Parfitt was jolted from his shock by Torrance’s meaty hand clapping him on the shoulder.
‘There you go, boy. Now that’s entertainment.’
Someone passed the vodka bottle and Parfitt drank deep, drunk enough now to ignore the burning of his oesophagus as the liquid fire swept down. He passed it on. He felt the woman squirming beside him, saw the leer of lascivious enjoyment on her face. She squeezed closer, sat on his lap and ground against him. The noise of the stadium retreated and Parfitt re-entered the small, safe world inside his mind. There were more fights that night, more slaps on the back, fiercer attention from the woman. He found himself responding – smiling, nodding, kissing, groping at the correct moments, but he was very far away.
At some point in the evening, it must have been very late, the woman took his hand and dragged him away from the stalls. She took him to a toilet where the plumbing wasn’t working, pushed him into a free stall and shut the door behind her. Kneeling in front of him she said words he didn’t really hear and put his penis in her mouth. The vodka – or was it the blood? – had numbed every part of him. He couldn’t even make his face smile at her lack of success. There was nothing she could do to make him hard. Eventually she stood up, twisted-faced and nasty. Her knees were wet – with piss he assumed. Stupid bitch.
The vomit came in a single long bark and joined the other fluids on the floor. He wiped his mouth and she was gone.
The world came back to his numb ears and he went to find Torrance.
Thirteen
Magnus watched the surface of his vodka rippling in its glass.
He tried to remember the first time he’d noticed that his hand wasn’t dead steady but he couldn’t pinpoint it. Recently, that was for sure. It made him angry and he set the glass down on his desk. In his other hand a roughly rolled cheroot vibrated. The ash dropped from it onto the hidebound desktop. He stamped the cheroot out in frustration and then lit another one straight away. Sometimes vodka soothed the tremors, he took a large, burning swill and bit it down. His throat was swollen and swallowing anything other than liquids was still painful. He’d been eating nothing but soup for a week. Holding his hands out, he scanned the fingers for movement. The jitter was still there.
All this had started with that sneaky, skinny bastard, Collins.
All the threats, all the promises he’d made about the pain he was going to inflict and the runt had tricked him and beaten him in his own house.
I must be going soft in the bloody head.
It was not the first time the notion had occurred. In the weeks leading up to the ‘capture’ of Prophet John Collins, Magnus had experienced problems concentrating. Especially trying were the production/demand figures. He could read them easily enough but he found interpreting them more and more troublesome. The figures proved something was amiss and had been for several months – the meat surplus was increasing. It had to be something to do with Collins. But far worse than this for Magnus, who couldn’t help but attract most of the money in the town, was that his ability to come up with a strategy for increasing the demand was practically nonexistent.
He couldn’t concentrate for more than a few minutes at a time. The span was shortening. So was his memory. Over the years Magnus had faced many rivals and every kind of man from the wily to the ferocious, hand-to-hand and in business. None of it scared him as much as what was happening to him now. He couldn’t blame Collins for cursing him with an illness – he didn’t believe that kind of rubbish, just as he didn’t believe a word in the Book of Giving – but he knew whatever was ailing him had accelerated ever since he woke up from the throat jab that had floored him. Perhaps it was his illness that had permitted the attack
No one talked about it much, especially not the Welfare, but the Shakes was a common illness in every district of Abyrne. There were many remedies, the majority of them based on by-products from his plant, but what good they did he couldn’t determine. Veal was particularly sought after for the Shakes. No one ever seemed to recover, though. The illness progressed gradually over years or swiftly within months, reducing its victims to quivering, man-shaped lumps of gelatine. They lost the ability to look after themselves – to eat, dress or shit without help. Eventually, they had no say in whether they held their shit in or not. Then they laid down to die. Some opted to have their throats cut or hanged themselves long before it ever reached that stage.
Magnus supposed he would have to do the same.
Unless… unless it wasn’t the Shakes. It was just possible that he had a low-grade fever – they too went round the town with some regularity. If that was all it was, he’d beat it and be his old self again.
He took another swallow of vodka grimacing more at the pain in his throat than the heat of the alcohol. Collins would pay with the most exquisite torture Cleaver could devise. He would ensure the process took days to complete – long enough that parts of Collins would be rotting and rat-eaten while he still lived to see it.
He checked his hands again. The tremor had subsided.
Good. Bloody good. I’ve got the flu and I’m going to beat it. I’m getting better already. I’ll see Collins in white-eyed agony by the end of the week.
He leaned back in his chair.
‘Bruno!’
The door opened and his greasy-haired aide stepped in.
‘Mr. Magnus?’
‘Get the cook to bring me three veal cutlets. I want them rare. I want them bloody. Still hissing. Understand?’
‘Absolutely, Mr. Magnus.’
‘And get him to cut them up like he would for a baby. I don’t want to bloody choke.’
Bruno nodded and turned to leave.
‘Wait. I want some action too. Three maids. Straight after I eat. Tell them… tell them I need my wash. All right?’
‘Of course.’
‘Good. Now, fuck off.’
Alone again, Magnus felt better.
Three steaks. Three maids. Followed by a nice long rest. And tomorrow I’ll be my old self again.
A frown passed across his face.
Bugger it. Forgot the most important thing.
‘Bruno, get back here.’
He heard footsteps on the staircase as Bruno returned, not having reached either the kitchens or the maids’ quarters. He heard Bruno pause outside his door and smiled. Nice to know that the man wanted to compose himself before entering.
Bruno reappeared showing no sign of breathlessness or disarray.
‘Yes, Mr. Magnus.’
‘Tell me what’s going on out there. Have you found him yet?’
‘We’ve got teams of two patrolling the border of the Derelict Quarter, watching the comings and goings for anything strange. Every now and again we take a random traveller between the two areas and remind them why the Derelict Quarter is so dangerous. Want to send out the right kind of message.
‘We’ve got people inside the Derelict Quarter too. They keep their eyes open. There have been several sightings and they seem to centre round a particular area on the far side of the tower blocks. There’s a rumour he’s underground and has others with him. We’re not sure of numbers and we’re not sure of his exact hiding place. But we’re getting closer every day. It’s only a matter of time before we send in a decent-sized force and root him out. Him and his so-called followers. Then you can do what you like with them. With him.’