The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror. Fifth Annual Collection
- Автор: Датлоу Эллен, Виндлинг Терри
- Год: 1992
- Язык: английский
- Год: St.Martin’s Press
- Жанр: Ужасы
Электронная книга - «The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror. Fifth Annual Collection». Краткое содержание книги:
“Anyway, Gus didn’t want to make the trip because we had to drive all the way up to the Sangre de Cristos, but there was nothing else that he could do because he had to have the devil’s signature before he could enter me in the Junior Olympics at Colorado Springs. You know Gus, he complained every inch of the way.
“It's early afternoon when we get to the old adobe, but the devil’s already awake. He’s sitting outside with a bucket at his feet and he’s whittling away with a carving knife that he stole off a Penitente man. Anyway, I know better than to bother the devil while he’s busy, but Gus up and asks him ‘Whatcha makin’?’ You know Gus, can’t keep his mouth shut. So the devil holds out his hand, palm up. It’s empty. Then he rolls it over and Gus can see how he’d carved his fingernails down to nothing.
“The devil shoves his bloody fingertips under Gus’s nose. 'I’m making me,’ he says.
“Gus almost threw up. He looked green enough. Then the devil pointed down at the bucket, at the little bits of fingernail floating in the pink water. Richie, you should have heard the devil laugh. And then he said, ‘When you’re done with my boy, bring him back and I’ll fix him, too.’ ”
I was sweating. I didn’t want to hear this kind of talk, and Torito could see that I thought he was crazy.
His eyes cut at me from beneath swollen brows. “You don’t believe me, huh? You just look at that first contract, Richie. You’ll see the bloodstains there.”
Torito fell asleep at that point. I checked his arms for tracks but didn’t find any. There were three cherry-red scars in the hollow of his right elbow and another bunch on his left forearm, but they were about the size of thumbtacks—much too large for needle scars.
I packed my gear, trying to figure who’d done this to Torito. Maybe Rosie’s heroin connection had gone sour; maybe Torito didn’t want to admit that he’d been busted up by an ordinary fingerbreaker. Then I remembered that the zombie was expecting a guy named Willie. And Rosie had mentioned Willie, too, so I doubted that there was a connection problem. That left the promoter and the cable TV people. Both had lost big dinero when Torito pulled out of the Barkley rematch. And they’d both made threats, admittedly the kind of tidy threats that you’d expect from incorporated organizations. But even tidy threats have a way of turning nasty in this business.
I stepped into Torito’s bathroom to wash my hands and almost slipped on the wet floor before I could turn on the lights. Blood was everywhere, smeared on the green tile, the mirror, and the counter. Antuofermo and Saad Muhammad could have gone a few rounds in the tiny room and it wouldn’t have looked any worse.
But the mirror wasn’t broken. And the bath towels hung neatly on lacquered teak racks. No sign of a struggle at all.
The pea-green basin was splattered with scarlet gore—thick, sticky blood dotted with little tan flecks. I pushed at the flecks with a toothbrush, not wanting to touch something that I couldn’t identify. I remembered Torito’s story about the devil and suddenly knew what I was looking at. Bits of wood, splinters and curls. And tiny chunks of flesh.
I tried to rinse the horror away, but the bloody water drained too slowly and the flecks of skin stuck to the green porcelain as if glued there. I wiped the faucet clean. My throat was gritty-dry but the thought of drinking from the tap revolted me.
I poked around the room. The bathtub was filled with wood, kindling really: broken survey stakes, greasewood twigs, stunted Joshua tree branches, and stubby bits of mesquite. On the floor behind the toilet, I found a claw hammer smeared with blood. Next to it was a tin can filled with rusty nails.
Suddenly I thought of Jesus on the bedroom wall, split down the middle.
I hefted the hammer. Had the blood spattered it? Or had Torito stood before the mirror, looking at himself like I was looking at myself now, hefting the tool, wondering what it would feel like crashing against his skull again and again?
The cuts healed, at least the ones that you could see. Torito looked fine, a hell of a lot better than Barkley. Even Ell admit that.
In training camp for the rematch, everybody else ignored the warning signs. When Torito refused to wear headgear in sparring, they said he wanted to be macho. Same story when he started hitting the heavy bag without handwraps. And when he ran eight miles instead of his usual four, everyone said that Torito only wanted to improve his endurance.
Early one morning, I learned the truth. Torito came limping back from a run, couldn’t even make it past my cabin, which was on the edge of camp. He sat on the front steps and pulled off his shoes, not knowing that I was watching. His sockless feet were wet with blood. He upended his shoes and tapped the heels. Something red sprinkled over the dirt, and then Torito rose and limped away.
I stepped outside. Little red flecks, like bugs, dotted the ground. I scooped up a handful and blew away the dirt. The hard, bloodstained slivers of pine that remained felt warm in the palm of my hand.
I realized then that after a while pain is just pain, and there’s nothing you can do to make it into glory ever again. I told Torito what I thought, and even though he denied trying to hurt himself, he decided to pull out of the rematch. Gus and the promoter and the TV people gave him a hell of an argument. But with Rosie’s help, Torito held firm.
My heart thundered. I looked at my reflection in the blood-streaked mirror and saw a sweaty old guy who was about to have a heart attack. I’d done that once already, and it hadn’t been fun.
I sucked a deep breath. Okay, hot shot. You re out in the desert, surrounded by nothing but miles and miles of cactus and nasty reptiles. Maybe there’s a sadistic mob-enforcer out there, too. And a candyman named Willie. Hell, maybe they’re one and the same. For company you’ve got a couple of junkies and a masochistic former middleweight champion who’s in presently undefinable deep-shit trouble.
What next?
Number one: Torito needed help, but he needed help that knew how to keep things quiet. Number two: Vegas wasn’t my turf. In this case, one plus two equaled Gus. He’d spent lots of time in Vegas over the years. He wasn’t a saint, but Torito was always “his boy.” I fished through the business cards in my wallet and found his number in L.A.
It was quiet downstairs. No sign of Rosie or the zombie. I flipped on a light in the kitchen, lit a smoke to mask the stink of old grease and moldy Spanish rice, and dialed Gus’s number.
“Whoever the hell this is had better be makin’ me money, callin’ at this time of the night. ”
“No money, Gus,” I said. “It’s me, Richie.”
“The crazy Italian cut man! What’s up, Paisan?”
I sucked on my cigarette. Briefly, I explained what I’d found.
“Doesn’t sound good.”
“No shit. And it isn’t over. Rosie says that someone’s coming back to finish the job. She wants me to take Torito to New Mexico.”
“What does Toro say?”
“Not much. At least, nothing that makes any sense.”
Gus broke in with a few choice words. “Jesus, this is perfect fucking timing. Can you believe that I was talking to Barkley’s people today? The crazy S.O.B.s want to go pay-per-view. They’re offering two mil for Toro on marquee value alone. I haven’t even put the screws to ’em yet. I mean, if Duran and Hearns and Leonard can make five-ten mil, why not my boy?”
“Gus, there’s no way. The kid is drowning. Something is very wrong out here, and the last thing we can worry about is Toro climbing into the ring again. That’s crazy. If you could see him—”
“Christ, it’s that bad?” For the first time, he sounded truly worried.
“Yeah . . . can you get someone over here?”