Slice

face.

“Now, now, boy. Now, now. Big Boy is a bad boy. Big Boy mustn't bleed for Pepper. We'll have to fix that, won't we?” And she goes and gets something and then Mommy does an unspeakable thing to her trusting baby boy as Chaingang's eye opens wide in horror at the sight of his mother coming to him and plunging something sharp some awful stabbing sharp silver thing into his face. Oh don't, Mommy, I'll be good I swear I promise I won't ohhhhhhhhh nooooooooooooo, and the woman hears the thing grunt “NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN” as she takes the huge needle and begins sewing the side of the man's wounded face together with sailcloth thread she retrieved from a garbage dump.

He begins to wonder if he has hallucinated the injury to himself as he once dreamed that he might have hallucinated the rape and murder of an exquisitely beautiful woman. He was not given to many hallucinations. But trauma, pain, illness, some powerful disease, had shaken his iron resolve. Was he alive? Yes. Was he dead? No. Was he a dying man? Perhaps. He ran it through his malfunctioning computer. He smelled—no, that isn't the right word—tasted a foulness that permeated every waking breath he took. At first his computer told him it must be coming up from diseased lungs. He thought he had lung cancer. He wondered how long he would live and what he should do next.

“Waaaaaaahhhhhhh.” He coughed and spit the foul taste out in a hawking effort that racked him with a convulsive pain spasm and a woman's, voice said, “Bad Big Boy.” Which made no sense to him whatsoever. He knew he was alone. He tried to open his eye wider but the light was so bright and he shuddered with chill and yet he was soaked in sweat, and the side of his face felt pinched shut.

“Bad, bad doggie,” the old witch cackled, but Chaingang Bunkowski did not hear the voice and he was taken down again into trauma and unconsciousness. He did not hear her say “Bad, naughty puppy dog. Bad boy spit and make him face bleed for pretty Pip. BAD boy.” The crazy old bag lady watching him as he passed out again.

Much later he awoke and it was all black and he thought the cancer had killed him and he assumed he was dead, but the thought was but a fleeting awareness as he was sucked back down into sleep and then the bright light and the noise, and he made an effort to open his eyes but one seemed swollen shut and something was wrong with his face and it was the old woman saying something: “You was never gonna get up, boy. Are we hungry?'

He tried to nod his huge head and the massive effort almost took him down. He tasted feces, coal oil, death, stale fish, an awful stench beyond the worst halitosis from acute gingivitis becoming the worst peritonitis and then the ultimate case of death breath on record. He tried to spit and could not, and then tried to swallow and the voice said, “Here, open wide for Mommy.'

“Mmm.” It was his mommy? He tried to assimilate the information.

“Eat.'

“Nnnnnn.” He agreed to eat. He was ravenously hungry.

“There.” It tasted like hot water but he was able to swallow the liquid and for the second it took to swallow it the awful taste in his mouth was gone.

“MORE,” he rumbled, and the old woman dropped her spoon, then laughed.

“Baby boy can TALK. Boy's first word to Mommy: MORE. All righty, we've got plenty of good, nourishing soup here. Yes indeed, pretty puppy, Pipkin has plenty of good soup.” And she fed him another spoonful of hot water.

“More,” he said.

“Yes. You'll get more now. You can talk. What is Big Boy's name?” He said nothing and she got another spoonful down him. “My name is Pippa. Do you think Mommy is pretty?'

“More.'

She obliged him. “Feeling our old selves now, are we?” He blinked. “Is Peppy's big doggie going to be up and wagging his tail soon, eh?” She cackled madly.

“Mmmm.” He tried to make her give him more again but it was just too much work to get the word out. Fortunately she understood and nodded and dipped the soup spoon back in to the can.

“MMM-ummm, good,” she sang tunelessly, and he managed another swallow. And the small nourishment was sufficient to pull him back off the edge. He turned his head and felt the pull at his face. What had happened? He remembered the blinding gunshot. He wondered if he was blind in that one eye—perhaps from the point-blank explosion? No. He knew on some mysterious level that he was all right. He was going to be all right.

“More,” he rumbled.

“At's a fine, Big Boy. We'll have you up an’ at ‘em in no time now.” And he saw her dip the spoon, which was silver and marked Palmer House, into the can that said Campbell's Minestrone Soup, and his brain told his arm and his hand to move and he reached out and took the can and tilted it up and swallowed the soup.

“HA!” She was pleased. Another stray being nursed back to health. “Big Boy ate allll his soup.'

He smelled it now and knew that he was wrapped in foul rags, and he realized for the first time that he was lying in his own filth. Why hadn't he been cleaned? What sort of a nurse was she? This wasn't his mommy. This was ... what? He saw where he was then. He was down in the sewers. And this creature who had given him soup had done something to him. He remembered her plunging something sharp into his face and hurting him, and Chaingang looked at the old lady and thought how easily he could snuff her out like a dirty candle but the thought washed over him like a dark and heavy cloud and he could only swallow, a major effort, and he let his upper torso and head fall back down into his nest of rags and he slept again, feeling himself pulled down into the black sleep whirlpool as the woman's voice sounded far away, “Rockabye, Big Boy, in the treetop” and something about something breaking, and he was gone again.

“That's my good big boy. Sleep good now for Mommy. And when we wake up we'll have a FEAST. We'll slay the fatted calf,” she said with a delighted screech at her rapier wit.

But Chaingang was far away, dreaming of the face of the cop and the things he would do to that face, the ways he would change that arrogant appearance, and the thought of it stretched part of his own face in the rictus of a bloody smile, and then the big man dreamt of the song of the killer whales and slept.

SOUTH BUCKHEAD

“Listen to this,” he said, reading in a loud voice anyway so he could be heard in the next room but screaming the words he wanted to emphasize. “Designer Bob Mackie attaches a muff to this classic evening fur. All right. Check it out.” He was getting louder by the second. “I'll go muff-diving in that! HEY, you listening?” There was no comment from the dining room, where the long-suffering woman sat at the table with a pile of bills. The wife of Eichord's old pal Chink.

“C'mere, you gotta see this, hon,” said Detective Sgt. James Lee. “Listen to the way these people down there live. West Palm Palace highlighted by a spectacular two-story cathedral-ceiling living room this magnificent home is enhanced by a beautifully landscaped half-acre lot that includes a marble pool. Gourmet kitchen,” his voice squeezed into his version of the late Mr. Gleason's how-sweet-it-is voice, “four guest accommodations. Now reduced to sell at only two million four hundred thousand.” He stopped and laughed and turned a page. Perusing in silence for a few moments, then beginning to read aloud again, the awe apparent in his voice as he read, “Unique in all the world. Exquisite Palm Beach oceanfront estate. Walled castle, twenty-seven rooms, beautifully furnished. For the uncompromising. Property includes three-bedroom stone caretaker's cottage on grounds. Eight million, two hundred thousand dollars. EIGHT MILLION DOLLARS, are you listening?'

The woman in the dining room spoke for the first time, “What did you charge to Visa that was $37.92?'

“Don't bum me out with that. Prestigious ocean view in panoramic setting. Five bedrooms, four baths. FOUR BATHS! Oceanfront deco breakfast nook. Entrance foyer with glass walled elevator facing the Intercoastal. This gorgeous showplace is perfect for entertaining. Covered loggia overlooking the Olympic-size pool. What the hell is a loggia?” he asked, mispronouncing the word.