reddish-brown opium.
It was a fall day, leaves turning, crisp frosty air. Most of the people were out in red hair and freckles, yellow, sepia, and orange.
Naked with the spark boy in narrow stagnant streets. Saffron smoke curls out between his legs and fades to pale yellow and violet as the boy winks and capers away.
When young Audrey woke up, the smell was still there oozing from the yellow cashmere blanket that covered his naked body. He closed his eyes, remembering the arrival in Ba'dan ... a shabby whorehouse district called Fun City where he had gone to meet his contact ... the briefing from Dimitri during which he kept dozing off ... dreams in which Fun City became an arena for deadly sexual games ... encounters with the spark boys ... addiction to a radioactive drug known as the Blues ... the clinic ... the doctor.
There was another body in the bed beside him. Opening his eyes and turning his head, he saw milky-white skin, amber hair, and the face of an idiot angel.
'Toby.'
An English boy named Arn with a foxy, red face and a corrupt insinuating leer: 'Popper Toby, we calls him. When he gets in—eat the smell of him—pops you right enough. Bit of a lark, mate.'
Toby opened huge blue eyes and looked at Audrey, the pupils contracting. He kicked the blanket down and arched his body, stretching.
The room is cold with a dusting of dry snow on the floor from the round opening in the wall that serves as a window. Audrey shivers, hugging his knees against his chest.
'Oh my.' Arn stands at the foot of the bed in a red turtleneck sweater, green corduroys, and sandals. 'Just popped in to put some water on for tea.'
Arn then lights an alcohol stove and turns back towards Toby and Audrey, peeling off his sweater and pants. 'Coo...' he says.
A violet smoke pours from Toby's scent glands, blanketing Audrey's body with a smell of hyacinths, cyanide, and ozone. Audrey is choking, gasping, in a flash of violet light.
Audrey sits up groggily. 'Where's Toby?'
Arn puts a hand on Audrey's chin, turning his head around to face a tarnished mirror on the wall above his bed: 'Mirror mirror on the wall ...'
A vertebra pops in Audrey's neck. Arn clicks his tongue. Audrey is looking into the vacant blue eyes of Toby, seeing the milky-white flesh, larval and wraithlike, clinging to his body.
Arn points to the mirror. 'Gor blimey you shoulda 'eard 'im before we got together like. Right school tie 'e was.' Arn says this in those clear penetrating upper-class English tones. You can hear every word fifty feet across a hotel dining room.
'You've 'eard of me, myte.
He tossed Audrey his underwear. 'Nip into your duds, luv. Nobody is lyte for briefing. It's like rehearsals in show biz.'
In the operations room, Dimitri is passing out photos and addresses for hit assignments. Arn is nowhere to be seen. Audrey is looking at the photo of the man he is to kill: a thing Italian face with protuberant yellow eyes glowing with sulfurous hate.
'Don't looka me ...' screams the photograph.
This will be a pleasure, Audrey thinks. I have not come justa looka you—you greasy worthless black-market wop.
Dimitri point to the map: 'Right there. Runs a cigarette store. Smuggled stuff. Also an Uncle, a Broker, a Buyer. Pays off in info to operate. He's got lookouts in this kiosk and this grocery store who report any strangers in the neighborhood. Two metal detectors, here and here. He's got another in the door of his shop and a sawed-off shotgun
