The Devil Delivered and Other Tales (27 page)

This completed, Kit carried the rope to the balcony door, which he unlocked and slid to one side. He slipped out onto the balcony, quickly knotted one end of the rope to the wrought-iron railing, and then the other end as well. He paused, turned to stare across the intervening distance to the balcony on the building opposite, and to the lovely pooch that sat there, watching him. Kit waved. The pooch’s ears pricked up; its tail thumped once.

Kit returned to his task. He positioned himself in the center of the condom rope, then, using all his strength, and reaching for each carefully arranged piece of furniture, Kit pulled himself across the floor toward the closet door. The rope stretched tight around his soft body, but he contracted his muscles against it and kept on crawling, inching ever closer to the closet.

He finally reached it, wrapping the tip of each tentacle around the doorknob. The rope, now a slingshot, hummed taut across the length of the apartment. Kit slowly worked himself around until he was facing the open balcony door. He ran through the calculations once again in his mind, set his beak in a determined tight line, then let go.

The doorway flashed by in a blur; then he was out, flying through the air, the apartment and the balcony opposite him growing big alarmingly fast. He splayed out his eight tentacles, felt the elastic webbing between each limb fill with air, braking his murderous speed. He saw the pooch cock its head, its eyes widening as Kit raced straight for her. The dog ducked at the last moment and Kit splatted into the glass door behind it, then slid down to a crumpled heap on the balcony floor.

The pooch looked down at Kit. At the first sign of movement, her tail thumped once.

Kit shook himself, then podded himself upright. The dog licked him on the forehead and Kit sent two tentacles around the sweet quadruped in a brief but emotional hug; then he clambered swiftly onto the dog’s back. He settled himself in, reached up, and slid aside the glass door.

“Is that you, Moopsy?” a quavering voice asked from inside.

Kit kicked Moopsy’s flanks and they entered. An old woman sat on the sofa, blinking bemusedly at the two of them. “Have you found a date, then?” she asked. “Oh, I’m so proud of you, Moopsy. Be sure to be home before dawn, dear, you know how I’ll worry.”

Kit guided Moopsy to the door, freeing one tentacle to wave at the old woman before they left. Time had come, at last, to paint the town red.

9.

and they shall be rewarded

Max stood with Brandon, Lucy, and Penny at the foot of the steps to the Unified Cultural Workers Assembly Hall. “That’s a lot of steps,” he said, eyeing the climb.

“Six hundred and sixty-six, my soon-to-be-marginally-famous friend. Keeps out the riffraff, you see. The appreciation of art demands hard work, as you well know. Anything casually, easily received is crass commercialism, and let’s not be naïve, such practitioners exist in this city, though of course we’ll never acknowledge them. I can think of one off the top of my head, which is something in itself—”

Eyeing Brandon’s expanding head, Max had to agree.

“—I believe her name is Elana Oxbow, her only positive feature being she is of a visible minority. Native, I believe. Despite that, her primary interest seems to be increasing her audience in size and appreciation. Can you imagine anything so … vulgar, but more than that, Maximillian, she’s also plum dangerous, a threat to our subtle way of life.”

“I hate her,” Lucy squeaked from beside Brandon’s knee. “She should die, I think. That’s what I think, and what I think is more important than you think, unless you think the way I think, making us think alike, and are you thinking what I’m thinking, that’s what I want to know.”

“Indeed,” Brandon rumbled. “We should be on our way.”

“Ooh,” Penny cried. “Here comes Annie and Andy and Monk and Stubble and Nick. And a helicopter—that must be the minister, oh, what timing!”

Annie’s limo rolled up and those inside climbed out. The thunder and lightning continued overhead, along with the occasional gust of wind, but it seemed the rain had passed, and the late spring air was turning sultry. Annie waved and, followed by her three bodyguards, approached. Andy hesitated by the limo, torn by some kind of indecision. Another limo approached, and the helicopter had landed, crushing a bag lady but otherwise uneventfully, and now waited, its props whirring.

Curious, Max watched. The limo stopped perilously close to the helicopter. The black vehicle looked battered, dented, with blots of feather stuck to it here and there. The door opened and the minister bolted, racing across the intervening space for the helicopter. The props made a strange budding noise and the night air was filled with gray feathers, and then the minister was inside, and Andy “Kit” Breech was heading up to it at a more leisurely pace. He leaned into the cockpit and exchanged a few words with the minister, then turned and made his way toward the group.

Max swung his attention back to those who’d gathered around Brandon. Annie was speaking. “… and I really figured there’d be some kind of takeover bid at CAPSs, but Monk here intercepted two frustrated artists in the foyer. He castrated the man—” Her nose wrinkled momentarily. “—rather messily, in my opinion, and intellectually raped the other, who was female, it turned out.”

Max couldn’t help himself. “Intellectually raped, Annie?”

She nodded. “At gunpoint, he forced her to knit a feminist quilt, right then and there, until she finally broke down and started foaming at the mouth. It was quite exciting, actually. Anyway, that’s why we were late, that and picking up Andy—who’s not well at all tonight, are you, Andy?”

Max looked over at the man, of whom he’d heard only hints of rumors, suggesting that here stood the real power behind … everything. An assistant deputy to the minister, or some such thing, a bureaucrat, a technocrat, a lifer in the game. The man looked like hell, and threw Annie an ill-disguised scowl when her words drew everyone’s attention to him.

“I’m fine,” he growled. “The minister will join us inside.”

“Excellent,” Brandon said.

They all turned to watch the helicopter rise from the street and skim up the steps to the Pyramid’s landing platform on the roof.

“Shall we ascend, then?” Brandon asked the group, with a broad smile. “Come on, climb aboard.”

Max stared as Lucy, her bulky, heavy handbag in tow, climbed onto Brandon’s left thigh, wrapping her arms and legs around the tree-trunk-like bole of muscle and bone. Then Penny moved up and settled into Brandon’s arms. Annie positioned herself piggyback behind his broad shoulders. Brandon grinned over at the remaining men. “You’ll all have to walk, I’m afraid, because I’m all man and certain things are just not done. I’m sure you can manage, hah hah! Ho ho! Tally ho!”

Brandon took the first steps two at a time, then three, then five, then ten, then twenty, leaping upward in powerful bounds, the hair on his massive head waving its licks in the wind of his swift, effortless passage.

Max glanced over at Andy, who was still scowling. “I hear it’s easier if you zigzag,” he said helpfully.

Andy curled his lip. “Don’t talk to me about zigzagging, you pup.”

In a flurry of motion Monk, Stubble, and Nick had their M16s out and laid down a spraying fire into a crowd of Boy Scouts who’d edged too close in their annual litter-collecting drive. Innocent voices screamed.

“Cut that out!” Andy bellowed.

The guns stuttered into silence, leaving a moaning pile of youthful bodies buried in black plastic and litter.

“I’m minded,” Andy hissed, “to let the media hang you all on this one!”

The three helmeted men hung their heads.

“But,” Andy continued in a rasping tone, “I’m in a generous mood tonight. Now, get out the climbing gear—Annie’s feeling lost and fearful for her life without you at her back. Hop to it. As for you, Maxipad, get climbing—I’ll be stuck to your tail like used toilet paper, count on it—because I’ll tell you right now, I don’t trust you.”

“Oh,” Max said. “But I’ve brought one of my sculptures.” He lifted the flower box.

“You think I give a shit, boy? Now climb.”

They arrived at the glass and steel entranceway fifteen minutes later, Max drenched in sweat and seriously winded. Other guests had gathered around an oxygen tent set up just inside the doors, while paramedics worked desperately and, it seemed, unsuccessfully on another one to one side of the landing. As Max crouched at the last step, kneading out a stitch in his side, and Andy stood unruffled and barely pink-cheeked beside him, the three bodyguards arrived like a SAS team, on ropes, with grappling hooks, and in urban assault formation. They quickly took stock of the situation, checked their private frequency helmet transmitters, then headed inside to find Annie.

“Don’t get near me inside,” Andy told Max. “Don’t even look in my direction. Got it?”

“Uh, yeah, right.”

“Fine. Now get out of my sight.”

Nodding, Max collected his flower box and staggered inside.

A few hundred of the city’s select crowded the high-ceilinged hallway, recovering with glasses of white wine and nibblets provided by Culture Quo, which were brought to them individually by starving artists working part-time as waiters and waitresses. Off to the right was the entrance to the theater, where the awards would be handed out, but that was still an hour away. Max scanned the crowd until he saw Brandon’s massive head—a brown hump like the shoulders of a bison rising above all the other guests—and the knot of familiars around him. Max headed over.

“Don’t fret, Lucy dear, dear Lucy,” Brandon was saying. “I’ve ensured that the gaggle of critics are all seated in a single row, just as you requested. Right up at the front, as per your wishes, and thereby subject to your righteously baleful gaze throughout the proceedings.” It seemed Lucy would be sitting up at the front, on the stage platform, along with other important personages, including the minister, Andy, Penny, and Annie. Max had been provided a seat along one aisle toward the back, thus ensuring a long, momentous approach down to collect his award. “Ahh, Maxmillian, my friend, I’m glad to see you survived the ordeal of the steps without much discomfort, such is youth, eh? Hah hah! Ho ho! Well, I must ready myself for the task at hand, so I will leave you for now, in the capable and expressive hands of my darling wife. Cheerio! The next time you see me will be as emcee, standing in the spotlight, my smile warm and my confidence emanating from every pore of my body, hah hah! Ho ho!”

He strode off, the crowd parting before him.

Max saw Annie receive a cellular phone. She listened, frowned, then gestured her three bodyguards closer. She gave them whispered, heated instructions, her face pale, and the men saluted, checked their gear, then headed off. Max followed them with his gaze as they found a door to a service elevator, Monk keying in a code. All three scrambled inside when the doors opened, and Max watched as the lights indicated their descent, down, down into the bowels of the structure.

Penny accidentally kneed Lucy into the lowest shelf of a passing service cart and ignored her dwindling yelps as she edged close to Max and murmured, “Ready to perform for me tonight, darling?”

“Huh? Tonight? When? After, you mean?”

“I was thinking right up there onstage. Imagine the glory as, in front of a thousand politicians, administrators, professors, and obscure but powerful artists, critics, and media pundits, you were to install your art under my mnemonic mound—I’m almost certain that I was once Margaret Thatcher, you know—”

“But she isn’t dead yet, Penny.”

“She isn’t? Oh. Well, Joan of Arc, then.”

“Oh, well, she is dead, that’s true. But, Penny—in public? I don’t know if, uh, I can perform under that kind of—”

“Oh, don’t be silly,” Penny said. “I’m just kidding, besides. We’ll polish the tip of the Pyramid after it’s over, out under the stormy sky—”

“Sounds uncomfortable—”

She smiled. “For you, maybe. Oops, what’s Annie all heated up about?”

Max turned to see the chief administrator sharply gesticulating for them to join her. She had a set of earphones on, and looked to be in great excitement. “We’d better see,” Max said.

They headed over.

“Someone’s down below,” Annie hissed. “An intruder. I sent the boys down to take care of him—oh, I knew there’d be a try, a takeover bid, something unsightly and crass. Come with me, we’ll head to the security room and we can hear all the gory details—I’ve given the boys carte blanche!”

The security room housed a bank of television monitors and a com station. A technician sat at the station and nodded to Annie when they entered. He flicked a switch and removed his headphones as, through a vague buzz of speaker static, one of the bodyguards’ voices whispered, “Nick? Where the hell are ya, buddy? Shit!”

A second voice broke in. “It’s Stubble, what’s your position, Monk?”

“Coordinates 16G, level four. I sent Nick ahead—the tunnel’s had its lights busted out. Now I can’t reach him. You listening up there, Com? Check your cameras down corridor 32, switch to IR.”

The technician flicked more switches. “Roger that, Monk. Going visual on my mark—you scoped?”

“No, dammit, there’s a bug in the system—you’re my eyes, friend.”

“Don’t worry,” the technician said, “I’ll pull you through. Okay … mark!” He pushed a button, and a monitor to his left flickered. A heat blob was crouched over another one, the one on the floor swiftly cooling. The blob straightened, looked directly at the camera, then snapped out a hand. A black chunk of something flew up at the lens; then there was static.

Annie gasped. The technician now leaned forward in his chair. “Monk, you reading me? Over?”

“Yeah, what’s up?”

“Your boy’s down. Intruder is heading your way. Heads up—”

“It’s Stubble! Pull back, Monk, until I can support ya! Pull back!”

Monk said, “I see something—no, just a shadow—no, what, wait—shit!” There was a burst of machine gun fire, then a scream, then the hiss of static.

Stubble spoke, “Monk? Hey, bruiser, you hearing me? Nailed the bastard, eh? Monk? Come in, Monk, over. Monk?”