Or maybe his daddy sicced him on me, he thought, considering Arthur. Look at the heat he’s packing in his back pocket… No, I doubt it. The Vulture knows me. The Vulture knows that I don’t kid around. And he knows what I’m like in the Zone. No, I’m being ridiculous. He wasn’t the first to ask, he wasn’t the first to shed tears, some have even gotten on their knees. And they all bring a gun the first time. The first and last time. Will it really be his last time? Oh, kid, it looks like it! You see, Vulture, how things have turned out—it’s his last time. Yes, Daddy, if you’d learned about this idea of his, you’d have given him a good thrashing with your crutches, this Zone-granted son of yours…
He suddenly sensed that there was something in front of them—not too far away, about thirty or forty yards ahead. “Stop,” he told Arthur.
The boy obediently stopped in his tracks. His reaction time was good—he froze with his foot in the air and then slowly and cautiously lowered it to the ground. Redrick came up to him. Here, the train tracks noticeably sloped down and completely disappeared into the fog. And there was something there, in the fog. Something large and motionless. Harmless. Redrick cautiously sniffed the air. Yes. Harmless.
“Keep going,” he said softly, waited until Arthur took a step, and followed him.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw Arthur’s face, his chiseled profile, the clear skin of his cheek, and the decisively pursed lips under the thinnest of mustaches.
They continued going down, the fog enveloping them to their waists, then to their necks, and in another few seconds the lopsided mass of the railcar loomed ahead.
“All right,” said Redrick, and he started pulling off the backpack. “Sit down where you’re standing. Smoke break.”
Arthur helped him with the backpack, and they sat side by side on the rusty rail. Redrick opened one of the pockets and took out the bag of food and the thermos of coffee. While Arthur was unwrapping the food and arranging the sandwiches on top of the backpack, Redrick pulled the flask from his jacket, unscrewed the cap, and, closing his eyes, took a few slow sips.
“Want a sip?” he offered, wiping the mouth of the flask with his hand. “For courage.”
Arthur shook his head, hurt. “I don’t need it for courage, Mr. Schuhart,” he said. “I’d rather have some coffee, if you don’t mind. It’s very damp here, isn’t it?”
“It’s damp,” agreed Redrick. He put the flask away, chose a sandwich, and started chewing. “When the fog burns off, you’ll see that we’re in the middle of a swamp. This place used to be swarming with mosquitoes—it was something else.”
He stopped talking and poured himself some coffee. The coffee was hot, thick, and sweet—right now, it tasted even better than alcohol. It smelled of home. Of Guta. And not just of Guta but of Guta in her bathrobe, just awakened, with a pillow mark still on her cheek. I shouldn’t have gotten mixed up in this, he thought. Five hundred thousand… What the hell do I need five hundred thousand for? What, am I going to buy a bar? A man needs money in order to never think about it. That’s true. Dick got that right. But lately I haven’t been thinking about it. So why the hell do I need the money? I have a house, a garden, in Harmont you can always find work. It was the Vulture that lured me, the rotten bastard, lured me like a kid…
“Mr. Schuhart,” Arthur blurted out, looking off to the side, “do you really believe that this thing grants wishes?”
“Nonsense!” Redrick said absentmindedly. He froze with his cup halfway to his mouth. “And how do you know what kind of thing we’re here for?”
Arthur laughed in embarrassment, ran his fingers through his raven hair, tugged on it, and said, “I just guessed! I don’t even remember what gave me the idea… Well, first of all, Father always used to drone on about this Golden Sphere, but a while ago he stopped doing that and has started visiting you instead—and I know you two aren’t friends, no matter what he says. And he’s become kind of strange lately…” Arthur laughed again and shook his head, remembering something. “And it all finally clicked when the two of you were testing this dirigible in the vacant lot.” He patted the backpack at the place containing the tightly packed envelope of the hot-air balloon. “To be honest, I’d been shadowing you, and when I saw you lift the sack of stones and guide it through the air, everything became completely clear. As far as I know, the Golden Sphere is the only heavy thing left in the Zone.” He took a bite of the sandwich, chewed, and said thoughtfully with his mouth full, “The only thing I don’t understand is how you’re going to latch on to it—it’s probably smooth…”
Redrick kept looking at him over the cup and thinking: How very unlike they are, father and son. They’ve got nothing in common—neither faces nor voices nor souls. The Vulture’s voice was hoarse, ingratiating, sleazy in some way, but when he spoke about this, he spoke well. You couldn’t help listening to him. “Red,” he’d said then, leaning over the table, “there are just two of us left, and there are only two legs between us, and they are both yours. Who’ll do it but you? It might be the most precious thing in the Zone! And who’s going to get it, huh? Will it really be those sissies with their robots? Because I found it! How many of our men have fallen along the way? But I found it! I’ve been saving it for myself. And even now I wouldn’t give it away, but you see my arms have gotten short… No one can do it but you. I’ve trained so many brats, even opened a whole school for them—none of them can do it, they don’t have what it takes. OK, you don’t believe me. That’s fine—you don’t have to. The money’s all yours. Give me what you like, I know you won’t cheat me. And I might get my legs back. My legs, you understand? The Zone took my legs away, so maybe the Zone will give them back again?”
“What?” asked Redrick, coming to.
“I asked: May I have a smoke, Mr. Schuhart?”
“Yeah,” said Redrick, “go ahead. I’ll have one, too.”
He gulped down the remaining coffee, took out a cigarette, and stared into the thinning fog. He’s nuts, he thought. A crazy man. It’s his legs he wants. That asshole… that rotten bastard…
All these conversations had left a certain sediment in his soul, and he didn’t know what it was. It wasn’t dissolving with time, but instead kept accumulating and accumulating. And though he couldn’t identify it, it got in the way, as if he’d caught something from the Vulture, not a disease, but instead… strength, maybe? No, not strength. So what was it? All right, he told himself. Let’s try this: Pretend I didn’t make it here. I got ready, packed my backpack, and then something happened. Say I got nabbed. Would that be bad? Yes, definitely. How so? The money down the drain? No, the money’s not the issue. That those bastards, Raspy and Bony, would get their hands on the goods? Yes, that’s something. That would be too bad. But what are they to me? Either way they eventually get everything…
“Brr…” Arthur shivered, his shoulders convulsing. “I’m freezing. Mr. Schuhart, maybe I could have a sip now?”
Redrick silently took out the flask and offered it to him. You know, I didn’t agree right away, he thought suddenly. Twenty times I told the Vulture to go to hell, but the twenty-first time I did agree. I just couldn’t stand it anymore. And our last conversation was brief and very businesslike. “Hey, Red. I brought the map. Maybe you’d like to take a look after all?” And I looked into his eyes, and his eyes were like abscesses—yellow with black dots in the middle—and I said, “Give it to me.” And that was all. I remember I was drunk at the time, I’d been binging all week. I was really depressed… Aw, damn it, what does it matter! So I decided to go. Why do I keep digging through this, as if poking through a pile of shit? What am I—afraid?