The Talisman

“Look, I’d give you an IOU.”

Rudolph grinned. “Comin from someone in this den of thieves and dope-addicts, that’s almost funny,” he said. “Piss on your fuckin IOU, old hoss.”

Jack turned all the new force that was in him upon Rudolph. There was a way to hide that force, that new beauty—to a degree, at least—but now he let it all come out, and saw Rudolph step back from it, his face momentarily confused and amazed.

“My IOU would be good and I think you know it,” Jack said quietly. “Give me an address and I’ll mail you the cash. How much? Ferd Janklow said that for two bucks you’d mail a letter for someone. Would ten be enough to look the other way just long enough for us to take a walk?”

“Not ten, not twenty, not a hundred,” Rudolph said quietly. He now looked at the boy with a sadness that scared Jack badly. It was that look as much as anything else—maybe more—that told him just how badly he and Wolf were caught. “Yeah, I’ve done it before. Sometimes for five bucks. Sometimes, believe it or not, for free. I would have done it free for Ferdie Janklow. He was a good kid. These fuckers—”

Rudolph raised one water- and detergent-reddened fist and shook it toward the green-tiled wall. He saw Morton, the accused pud-puller, looking at him, and Rudolph glared horribly at him. Morton looked away in a hurry.

“Then why not?” Jack asked desperately.

“Because I’m scared, hoss,” Rudolph said.

“What do you mean? The night I came here, when Sonny started to give you some trouble—”

“Singer!” Rudolph flapped one hand contemptuously. “I ain’t scared of Singer, and I ain’t scared of Bast, no matter how big he is. It’s him I’m afraid of.”

“Gardener?”

“He’s a devil from hell,” Rudolph said. He hesitated and then added, “I’ll tell you something I never told nobody else. One week he was late givin me my pay envelope and I went downstairs to his office. Most times I don’t, I don’t like to go down there, but this time I had to . . . well, I had to see a man. I needed my money in a hurry, you know what I mean? And I seen him go down the hall and into his office, so I knew he was there. I went down and knocked on the door, and it swung open when I did, because it hadn’t completely latched. And you know what, kid? He wasn’t there.”

Rudolph’s voice had lowered steadily as he told this story, until Jack could barely hear the cook over the thump and wheeze of the dishwasher. At the same time, his eyes had widened like the eyes of a child reliving a scary dream.

“I thought maybe he was in that recordin-studio thing they got, but he wasn’t. And he hadn’t gone into the chapel because there’s no direct connectin door. There’s a door to the outside from his office, but it was locked and bolted on the inside. So where did he go, buddy-roo? Where did he go? ”

Jack, who knew, could only look at Rudolph numbly.

“I think he’s a devil from hell and he took some weird elevator down to report to fuckin HQ,” Rudolph said. “I’d like to help you but I can’t. There ain’t enough money in Fort Knox for me to cross the Sunlight Man. Now you get out of here. Maybe they ain’t noticed you’re missin.”

But they had, of course. As he came out through the swinging doors, Warwick stepped up behind him and clubbed Jack in the middle of the back with hands interlaced to form one gigantic fist. As he went stumbling forward through the deserted cafeteria, Casey appeared from nowhere like an evil jack-in-the-box and stuck out a foot. Jack couldn’t stop. He tripped over Casey’s foot, his own feet went out from under him, and he sprawled in a tangle of chairs. He got up, fighting back tears of rage and shame.

“You don’t want to be so slow taking in your dishes, snot-face,” Casey said. “You could get hurt.”

Warwick grinned. “Yeah. Now get on upstairs. The trucks are waiting to leave.”

4

At four the next morning he was awakened and taken down to Sunlight Gardener’s office again.

Gardener looked up from his Bible as if surprised to see him.

“Ready to confess, Jack Parker?”

“I have nothing—”

The lighter again. The flame, dancing a bare inch from the tip of his nose.

“Confess. Where have we met?” The flame danced a little closer yet. “I mean to have it out of you, Jack. Where? Where?”

“Saturn!” Jack screamed. It was all he could think of. “Uranus! Mercury! Somewhere in the asteroid belt! Io! Ganymede! Dei—”

Pain, thick and leaden and excruciating, exploded in his lower belly as Hector Bast reached between his legs with his good hand and squeezed Jack’s testes.

“There,” Heck Bast said, smiling cheerfully. “Didn’t you just have that coming, you hellbound mocker.”

Jack collapsed slowly to the floor, sobbing.

Sunlight Gardener leaned slowly down, his face patient—almost beatific. “Next time, it will be your friend down here,” Sunlight Gardener said gently. “And with him I will not hesitate. Think about it, Jack. Until tomorrow night.”

But tomorrow night, Jack decided, he and Wolf would not be here. If only the Territories were left, then the Territories it would be . . .

 . . . if he could get them back there.