killer gave off a victory laugh, as if to say,
Wow!

Grandpa wiped some sweat from his brow. “It's sure as hell better than chasing someone all over the desert. That Boyle fellow took hours.”

Something in the bag twitched again.

Before I could think about what that meant, Watt undid the chain connecting me to the column. My turn.

The masked man stepped over to the table and regarded his pretty tools. He lifted the metal pole with the leather harness and stepped toward me. I think I made out a wide smile beneath the mask.

Then he said three words, drew each one out in a ridiculously singsong way. The voice was boyish, hauntingly familiar, but that could have been a put-on.

“We'll talk later.”

I
expected I'd be D-capped, my head harvested, my body tossed into the acid. The idea of losing my head always got to me, but I'd been picturing it clearer and clearer ever since I'd first heard about Wilson: blades pressing my neck, cold metal so razor-sharp I wouldn't have the slightest idea when they first sliced my skin. There'd be pinching as the muscles and veins snapped, more pressure, and one final crunch as my spine was severed.

Little happens the way I expect. With Grandpa and Watt flanking me, everyone's favorite mystery date came closer holding not the choppers, but the leather strap I'd seen among his toys. In a flash, I caught onto the plan. He'd use the strap to keep my head above the acid as they lowered the rest of me in. As my body melted into human stew, if the liquid was clear enough, I'd get to watch. I didn't figure I'd be able to talk after that, what with no lungs, but I did think I'd see, and keep seeing, unless someone buried me . . . or shoved me in a duffel bag.

Why? Maybe it was some kind of experiment, or maybe he got off on seeing pain, the way boys take a magnifying glass to a bug and watch it burn. Maybe there was no malice at all, just a gross curiosity.

Watt moved in to get me in another hug. I slammed the top of my skull into his nose, wishing I'd fought as hard for Ashby. The human skull is thinnest right above the nose. Hit it at the right angle, with the right amount of force, and you can send a shard up into the brain, killing the target instantly.

It didn't work. I heard a pleasant crack, but he didn't die. I'd staggered Watt, drawn some blood, seemed to confuse him, but, like Curly from the Three Stooges, he slapped it off and came at me again. He didn't even look as mad as Grandpa, who cursed me out in some language I couldn't identify.

When Watt got close enough again, I stomped both of his feet. No reaction. He grabbed me. I twisted my shoulders, but his arms were too thick, and the cuffs on my wrists didn't help. I yanked at the metal rings, hoping I could break my own hand and get a limb free. I couldn't manage it, and not for lack of trying.

The masked maniac moved in with the strap.

I moved the only part of me I could, my head, snapping it back and forth. Grandpa, still pissed, grabbed my skull and jaw and held them so tightly, I thought I'd swallow the fucking glove. “Hurt my boy, will you?”

His weathered palm covered my field of vision. I felt the strap slip around my neck, as cool and about the same texture as my skin.

Satisfied I was helpless, the figure came nearer. Grandpa repositioned his hand so we could see each other. I couldn't even bite the bastard's gas mask. The best I could manage was to exhale on him angrily through my nose. He clicked some sort of padlock on the strap, then stepped back, humming, until he glanced at Grandpa's hands. One was a rubbery yellow, the other pale pink.

“Tsk,”
he said.

Grandpa opened my mouth and yanked the glove out. He flicked it in the air as if trying to get the zombie cooties off it and put it back on his hand.

Meanwhile, I could talk again, for all it was worth.

“Could you at least tell me why?”

Stupid question, the sort of thing you ask God on your deathbed. I got the answer I expected: stone silence. I wanted to come up with some clever, compelling last words, but all I managed to do was turn to Grandpa and splutter, “How can you do this?”

The old man didn't skip a beat. “With this pole, that acid, and those clippers.”

I was spending my last moments playing straight man, lobbing them over the plate so he could whack them out of the park. With
my
baseball bat.

Tugging the pole, the Mask led me like a dog. Watt and Grandpa marched on either side of me. If I tried to head the other way, they pushed me toward the vat. When I buckled to my knees, they pulled me back up. When I collapsed again, they helped the Mask drag me by the neck.

Less than a yard to go and nothing I could do about it. Anything else I could say? I was pretty good at pissing people off, like with Grandpa, getting under their skin, but you never could tell how that might work out. If I insulted Watt, by the time he figured it out, I'd be long gone. Gramps wasn't stupid. He'd be on his best behavior with a vat of acid so close.

“You gotta realize your boss here is a psychopath, right, Gramps? You and your kid are connected to Booth, the cops. That means sooner or later, he'll have to kill you to cover his tracks.”

The Mask kept humming. Grandpa gave me a shrug. “I got a rule about not discussing clients with corpses that break my son's nose.”

“I can see that. But maybe you could make an exception?”

At the edge of the vat, they turned me sideways.

“For what it's worth,” Grandpa said, “and I know that ain't much, I am sorry about this. About the kid, anyway.”

That was it, then. Watt and Grandpa grabbed a leg each and lifted. I rose and saw the surface of the acid, smooth and quiet. The smell, though still thick, had changed. I couldn't say how. I guess I was looking in the wrong direction, because the Mask yanked my hair and held my head straighter.

No reason not to give it one last shot; I squirmed and flailed for all I was worth. I got lucky, caught Watt off balance. He slipped, but his hand shot out and grabbed the edge of the vat. The liquid inside sloshed, nearly touching his fingers.

Grandpa gasped. “Tony!”

“I'll yank him in with me; I swear I will!” I screamed. “I'll kick and splash and get it all over you fuckers!”

Grandpa twisted my leg so hard it felt like my hip would break.

I stared at the Mask. “I'll dunk myself, you son of bitch! I'll pull myself down, head and all. You won't get a single piece of me!”

He looked as if he was thinking about it for a second, but then shook his head as if to say,
Nah. You won't do that.

They lifted again.

I'd like to say my life flashed before my eyes, or that I had some profound insight, even that I was imagining what it'd feel like when I hit the acid. But there was none of that, no inner existence at all. I was totally focused on the here and now: the vat, its size and shape, the liquid, its different shades of green, a single red thread sticking out of Grandpa's shirt, how much it looked like a hair. I've never been more in touch with hard reality.

But as I got closer, the sensations dimmed. Something inside broke, let go, detached. It was like I was in a space capsule and the hull had been breached. I felt myself drift away. Thoughts slowed. Consciousness ran down. I wasn't in the scene at all; I was a million miles away, watching it, getting ready to weep for the poor sucker being tossed in the vat. If I'd been a liveblood, I might've thought I was achieving some other incredible spiritual state, like satori, dancing on the edge of eternal bliss.

But I was a chak, and it meant I was going feral.