Autway moved his calabash gently, and the tall man, as if hearing it, turned. When Ralf saw the man's face, he knew at once that it was Henley. They were his eyes. That was the line of his jaw.
That was his hair. But that was all that was his. The skin was an oily black. Not negroid, but ink black. And the body was all wrong. Bizarrely elongated, loose as a marionette. Seeing it standing there cool and lean, its eyes bright as nails, Ralf felt his mind peel away. He thought of spring clouds breaking up over a long line of cold lakes, and he felt as if an ocean current, dark, awesome, were sweeping him out beyond himself. It passed quickly, blurred off like the shadow of a fish. But it lasted long enough to instill in him a dread foreboding.
'What happened to him?'
'Dot you wouldn't understan'.'
Ralf had to look away from Henley. He stared up at oyster-shell clouds, saw the full moon, a pale vapour in the day sky. 'Tell me.'
'De Old Ones - dey have corried Henley away. And dere, das dere messenger. Das Nyarlathotep. H-s-s-t? 'Huh?'
'He de One dream Henley afar.'
'How?'
Autway shook his head. 'Best you ask why. How brings madness.'
Henley had turned and walked off with the toughs, drifting away as if he were vapour. From someplace there was a thin mournful whistle.
'Dere are star pools in de hills. Up dere de minions take shape. B-r-r-r-p! De Kingdom been comin'
for a long, long time.'
'You see - dot you wouldn't understan'. It is de Kingdom. Nyarlathotep was de Key. De world de lock. Entering, de Key is de blindness in the lock's eye, de dream dat always returns.'
Ralf ran a hand over his face. His fingers were trembling. He bent to pick up his attache, but the old man laid a hand on his shoulder, rain-soft, urging him to wait.
'You want de drug?'
Ralf looked up at him with quiet eyes and straightened slowly. 'You got the heroin?'
'You can have it. In exchange. For dat.' He extended a knobbed coffee-coloured finger and touched the talisman.
'You're kidding?'
Autway reached into his mantle and pulled out a large cotton ditty bag.
'Let me see that.' Ralf snatched the bag and tugged it open. He fingered the powder inside and touched it to his tongue. His head snapped back, and he grinned. 'You got a deal.' He pulled tight the bag, bent down, and put it in his attache. With one hand he secured the case lock, and with the other he removed the stone from around his neck and handed it to Autway.
As soon as the gangan got his hands on it, he let out a giddy laugh that twisted under his tongue like a cry and curved off into a howl. 'You stupid mon. Reap de wind. Thresh stone. All is lost. You have thrown away your only hope.' He whooped.
Ralf scowled and stood up, but Autway was already moving off. Ralf watched him disappear down the back wynds and alleys of a cluster of huts. Despite the fact that he at last had what he was looking for, he felt burned, and that was a dangerous way to feel.
He decided that he wanted the stone back. It was a dumb animal illumination, Ralf realized, but that hunk of rock was suddenly important and getting to mean more each second.
Attache under his arm, Ralf loped down a cramped alley, leaping over stacks of rubbish and debris.
When he rounded the first corner, he pulled up short, swivelled on his heels, and threw himself back out of the alley. He had his Walther out, and he sat hunched behind his attache as a man with a bison chest and a tight, sad smile came around the corner. It was Pantucci.
'Slow down, stooge,' he said, swinging his hands free of his body. 'If I was gunnin' for ya you'd be dead awready.'
'Turn around, cap'm.'
Pantucci spun about. 'I'm light as a feather.'
'Sure, sure, I'm Doctor Strange. Lift those pant legs.' The captain lifted his trousers to his knees. 'I've been in your shadow for days, dupe. I was waitin' for you to connect.'
'Yeah? Well, what's it to you?'
'Somebody's going to have to move that stuff. And all seriousness aside, Gusto wants you to cry more than he wants that dub.'
'You're always best stating the obvious with a sense of awe.'
'You don't think you can move that kind of weight yourself?'
'Captain, I know you haven't been dog-breathing me all these days to keep me out of trouble. You're here to make your good out of my bad. Now I know that. There's a small fortune of sin in this case.
If you want a part of it, you're gonna have to do what I say.' 'Okay. Shoot - not literally, chump.'
Ralf didn't smile. 'First, we'll leave your bag of lethal anecdotes in the alley where you dropped it. I saw that carry-bag. How many sappers have you got in it?'
'A Magnum.'
'Great. The neighbourhood kids'll love it.' Ralf stood up and put his pistol away. 'Next we're gonna find that old man I was talking with. He's got something of mine. After that, we'll talk percentages.
Jake?' Pantucci nodded, eyed the attache.
'Oh, yeah,' Ralf added, running his thumbnail along the length of his jaw. 'Don't underestimate me, cap. You're a lot bigger, but I'm very, very fast.'
They prowled the trenchtown for an hour, but there was no trace of Autway. Ralf decided to head up into the hills along the one path that was available. Four hours later, after much foraging through cypress groves and fern-matted glens, they heard the rattle of Autway's calabash.
Pantucci was restless and wanted to move towards the sound, but Ralf quieted him down, and he went off behind some bushes. Ralf moved up the trail a short ways and slipped into the chute of a granite outcropping that was hung with Spanish moss. Presently, Autway came padding along the trail. When Ralf burst out behind him, he bolted. His speed was incredible. If Pantucci hadn't been up ahead, he would have lost him.
Pantucci grabbed him by his mantle and threw him to the ground. Ralf came up quickly and pressed the barrel of his gun against the old man's ear. 'Where's my stone, gone-gone?''Dots not yours.'
Ralf swiped him across the face with the butt of his gun. 'Your life's not mine, either, but I'm gonna take that, too, if you don't turn over that stone.'
Autway's face was bleeding, and his one eye was open wide, red-webbed. 'I dawn have it.'
Ralf raised his gun to strike him again, but Pantucci moved to grab his wrist. Ralf rolled off in a blur, came up in a crouch with the Walther aimed at Pantucci's head. 'Belay that, cap!'
'Ralf, it's just a friggin' rock!'
'Mister, he laughed at me. He laughed at me hard. It's not a friggin' rock to him.'
'He was Huck Finnin' ya - making you think he got the better end.'
Ralf shook his head. 'Maybe. But I want that stone or I ain't leavin'.'
Pantucci lifted Autway to his feet by his ears. 'Awright, crabface, where is it? Talk fast and clear or I'll pop that eye like a grape.'
'I dawn have it. It's back dere.' He nodded over his shoulder.
'How far?'
'Far back. Deep in de forest.'
Ralf grabbed a shock of Autway's hair and jerked him around. 'Let's go get it.'
'Hold it, Ralf. He's gonna lead us into trouble. His boys are probably in lurch back there.'
Ralf opened his attache and took out the forty-five and the thirty-eight. He checked to see if they were loaded, then he took the knives and hand-grip out and threw them into the bushes. He shoved the attache to Pantucci. 'You carry Satan.' He put the Walther in its holster and the thiry-eight under his belt. The fortyfive he pressed against the back of Autway's head. 'Drop your rattle here and march.'
Autway undid his calabash and started up the trail. As they climbed higher, a stillness settled around them like a fog. Even the grass and the leaves were still as if lost in thought. The trees became larger, thick-boled old trees. After a while they became so dense that only a few threads of light came through. In that calm undersea light, dolmens and giant wheels hewn out of rock and carved with curious oghams began to appear among the trees, most of them half-buried or peering through luxuriant growths.