Chaingang

“You got it, sir,” she said. She dealt him a straight ace-queen, stood on nineteen, and paid the gambler. He walked out of The Rockhouse with more money than he'd been near in a long time. He got in his ride, put Mary's five away for safety, and headed down the hill to find his main man. They were still pricks, but he understood why they had to be. If they'd made it too easy for him to lay hands on the dough, it would have put both himself and the thing they were building at risk.

Now everybody was covered. The business with Drexel, the five-K loan from a straight citizen, these had not been pieces of stage business—they were real—and they'd stand up to quiet inquiries by interested parties, parties such as Happy Ruiz and the men he worked for.

Royce caught himself singing Sam and Dave's “Soul Man,” tapping time on the wheel as he drove. Feelin’ good, y'all. It's so easy when the slide is greasy. He hadn't felt so unburdened in years.

In tempo with the driving beat he could imagine the voice of a sportscaster whose name was lost to childhood memory, broadcasting over the roar of the excited home-team crowd:

“An amazing catch by seventy-four! This could prove to be the most important play in the game; with Waterton trailing Maysburg by a field goal, an incredible third down dive by sticky-fingered, lightning-quick varsity wide receiver Royce Hawthorne, makes it first and ten, goal to go! Hawthorne is sure to be all-city, all-state, all-conference, all-pro, all-star, and all-hero! Yes, fans, it's Royce Hawthorne, the allllllllll-American boy!"

For the first time in a long while he remembered the way it used to be—when his only worries in life had been scoring, and kicking the Eagles’ collective ass.

12

SLABTOWN

The beast was very hungry. He felt clearheaded for the first time since he'd been given his freedom, really strong, coming awake with a roaring hunger. He wanted real food. Then he wanted a heart.

He tried to sort out the hazy details of the preceding day. The drugs had simply neutered him. He remembered sitting beside the river, suddenly aware that he was holding a bamboo fishing pole in his hand. He angrily tossed it aside, and heard an old man telling him to “—come on down here. I think they're bitin'.” He looked down and saw the old bum sitting on some drifted logs in a small eddy that had bitten into the riverbank, fishing. Why hadn't he just buried this geek?

He could have dropped down the bank and nudged this pitiful skin-sack of nothing into the river with no effort, and the corpse might float a good distance before some fisherman would gag on his Budweiser and notify the authorities. He patted the big canvas pocket for his chain and recalled that it was somewhere on the bank behind him.

Perhaps it would be better to bring the body back up the embankment and just stuff him down in this hole where he was now sitting. He could tamp in the sides of the hole, and find some broken pieces of slab to drop on the impromptu grave.

Cottonwoods, ash, and willows grew out of the riverbank. Backwater marks of tide, slime, and flotsam had written history in the bark of the mighty trees. He could select one of the younger trees and fell it with his big fighting bowie. He could see himself bringing down a small tree with a few angry chops, swinging a steel-muscled arm that wielded a blade sharp enough to sever hanging one-inch hemp. He'd checked the blade when he first got loose, and it had been recently honed. It was razor-sharp. They'd not only given him his old survival tools and weapons, they'd upgraded his munitions. Why? He didn't buy any of Dr. Norman's explanation for a moment. Why had the monkey people set him free with weapons?

He stood up and was grateful not to feel any dizziness, but suddenly the old man wasn't worth planting. He had the strangest sensation as he went back up the bank to retrieve his chain: There was a sense of something touching him—a thing he could not begin to isolate, much less identify. He only knew that the idea of killing the old bum was not one that gave him pleasure. He gathered up his load and departed, but as he made his way through the slabs, keeping to the river, being careful not to leave an obvious trail, he thought about the old geezer, remembering the way he'd been kind to him. He found it all decidedly uncomfortable.

By dark he'd found another suitable spot and, after stuffing himself on freeze-dried rations, had slept soundly and uneventfully, sleeping for ten hours. When he woke up he was starving for something he could sink his teeth into, but except for slight soreness, he felt his powers returning.

He resumed his journey along the edge of the river slabs, heading in the direction of the waterfront place called Butchie's. It was the nearest point of interest according to the map. His duffel and weapons cases felt comparatively light—which was a good sign.

Dr. Norman's dossier played inside his head: