The door blew inward and Gerbasi’s associate, a light-heavy who must have taken a pounding in the ring—ridges of scar tissue over his eyes—before entering this line of work, posed TV-cop-style with his shiny gun and grunted something that Shellane did not catch but took for an admonition. Then Gerbasi hove into view. Spider veins were thick as jail tattoos on his jowls, and the bags beneath his eyes appeared to have been dipped in grape juice. His breathing was wet and wheezy, and his muted plaid suit had the lumpish aspect of bad upholstery. The lamplight plated his scalp with an orange shine. He waddled three steps into the room and said, “This don’t seem like you, Roy. Just sitting here waiting for it.”
Shellane, his flame turned low, had no reply.
Gerbasi snapped at his helper, telling him to close the door. “What’s going on with you?” he asked of Shellane.
“I surrender,” said Shellane.
“The guy Broillard, he claims he didn’t call us.” Gerbasi’s eyes, heavy-lidded, big and brown like calf’s eyes, ranged the tabletop. “Know anything about that?”
“Broillard? The Gas ’n Guzzle guy? He called you about me?”
Gerbasi’s stogie-sized forefinger prodded Shellane’s laptop. “Somebody called. Broillard says it wasn’t him.”
“Maybe he had a change of heart,” suggested Shellane.
“Maybe you set his ass up.” Gerbasi gave him a doleful look.
“You didn’t hurt him, did you?” Shellane failed to keep the amusement from his voice.
The light-heavy chuckled doltishly. “He ain’t hurting no more.”
“I figure you set him up,” Gerbasi said. “But why would ya do that and still be hanging around?”
“Don’t think about it, Marty. You’ll just break your brain.”
“Maybe he’s got cancer,” offered the light-heavy.
“Worse,” said Shellane.
“What’s worse than cancer?”
“Shut the fuck up,” Gerbasi said to the light-heavy; he removed a long-barreled .22 from his shoulder holster.
“Truth,” Shellane said.
“Y’know, you look way too satisfied for a man’s gonna be wearing his brains in a coupla minutes,” Gerbasi said. “You waiting for rescue, Roy? That it?”
“Why don’t you just do your business.”
“Guy’s in a hurry,” said the light-heavy. “Never seen one be in a hurry.”
“Who cut your face?” Gerbasi asked.
“Just do it, you fat fuck!” said Shellane. “I’ve got places I need to get to.”
“Hear that shit?” said the light-heavy. “Motherfucker’s crazy.”
“Nah, he’s got an angle,” Gerbasi said. “Man’s always got an angle. Don’tcha, Roy?”
Shellane smiled. “I live in certain hope of the Resurrection.”
Gerbasi gave his head a dubious shake. “Know what I useta say about you? I’d say Roy Shellane runs the best goddamn crews of anybody in the business, but he’s too fucking smart for his own good. One of these days he’s gonna outsmart himself.” He seemed to be expecting a response; when none came, he said, “I think maybe that day’s come.”
A bough ticked the side of the cabin; the light-heavy twitched toward the door. Shellane was beginning to understand why Gerbasi enjoyed playing out these scenes—he wanted the fear to grow strong so he could smell it. But though Shellane was not free of fear, it was weak in him, and he thought he must be proving a profound disappointment to Gerbasi.
“You look to me like a man who’s holding good cards, but don’t know he’s in the wrong game,” Gerbasi said.
“Do I have to fucking beg you to shoot?” Shellane asked.
“Hey.” The light-heavy came up beside Gerbasi. “Maybe he’s wearing a wire.”
“He was, they’d already be down on our ass ’cause of what’cha said about Broillard. But something ain’t kosher.” Gerbasi let the gun dangle at his side. “Tell me what’s going on, Roy, or I’m gonna hafta give ya some pain.”
“I don’t give a shit what you do. You understand? I don’t give a shit about anything.”
Gerbasi said, “No, explain it to me.”
“If you had a soul, I wouldn’t need to explain it. You’d feel the same as me. You’d be sickened by what you are.”
“I told ya the guy’s crazy,” said the light-heavy.
“You don’t shut your goddamn mouth, I swear to Christ I’m gonna put one in ya,” Gerbasi told him.
“Jeez!” said the light-heavy. “Fine. Fuck…whatever.”
“The man’s tired of living,” Gerbasi went on. “That’s all he’s saying. Right, Roy?”
“Right.”
“Remember Bobby Sheehan? Man just looks at me and says, ‘Fuck you, Marty.’ Not like he was pissed off. Just weary. Just fed up with it all. I asked, man, I said, ‘Fuck’s wrong with you, Bobby? This how you wanna go out? Like a fucking sick dog?’ And he says, ‘A sick dog’s got it all over me. A sick dog don’t know what’s making it sick.’ It’s kinda like that, ain’t it, Roy?”
“Fuck you, Marty.”
Gerbasi stepped around behind Shellane, and a weakness spread from the center of Shellane’s chest outward, resolving into a chill that coiled the length of his spine. He fixed his eyes on the door, but he seemed to see everything in the room, and he sensed his isolation, the gulf of the surrounding dark with its trillion instances of life. Spiders, beetles, roosting birds, serpents, badgers, moles, fish streaming through the dim forests of the lake bottom. Every least scrap of vitality enviable to him now. Somehow from that darkness he managed to summon the image of Grace’s face. The brightness of her olivine eyes struck deep into him, calmed the fluttering thing that was his life, and filled him with acceptance. This was the end to which he had come. This woman, this unstable chair, this badly hung door, this shabby room drenched in orange lamplight. He felt he was falling forward into a dream.
“You wanna say a prayer?” Gerbasi asked. “I’ll give you a minute.”
Shellane did not answer, absorbed by the particulars of his vision.
“You hear what I said, Roy? Want me to give you a minute?”
“Now would be good,” said Shellane.
In the beginning there was the memory of pain, a pain so vast and white it seemed less a condition of the mind and body than the country of his birth. But it was only a memory and did not afflict him for long. There followed a period of vagueness and confusion, but as he walked, moving through the dark, fogbound country of his death, he came to think that death had not left him much the worse for wear. He recalled what Grace had said about the process and realized that he, too, was coming to feel stronger, more settled in his head…and yet he also felt strangely out-of-sorts, plagued by an ill-defined sense of foreboding. He presumed this feeling would intensify once he reached the black house, and that it contributed to the low energy and aimlessness of the house’s residents; but he told himself that none of them had been informed with such clear purpose and determination—he believed this would shield him to an extent from the effect. And when he saw the gabled roof rising from fog and the black fist protruding from the wall, even after he opened the door and was drawn inside, he remained hopeful, focused on his intention to find Grace, to escape with her. Where they might escape to…Well, that was not something upon which he had expended a great deal of thought. The potentials of the afterlife undoubtedly incorporated worse places than the house, and should they manage to reach a better one, what would they do then? He recognized there were many things he might have considered before acting. Matters of personal as well as metaphysical consequence. But they involved questions best answered by both him and Grace, and so would have to wait judgment.