Lizard World (27 page)

      
“What’s the matter, boy? What is it?”

      
Cause Blitz, see, he’d already run on up to headquarters to take a look-see at the prisoner: but now he sure as hell was wasn’t stayin’ there no more, but doublin’ back and barkin’ and sniffin’ like all getout all along the tracks. Well, it didn’t take no time at all before he himself had high-tailed it to that old subway car and could see that she was gone.

      
So anyways, right after he’d seen what was up and had torn ass outa there, well, the God’s honest truth is he just wouldn’t a had no idea at all where the fuck to look, if ole Blitz wasn’t still barkin’ like crazy and sniffin’ around and -- every now and again -- runnin’ a little farther up along the tracks.

      
“You smell it, boy? You got the scent?”

      
Hell, after that it must a been near on an hour and a half of wanderin’ through them damn dark tunnels before his flashlight finally lit up that pain-in-the-ass editor-lady walkin’ real slow and funny in the distance. At first he couldn’t see what was makin’ her walk so damn slow and funny. But when he got just an itty bit closer, he could see that she was kinda hoppin’ forward and bent-over -- carryin’ along that old kitchen chair he’d hitched her up to with all that duct tape and all them big strong ropes. Well, it didn’t take none too long before that editor-lady caught on real good that they was comin’. Cause now he was keepin’ her in eyeshot with his flashlight, and Blitz was barkin’ extra loud and growlin’ like it was goin’ outa business.

      
The real obvious point is if she could a just kept her cool -- played it smart and followed his orders -- there wouldn’t a been no cause for any trouble. No, it wasn’t like he didn’t shine his flashlight in her eyes and tell her -- plain and simple -- to stay put. But then, well, it must a been the way Blitz started, all of a sudden, runnin’ at her and snarlin’ that made that lady-prisoner go nuts. Damn, if it hadn’t been for that old kitchen chair maybe she coulda got across the tracks by the time that great big subway train came screechin’ and rumblin’ and rushin’ with its lights.

Chapter XVI.

Containing further infallible proof of the risks incurred by booksellers, modern and ancient, a great surprise for Dr. Smedlow and a canine romance.

Yessir, that
was one more mighty fine example of his rotten luck: things goin’ all haywire just when he’d planned out everything real good. And that’s why -- like usual -- he’d been stuck with cleanin’ up the mess, luggin’ this big damn heavy load for three hours through them pitch-black tunnels, up them old rusted-up stairs into that fancy bistro’s smelly sub-basement, into the freight elevator right up to this here alley, and now -- feelin’ like he was gonna rupture himself -- liftin’ it up, one last time, into the limo.

      
Smedlow saw the shiny green garbage bag fall onto the backseat with a thump. He tried his best not to think what might be in there -- the inert, repulsive hulk underneath the bulging plastic.

      
“Yep, mister,” said Lem, feelin’ so plumb worn out he couldn’t catch his breath or hardly speak, his heart poundin’ like a jackhammer, “this is gotta be yer goddamn lucky day, cause you an’ me is goin’ for another ride.”

      
The German shepherd bounded from the front into the back seat, scratched its hairy belly with its hindleg, yawned and started sniffing at the bag.

      
“Well, you sure did take your time,” said the monster woman, as the limo turned the corner onto 42nd Street. “My back can’t take all this sittin’. I been waitin’ here since dawn.”

      
Smedlow tried to look away as the green bag slumped over on his shoulder. Oh why, why did it smell like stale cologne? A crosstown bus, a turbaned driver in a yellow cab hurtled toward him in the windshield. A marquee up ahead advertised:

      
 
             
  
      
White Freak Bondage!

                 
                             
    
Live adult entertainment
.

      
“That’s the one,” said Aunt Ligeia. “You can leave me off up there. I ain’ t never seen an albino man get tied up and bullwhipped on his fanny.”

      
Smedlow felt it happening again as the limousine hasted toward the river, the quake and crunch of something slipping in his skull, breaking him apart, making the heavy traffic most distressfully transparent as they made a right along the Hudson and then accelerated onto the highway toward the bridge. As they crossed the Hudson into Jersey, he did his best endeavour not to panic, not to give in to the invasion, not to see the technicolor horror taking shape outside his window -- the dozens of congealing masses of dead eyes and matted hair and rotting lips -- which he did presently perceive to be abundance of traitors’ heads, tarr’d and much decay’d, a-hanging ’pon the gate at London Bridge.

      
For I was, said the voice as the teeming London streets replaced New Jersey, this moment most displeasedly come from the Bear at the Bridge in Southwark, there being fain to suffer discourse with and pay hire to some shite-born varlets for the undertaking the abduction of my charmer. But this most unsavoury business being done, I at this present did betake me to the wretched little shop over against Paul’s church-yard wherein the pink-eared bookseller Barnaby did wait upon the honour of my visit.

      
Indeed, I questioned not but that this very pissant did entertain some fond expectations of my favour: insomuch as I had, not long since, penned him a letter purporting that I desired to buy of him a volume of my cousin Fawncey’s verse -- a desire which I did mightily profess altho’, in good truth, I had as lief have made a purchase of a turd.

 
     
In sooth, I can scarce convey the most exceeding wearisomness of the fellow. For worser still than the abominable drink and muffins he did proffer me and the mean little chair whereon I was fain to sit, I must needs endure the tedium of his talk and the endless dreary showing of his books. But at long last the little beggar, having doubtless thought that he had enough whetted my appetite with his nauseous cakes and the exhibition of his dusty wares, did think it time to snare his game -- as if I were some brute the which he had the wit to bait. My cousin Fawncey, it seems, and others of his lot had scumber’d out a prodigious load of poesy. In fine, ’twas a miscellany of their pretty sonnets and pious odes and the like fooleries to which this common, cringing bookseller did hope I might vouchsafe the condescension of my patronage. Would that I might then have pluck’d out all his smiling teeth and possess’d me of his ears. Indeed, when he did scamper off to fetch yet more samples of his whoreson bindings, I had a mind to pour my dram of night-shade in his wretched ale. But this I durst not do for fear of being noted by the overmany bookworms thereabouts. Happily, at the length I did prevail upon myself to invite the little turd-monger -- by way of drinking to our bargain -- to companie me to a most foul, rascal-crowded taverne hard by.

      
There, altho’ I did much sicken to discourse further with the creature and afford him drink, yet by and by did I contrive unseen -- owing to the murk and jostle of the place -- to pour my vial of tincture in his glass of claret. Albeit he did revolt somewhat at the taste of it, yet ’twas but a matter of a minute before the fool was fuddled -- and no great while thereafter before I and my varlet Potter had got him into coach. Straightways I did give command to get the carcass in all haste to my surgeons. For I had had, as one might well conceive, full enough of this Barnaby and was most keen to wipe my hands of him.

      
Natheless e’en now, as I did coach it on full speed down Paternoster row, was I fain to suffer the abominable, clutching nearness of the fellow -- the most unmanly whimp’ring and entreating terrors of his drugg’d delirium. At the first, by my troth, I did think he would never have done with all these anticks -- his big-eyed, lunatick ravings -- whilst he did disgorge and shiver and bepiss himself. But erelong, whenas I wheel’d up to the portal of my residence, I did perceive that he had fallen finally into a most satisfactory torpor.

      
It liked me not, to be sure, that his foul’d hulk did lean most heavy on my person and besmirch my tabby waistcoat with his spew. But more vexatious still -- as my coachman opened me the door -- I could not in the leastwise conceive why this corps did now, on a sudden, seem to be . . . a green plastic bag and I could smell a faint trace of cologne in the clammy evening air.

  
“Well now, ain’t this a real whoppin’ big surprise?” said Lemuel Lee, pointing at the unlit split-level ranch house looming up behind him in the fog. “Why, I bet you just never ever thought you was gonna find yourself back home.”

      
Smedlow tried in vain to scream. His own respectable suburban house jumping out at him so suddenly like this, so treacherously in the dark, seemed to drop its pose of normalcy and reveal its hidden menace. Maybe it was the black windows of the garage doors, the grey mist hovering by the storm door to the basement.

      
“Now don’t shit yer shorts, Cupcake, cause there ain’t nobody here. Why, seein’ as how yer old lady more than likely thinks yer dead, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if she was right this very minute out humpin’ the local talent.”

      
Looking up at the kitchen window Smedlow saw the silhouettes of Agnes’ ugly potted plants -- her aloe vera and sprouted avocado seeds -- and that she still hadn’t bothered to fix the broken shutter. The mute Adirondack chairs, the hazy rhododedrons and spectral aluminum siding -- even the rusted basketball hoop (the relic of an earlier resident) -- seemed possessed by a sinister banality.

      
“A real sight for sore eyes, ain’t it?”

      
Despite his shock, Smedlow resolved not to grunt or blink, not to give this sociopathic cretin the satisfaction of seeing his surprise.

      
“Now don’t you start pretendin’ you don’t know where you are. Oh, you fooled my aunt real good. But you damn sure can’t fool me. Cause I know it’s you in there. And that’s how come I brung you for a little treat.”

      
In another instant his captor had retrieved the collapsible wheelchair from the trunk, opened it and begun to lift him up. Smedlow endured the momentary bearhug, the smell of wintergreen Dentine, and found himself sitting in his own driveway, looking at the vapor in the headlights, the sleek, black fender of the limo. In the front seat the German shepherd was whimpering for attention, scratching its paws on the window, holding a huge, sallow shank bone in its teeth. With a shudder of nostalgia Smedlow recalled the last time he had sprinted on that leg -- his last frantic effort to escape before they had subjected him to surgery.

      
“All right now, fella, you can come on out.”

      
Smedlow saw the dog jump down onto the blacktop, saunter onto his front lawn and desecrate his Japanese red maple with its piss. Then, suddenly, he felt himself being propelled forward -- onto the red brick pathway to the cellar.

      
The storm door -- as any other idiot would have guessed -- had been locked.

      
“Ah shit! Well, that still don’t mean we ain’t goin’ in to have a look.”

      
It must have been the breaking of the glass, the rattling of the inner door and then the forcing of the lock that did it. The high-pitched yelping came from somewhere in the bowels of the basement, getting closer as the lock gave way.

      
“Heel, fella! Heel!” said Lemuel Lee, holdin’ Blitz back, flickin’ on the light, while some kinda damn little runty dog kept on comin’ at them, yappin’ and growlin’ and showin’ off her teeth. Hell, judgin’ by the way Blitz himself was now startin’ to yap and snarl, it seemed like maybe they was gonna have a little tiff; but pretty soon ole Blitz was actin’ real gentlemanlike, puttin’ down his bone and sniffin’ at her tail.

      
“Well now, looks like Blitz here’s found himself a ladyfriend.”