The Four-Night Run Page 9

  “This is my shop,” said Donnie.

  The room was large, with workbenches lining one of its walls. It smelled of oil, and solder, and burned and twisted metal. Beside one of the benches was a scatter of large metal tanks, one tank still attached to a torch, heavy goggles hanging from the tank’s nozzle. Scrbacek walked slowly around the room, studying the workbenches, the tools, and the piles of material.

  In the center was a table with a sheet spread over something large and irregular that sat flat on the tabletop. And in the four corners were bizarre conglomerations of twisted metal that stood tall on wooden pallets, each about seven feet in height, roughly cylindrical in shape. At first they looked like pieces of junk joined together haphazardly, possibly by chance bursts of lightning. But as Scrbacek examined them one by one, he could see coherent shapes and forms assert themselves through the jumbles, as if each contained something of great beauty struggling to pull itself out of the chaos. They reminded Scrbacek of Michelangelo’s prisoners wrestling to free themselves from their cages of stone.

  “I didn’t know you were an artist,” said Scrbacek.

  “It’s just something I do.”

  Scrbacek kept walking, slowly, as if at a gallery, examining everything, and then he stopped at one of the workbenches, where he spotted a pile of steel wool, rows of narrow brake lines with holes drilled through them, a cylinder filled with stiff metal drill rods. He picked up a wide piece of metal tubing painted a flat black and hefted it in his hand.

  “What do you make here, Donnie?” said Scrbacek. “I mean, besides the art.”

  “Stuff,” said Donnie. “Little things I can sell. I learned metalwork at vo-tech, and I’ve been doing it ever since, but mostly it’s the sculptures. I like it when the metal starts to heat, and then glows hot and becomes soft enough to play with. I like cutting through steel with the torch. I like the feeling of control it gives me.”

  “You know, you could get a job doing this. I bet there’s a high demand for experienced metalworkers.”

  “Yeah, maybe, but then there’d be some foreman with hairy knuckles telling me what to make and I’d be doing their work instead of my own. Let me show you something else.”

  Donnie walked over to the table covered by the sheet.

  “This is the main project I’ve been working on,” said Donnie. He stood there for a moment, staring down at the table, gripping the sheet by its edges. “Something new.”

  When he yanked the sheet away, what lay underneath glistened with so hard a brightness it took Scrbacek a moment to realize exactly what it was he was seeing.

  It was a model of a city—streets and houses, skyscrapers and parks, all hammered and welded from blocks of polished steel. Breathtakingly intricate, random and ordered, primitive and rough, it reminded Scrbacek of the great visionary art of the American South, tinfoil palaces made by men and women who had been touched by the Lord and thereby inspired to make their devotions substantial. And this thing, too, formed of secondhand junk, seemed charged with a divine electricity. It held, this vivid cityscape, a vision of hope and promise and dignity, a vision of Casinoland and Crapstown joined as brothers, a vision of a shining city by the sea. But there was also, suffused in every weld, evident in every surface, amidst all the glittering facets of metal, a sadness, because it was a silver urban paradise that never was and never would be.

  Scrbacek stared at this complex metal thing, stunned by its mystery, gripped by sensations that stirred him deeper than he could understand. “This is magnificent,” he said.

  “You know what I call it?”

  Scrbacek looked up at the grinning young man.

  “New Town C-Town,” said Donnie. “I like the rhythm of the words, don’t you? New Town C-Town.”

  Scrbacek looked down at the cityscape again, the familiar streets and the shining buildings formed from cast-off metal. He pointed to a large cube of polished steel. “What’s that?”

  “That’s a community center. Next to it is a public pool. Then a school, see? Surrounded by homes. Out here is the industrial park, factories and high-rises where everyone works. And there’s the music hall and the basketball arena. We’re going to have a basketball team, D-League only, but still. And when they’re not playing ball, there are going to be shows, rap stars from all over the country, dance concerts. You like Kanye? He’ll come—I know it. And out there, in the park, they’ll be playing touch football in leagues all season long. And softball. And having barbecues. And there’s the playground, the kids scrambling through a fort to get to the slide. You know where I got the idea for doing this?”

  Scrbacek looked up again, tilted his head without saying a word.

  “From Malloy,” said Donnie. “He saw some of my other stuff and suggested I make a model. So I tried it, and then the dreams started.”

  “Dreams?”

  “That’s where I got most of it. And you know what? It’s more than just a sculpture, Mr. Scrbacek. It’s a blueprint.”

  “Of what?”

  “The future.”

  “For who?”

  “For us.”

  “Who is us, Donnie?”

  “We’ve got to go now, Mr. Scrbacek. The Contessa Romany, she’s waiting.”

  “You don’t want to tell me?”

  “I can’t. Not yet, at least.”

  Scrbacek looked back down at the cityscape. “New Town C-Town.” He traced a finger across the edge of one of the steel rooftops. “You ever hear of anything called the C-Town Furies?”

  “It’s time to go, Mr. Scrbacek,” said Donnie as he tossed the sheet back over the model. “Really.”

  “Some gang, supposed to be nasty as all hell, out to take over all the other gangs in the city. So tough it can even challenge Caleb Breest. Is that what you’re messed up in?”

  “You’ve got it all wrong. It’s nothing like that.”

  “Then what is it like, Donnie? Because I have the feeling my life is depending on it. Tell me what it’s all about.”

  Donnie walked to the door and switched off the lights. Darkness fell like a blow. “We need to go, Mr. Scrbacek.”

  “You’re not going to tell me.”

  “I owe you, Mr. Scrbacek. I know I do. But there are limits to everything. Come on. We don’t want to keep the Contessa waiting.”

  15

  THIS IS TAROT

  “We are almost ready,” said the Contessa Romany to the assembled crew, many of whom Scrbacek had never seen before. “Just one moment please and we begin.”

  In a dimly lit room in the front of the house, they perched on a ratty couch covered in ripped batik cloth, they leaned against water-stained walls, they sat with arms around their knees on the rough wooden floor. The Contessa herself presided at a table set in the room’s middle. Behind the Contessa stood a squat young man with features remarkably similar to the Contessa’s, his huge arms crossed. A chair opposite the Contessa was empty, obviously meant for Scrbacek, who leaned against the front doorframe, as far from the table as he could get, now wearing his raincoat, creased wildly from the wash and with a jagged hole in its sleeve. Atop a crimson cloth covering the table were two white candles in golden holders, an intricately worked metal egg with a stick of incense rising from its top, and a wooden box painted with a pattern of leaves and flowers.

  A match flared with a hiss. Carefully the Contessa Romany lit first the candles and then the incense. A thick musk floated from the smoldering stick. The Contessa leaned down, and from beneath the table came soft music, something dusky and haunting with a woman’s voice singing notes without words, rising almost loud enough to drown out the television noise from the floor above.

  “If someone, please, turn off these lights,” said the Contessa.

  The room fell dark except for the thin flickering flames of the two candles and the glowing stick of incense.

  “Thank you, darling. And now you,” she said, pointing at Scrbacek. “Please. Yes, you. Come sit. It is you who has the question, am I corr
ect?”

  “I’m not sure . . .”

  “If you don’t want to,” said Elisha, “I’ll go. Contessa, I bought this stock, and I was wondering—”

  “It’s for the beagle, not you,” snapped Blixen. “We can read your future clear enough. It’s in your G-string.”

  “Take a seat, Stifferdeck,” said Regina, the gun now in her belt. “It’s time to hear some truth about you for once.”

  “Come now, don’t be afraid, darling,” said the Contessa. “I don’t bite. Just a nibble now and then.”

  Scrbacek hesitated, and then slowly walked toward the open chair. The musk of the incense floated through him as he approached. When he sat, only the table and the Contessa were illuminated in the soft yellow light of the candles. All else was cast in a deep shadow.

  “You are in middle of terrible crisis, is that correct?”

  Scrbacek turned to search for Donnie, couldn’t find him in the shadows, turned back, and nodded.

  “Good. Now you must know the cards, they do not only read for me your future. If spirit it is with you, they can also tell what it is you must do in this terrible time. Are you ready, Mr. . . . ?”

  “Scrbacek.”

  “Scrbacek? Strange name, Scrbacek. From where come your people?”

  “Egypt.”

  “Really? From Egypt? Maybe we are somehow related. Maybe thousand years ago we had same cousins.”

  “And he’s got a third nipple,” shouted out Blixen.

  The Contessa started. “Is this true, cousin?”

  Scrbacek winced and then nodded.

  “Show me.”

  Scrbacek unbuttoned his shirt and lifted up his T-shirt.

  The Contessa raised a candle to Scrbacek’s flesh and peered close. She rubbed a single finger gently over the small hairy protrusion below his left nipple. Her finger was cold and rough.

  “The spirits truly are with you, Scrbacek.”

  “I told you,” said Blixen.

  “Let us begin,” said the Contessa as Scrbacek rebuttoned his shirt. She carefully removed the lid from the wooden box and unwrapped a covering of black velvet to reveal an aged deck of cards, with moons and stars on the backs. She lifted the cards in her two open palms and raised them over her head. The candlelight flickered off her gaudy rings.

  “This is tarot,” she said loudly. “Its secrets have been passed in our family from mother to daughter for centuries. This very set of cards has traveled from far reaches of Transylvania, through all of Europe, over great Atlantic Ocean to this place by the sea. This is tarot.”

  The others in the room repeated in soft voices, “This is tarot.”

  “This is tarot,” continued the Contessa. “Originated in time of Ra, it is great tradition of our people. We are not owners of tarot, we are its vessels. It is tool for those who choose to see what it can show, an aid for those who choose to believe. This is tarot.”

  “This is tarot.”

  “Good,” she said as she lowered her hands and offered the cards across the table. “Take, Scrbacek.”

  Scrbacek took. Though there were only twenty or so of the yellow and cracked cards, he found them surprisingly heavy, as if the weight of their years had adhered to the thick paper.

  “Now, shuffle cards like this, without bending.” She mimed a gentle overhand shuffle. Following her movements, he gave the cards a quick shuffle and tried to hand them back.

  “No,” she said. “Keep shuffling. And as you shuffle, I want that you concentrate on what it is you need to know. I want that you empty your mind of everything except of your problem and you keep shuffling, shuffling.”

  “When do I stop?”

  “The cards, they will tell you.”

  Scrbacek gave a snort and thought about how much of a fraud was this crazy Contessa, but he kept shuffling. He would have walked out, refused to be any part of this hoax, except that Donnie had saved his life and it would have been disrespectful just to leave. He wasn’t sure, in any event, that the girl, the Nightingale, would let him walk away. Then again, if the cards were an aid for the troubled, he surely qualified. And the night before, in the casino, he had felt luck and fate intertwine with the playing of cards in his wondrous streak of blackjack. So he kept shuffling as the haunting music and incense floated about him, and slowly, as he shuffled, his mind began to consider where he was and why, and who was trying to kill him. He shuffled and thought, and suddenly a stack of cards he pulled up with his right hand wouldn’t join the others, just banged against the side. Instead of forcing them, he simply put them back and stopped.

  “Good,” said the Contessa. “Cut cards into three piles and put together in different order.”

  He did as he was told.

  “Now one by one, give me cards off top of deck. The first card is your problem card.”

  Scrbacek turned over the top card. In the candlelight he could just make out the picture. It was of a castle tower being destroyed by lightning and fire.

  “Yes,” she said as she put it in the middle of the table. “This is the Tower, the card of catastrophe. Unexpected reversals and upheavals. This is what you have suffered, no?”

  Scrbacek nodded.

  “And your question is why all this is happening. But it is not just happening to you. The tower can represent whole cities, whole civilizations. What else is being destroyed? That, too, is part of question. One and other, they are maybe related. But of course, it is also card of fate. Bad things happen. Is there always good reason? Maybe sometimes it is better not to look too hard.”

  “Maybe you’re right,” said Scrbacek. “Maybe we’ll stop. Thank you for your time.”

  “You making joke, cousin? Don’t. Now what is it you need to know most? Tell me, Scrbacek.”

  “I need to know who is trying to kill me.”

  “Of course you do. Give me next, darling.”

  Scrbacek turned over another card. It was a picture of a man holding a wand in one hand and a crystal ball in the other, standing behind a table filled with all manner of strange objects. She placed the card sideways over the tower to create a cross.

  “This is your obstacle, what it is that is keeping you from goal. The moosh, he is the magician. A manipulator, a trickster. He controls the events. One person it is behind everything. This person who has caused the tower to fall will also do everything to make sure you fall with it. You have enemy, Scrbacek?”

  “Apparently.”

  “Find him and you solve problem. But finding him, it will not be so easy. Next card, please.”

  A man caught between two very different women, trying to figure which to take, as Cupid floats above them all and aims his bow. She placed this card below and to the left of the center cross.

  “This card is your past. The Lover. You would think it deals with sweet romantic love, but that is untrue. Instead it is all about choice. Somewhere in past you made choice that led you here. What was it? Something simple, like where to live? Something complex, like who to be, who to love? Who knows? But this choice, it is root of what is happening to you. Next card.”

  Two dogs howling at a large blue moon. She placed it directly beneath the center cross.

  “This is your present. The Moon.”

  “I told you all,” said Blixen. “The moon is blue, blue.”

  “Quiet, we are working here. This card, it is card of madness, of hidden truths, of confusion. Nothing can be trusted, because everything is without sanity. The choice you made in your past has led you to this craziness. Next card.”

  A horned and winged woman, with claws for hands and feet, flanked by two men, half-human and half-animal, chained together at the neck. The Contessa tightened her lips when she saw it and placed it to the bottom right of the cross.

  “This is your future. Give me next.”

  “Wait,” said Scrbacek. “What is that card? What does it mean?”

  She looked up at him, her eyes flickering yellow from the candles. “Suddenly you’re interested? Oka
y. This card is the Devil. It is not good card. Bondage. Bondage to what, we can’t say, but it arises from choice and madness. Maybe that is all for today, maybe we stop. Maybe we should try dice instead. Sometimes . . .”

  Scrbacek flipped over the next card and tossed it on the table. A spirit in the heavens blowing a great golden trumpet as naked men and women rose from graves dug into the ground. The Contessa looked at him for a long moment and then placed the card above the cross and stared at him again.

  “This position represents way to solve problem. The card it is Judgment. It requires examination of self, of truth. It is difficult card. But look at way our angel, she looks downward, to other cards. The answer to what is happening to you, what is happening to all, it is in past, present, future.”

  “Well, that sort of narrows it down, doesn’t it?” said Scrbacek.

  “You misunderstand,” said the Contessa Romany. “The answer to all the destruction is not just in past, present, future. It is in your past, your present, your future.”

  Scrbacek looked down at the cards and then back up at the woman. “I don’t think so.”

  “So maybe it is wrong. Maybe you are not facing great upheaval. Maybe there is not some riffly moosh pulling strings. Maybe there is no choice in past, no madness in present, no bondage in future. Maybe all is well with Scrbacek.”

  “Is that it?” he said curtly. “Are we done now?”

  “There is one more card if you are interested. It is outcome card. How it all will turn out in end.”

  Scrbacek stared at the woman as he turned over the final card. It was of a man, hanging upside down from a rope attached to his leg. The Contessa shook her head sadly as she put it at the top of the spread.