The King was deathly pale where he floated in his bath. Despite the preserving fluid, his corpse had a desiccated, rotten look to it. His features were sharp and gray-veined; his body wasted by age. Stitches of dark green cord held him together. The King had been a rich man at the time of the Change, but he had met with a violent death. It was obvious from looking at the corpse that he had been reassembled. As his limbs moved in and out of the fog, I noticed that his skin hung on him in patches that were slightly different shades, and that on one hand, he had two mismatched fingers. He only wore two things: a ridiculous brown wig that clung to his head like a drowning cat and a golden crown over that.
He was so contemptible I wanted to laugh. Was existence so precious that he would cling to such a battered and run-down excuse of a body? I caught myself, remembering the body I had borrowed. The King paddled around his shallow pool, alligator-style. My guts jumped when he unconsciously drank a long draught of the liquid. Little puffs of vapor blew from his withered nostrils. He looked like something that had crawled out of a rusty can.
"Mr. Wildclown. I would like it very much if you tell me the whereabouts of my property. After that, you may go." He leaned against the rim of the tub. I noticed that a console of buttons, dials and video monitors was built above the rim.
"If you don't mind taking a walk down a two-way street. I'd like to know what happened to Owen Grey." I tried to search my battered pockets for cigarettes. My left hand moved out of sync. Willieboy produced a pack and handed me one.
The King squinted at Willieboy.
He paused while lighting my damp cigarette. "He was the private dick hired by the Hawksbridges to find the girl."
"Oh, yes." The King's dead face registered real delight. "I remember him now. A dinosaur. They are rare, you know, so it troubled me to have him killed." His features froze. "Now, where is my property?"
"I don't usually use language like this but fuck you."
The King showed broken teeth. He was used to dealing with hard cases. He pressed a panel under the console. A drawer eased open. His gray hand reached in and retrieved an automatic-something old and powerful from Smith and Wesson. The smile had remained dead upon his face. "Now, shall we do this while you can still draw a breath? Or will we do it when each injury precipitated upon you will become an eternal scar that will not heal. A hole or tear that remains open-jagged-baring your raw red secrets to every prying eye. Do not toy with me. I have an understandable contempt for all things living. One look at me should dispel any doubts about whether or not I will take great joy in killing you."
I smiled. He was correct. His dead face held secret anticipation. "What do you want to know?"
The King sighed two clouds of formaldehyde gas, set the gun down on the edge of the tub beside him and shook his head. "Where is my property?"
"Look, I'm not stalling or anything. I just don't think I'll be around long after I talk. Would it be possible for you to explain how Grey met his end?"
The King smirked. "You posses hubris, Wildclown. I'll give you that." He sighed. "Grey became a nuisance. He was pestering me, and, he was drawing the attention of one or two factions in Authority. Now, the Hawksbridges are not of my stature, in wealth, but they did have enough pull to cause me minimal damage. I couldn't have that. So I encouraged Mr. Willieboy to hire a gun to take Grey out. Who was it?"
"Some psychopath. Wiry little guy called himself Jimmy Jay. I don't know much about him, but that he talked a mean streak about religion, and the end of the world. He was in an asylum before the Change, killed his little brother, or some soap opera. Drank like a fish, and oh shit, there was something…" Willieboy rubbed his chin. "Can't remember. Anyway, he was homicidal, pure and simple. Kill at the drop of a dime. He did Grey for a hundred dollars. Something must have happened to him, because he never collected the money. Grey was out of the way though. I saw the body. Jay called me, told me where to find it. Fucking psychopath. Grey was burned up pretty good."
"Why did you pay Grey's bills?" I was beset with weird images of Grey's ignoble end. The gasoline dousing the body. The vapor igniting. "It's not unusual for someone, especially someone in Grey's line of work to welsh on a bet, or skip on the rent."
Willieboy smiled. "That was the King's idea."
I turned to him. "Bought you time."
"Certainly. I didn't know how much trouble Grey had already caused, or whether or not he actually enlisted some aid. If his bills were paid, the chances of someone missing him were fewer." He laughed, "As it turned out, he didn't have a friend in the world. But, I don't believe in taking chances, and his bills were so small as to be nonexistent. It was an excellent investment."
"Who made the call to the Hawksbridges?" I stared at Willieboy. "Why kill them?"
The King spoke to my back. "They had become a nuisance as well. I believe Grey convinced them that they could find their daughter if they looked hard enough. They turned out to be a larger threat than Grey. Mr. Willieboy called." Willieboy gave the King a dark look.
"What did you do? Fix their brakes, or just run them off the road?"
"That's inconsequential. They pushed hard at something that was bigger than they were, and it rolled back on them. It's simple physics," the King chuckled.
"And the girl. Is she alive?" I turned to the corpse.
He shook his head. "You're boring me." The King bobbed in his tank. "Now it's your turn to answer a few questions."
Transition.
I was floating over Tommy's head. I immediately tried to possess him. He was a wall. I tried again. Below me Tommy had dropped into a catatonic state. His jaw dropped. His lips seemed to try and work around a word. "Where am I?" He winced as he experienced his wounds for the first time. He reached up to his left shoulder, hissed.
I watched the King. He stared, fascinated, and then swam in for a closer look. Perturbed amusement writhed over his crosshatched features. "Wildclown?" The clown's face had become feral, apish. The King frowned. "Oh God! Willieboy would you look at…"
But Tommy was already moving. He leapt up the remaining steps and landed on top of the King-pushing the dead monarch beneath the surface. His hand moved lightning fast onto the gun by the console. It whipped up, pointed at Willieboy. Willieboy had his half out of his holster. He froze-a queer smile on his lips.
"Now, just a minute…hang on Wildclown. We're both bit players here. This is perfect!"
I watched as the King's hands climbed spider-like, up and down Tommy's legs. Tommy looked down. He murmured. "Spiders…" Then he looked up. Willieboy had used the split second to get his own gun clear, but he hadn't moved fast enough. Tommy fired six shots into Willieboy's chest. The. 44 slugs tore his rib cage to pieces. The gun almost kicked itself free of Tommy's damp grip in the process. Willieboy staggered back, vomiting blood until the volley ended. He stood in place a moment looking down at the ruin that his chest had become, befuddled. He looked up-anger gripped his brow, then he grinned. Willieboy sat down with his legs crossed. His head fell forward. Blood spilled from his mouth.
Tommy threw the gun onto the stairs, then looked down at the King's scrabbling hands. "What have we, what have we? Demons from the pit?" He reached down and grabbed both arms by the wrists. He yanked the King up and out of the formaldehyde. The corpse hung there looking grotesque and fragile. Fluid poured from its orifices. His face was an inch from Tommy's.
"You can have anything. Anything." Formaldehyde spattered from the dead King's lips. Tommy held him higher. The King's legs had withered and atrophied in the constant bath. They were bowed and twisted like driftwood. I realized in a moment, how ridiculous his notion of a new life was.
"Please," the King's said, voice was soft. "Please, I will pay you any sum. I will give you anything."
"You stink…" Tommy sniffled.
The King smiled, chuckled even. "Oh, yes, oh yes, I do. That's right I do. Just tell me what you'd like. I'll do whatever you want. Just let me go, that's all I ask."
"I killed your friend." The clown roughly twisted the King's head toward Willieboy's body. The cadaver's neck clicked audibly.
"Oh, that's all right. He and I weren't close. I didn't even like him. That's okay, what you did. I'm not angry, Mr. Wildclown." The King forced a ghastly smile.
"He was your friend," Tommy said, then with righteous fervor rising. "You're disgusting!"
Tommy pulled the King's left arm off. The body was fragile, and the shoulder tore like boiled cabbage. The King shrieked. Tommy took the arm by the wrist and mashed it against the console. The King cried aloud. Tommy tossed the severed arm, wrapped his own around the King's torso, and then with a loud twisting wrench pulled off the King's right. He nonchalantly dropped that member into the bath-it bobbed, fingers twitching. Tommy sat on the edge of the tub panting, bewilderment on his features. His right hand held the King's body by its neck. He bent the King's rubbery legs and sat him on his right knee. The phone started ringing. Tommy looked at it, sneered.
The King was sobbing. "Oh God. I'll do anything. I'll do anything. There's still time. Don't do this. Don't do this. There's nothing after this. Nothing. Please, I beg of you. I have riches, I'll give you anything." His weeping face twisted into a mask of grief.
"Anything?" Tommy asked. He smiled. I noticed now that the formaldehyde had dissolved much of his make-up. Tommy's face was blotted with black and white. The features streamed away distorted-skull-like. "Anything at all?" He shook the dead king's corpse.
"Yes, Mr. Wildclown. I will give you riches."
"So Satan said to Christ."
The King frowned. "Not riches then. I will give you what you want."
"Give me death-the death I deserve." Tommy's face was close to the King's now. He slapped behind him, grabbed the gun. They sat poised like lovers. The phone continued to ring. The clown held the gun out to the King, then realized the dead man had nothing to hold it with. "An end to the noise."
"I-I don't know what you mean? Death? That's a trick. You can't want death!" The King's face distorted. He glared at the gun offered him. "You don't want death. You want to trap me."
Tommy pulled the King's face closer now. His dead legs thrashed. He screamed incomprehensibly. Tommy set the gun down and said: "Oh, but I can want it. Death is the sleep I am denied. Nothing follows us there. Not money, not love, not guilt." He stared momentarily into the King's dead eyes. "I want the old death. The old death that will lead me to Hell. You're lucky. See, I betray you with a kiss." And Wildclown pressed his lips against the dead king's. As he did so, both hands gripped the corpse's wormy neck. The King's legs thrashed. I heard a muted scream. As Tommy kissed him, his hands began to tighten on the neck, then pull. The King screamed long and hard. The head twisted. There was a sickening ripping and tearing of cartilage and bone. The body fell away, leaving Tommy standing-lips still intimate with those of the gruesome head in his hands. He pulled the head back then, and smiled at it. "I knew him well…" The King's hideous head sat in Tommy's outstretched hand. Its features worked horribly. The eyes rolled; the jaw worked. The tongue lashed. Tommy cocked his arm back, kicked a leg up out of the formaldehyde and muttered to himself. "You've gotta watch that Wildclown, Bill. He's got a hell of a fastball!" Tommy pitched the head at the wall about fifteen feet from him. It struck the stone with a sickening smack, and then fell in a sliding pile of gore and gray matter.
Transition.
The smell of formaldehyde hit me squarely in the face again. I was back in Tommy. I could taste formaldehyde, and the source of that made my guts twist. I gagged-spat. The King's body thrashed against my leg. I climbed out of the pool. A chill shook me. Why were there no guards? I picked up the gun on the steps. Four shots left in it. I looked over at Willieboy's body. He would be up soon. I resisted the urge to dismember him. I turned back to the King's console, reached out over the kicking corpse and flicked on a video screen. Buttons were well marked. "Main Gate." I turned that on.
The screen showed the main gate under siege. A large Authority Tank was positioning itself on the street outside the wall. Its long barrel was pointed at one of the towers. There were a number of Authority transports parked across the ironwork on the inside. Others were taking up position along the perimeter. I looked at the phone. Its ringing had become a part of the panic that gripped me. I picked up the receiver.
"Yes," I tried to make my voice old and bitter and worn out. It was easy.
"King, sir. This is the main gate. We're going to lose it. There's a strong force out here. We've already lost twelve of our men. The others want to run for it."
"Hold the gate!" I realized how ridiculous that sounded. "Is there transport for the girl?"
There was silence for a moment. "Your private vehicle, sir. In the underground garage. Only way out."
I hung up. Then flicked a button marked, Laboratory. There, in black in white, was the usual machine and test tube-filled lab. There were tables and utensils-Bunsen burners and things for measuring other things. What interested me most sat at the back of the room on a cot in an eight by eight cage. It looked just like Julie Hawksbridge.