The Best of Lucius Shepard (25 page)

“Let’s look for
him,” he said to Gilbey.

Gilbey
started to say something but kept it to himself. He tapped his spoon hard
against the edge of the table. Then he, too, scraped back his chair and stood.

Baylor was
not to be found at the Club Demonio or any of the bars on the west bank. Gilbey
and Mingolla described him to everyone they met, but no one remembered him. The
longer the search went on, the more insecure Mingolla became. Baylor was
necessary, an essential underpinning of the platform of habits and routines
that supported him, that let him live beyond the range of war’s weapons and the
laws of chance, and should that underpinning be destroyed ... In his mind’s eye
he saw the platform tipping, him and Gilbey toppling over the edge,
cartwheeling down into an abyss filled with black flames. Once Gilbey said,
“Panama! The son of a bitch run off to Panama.” But Mingolla didn’t think this
was the case. He was certain that Baylor was close at hand. His certainty had
such a valence of clarity that he became even more insecure, knowing that this
sort of clarity often heralded a bad conclusion.

The sun
climbed higher, its heat an enormous weight pressing down, its light leaching
color from the stucco walls, and Mingolla’s sweat began to smell rancid. Only a
few soldiers were on the streets, mixed in with the usual run of kids and
beggars, and the bars were empty except for a smattering of drunks still on a
binge from the night before. Gilbey stumped along, grabbing people by the shirt
and asking his questions. Mingolla, however, terribly conscious of his
trembling hand, nervous to the point of stammering, was forced to work out a
stock approach whereby he could get through these brief interviews. He would
amble up, keeping his right side forward, and say, “I’m looking for a friend of
mine. Maybe you seen him? Tall guy. Olive skin, black hair, thin. Name’s
Baylor.” He came to be able to let this slide off his tongue in a casual
unreeling.

Finally
Gilbey had had enough. “I’m gonna hang out with Big Tits,” he said. “Meet’cha
at the PX tomorrow.” He started to walk off, but turned and added, “You wanna
get in touch Tore tomorrow, I’ll be at the Club Demonio.” He had an odd
expression on his face. It was as if he were trying to smile reassuringly,
but—due to his lack of practice with smiles—it looked forced and foolish and
not in the least reassuring.

Around
eleven o’clock Mingolla wound up leaning against a pink stucco wall, watching
out for Baylor in the thickening crowds. Beside him, the sun-browned fronds of
a banana tree were feathering in the wind, making a crispy sound whenever a
gust blew them back into the wall. The roof of the bar across the street was
being repaired: patches of new tin alternating with narrow strips of rust that
looked like enormous strips of bacon laid there to fry. Now and then he would
let his gaze drift up to the unfinished bridge, a great sweep of magical
whiteness curving into the blue, rising above the town and the jungle and the
war. Not even the heat haze rippling from the tin roof could warp its
smoothness. It seemed to be orchestrating the stench, the mutter of the crowds,
and the jukebox music into a tranquil unity, absorbing those energies and
returning them purified, enriched. He thought that if he stared at it long
enough, it would speak to him, pronounce a white word that would grant his
wishes.

Two flat
cracks—pistol shots—sent him stumbling away from the wall, his heart racing.
Inside his head the shots had spoken the two syllables of Baylor’s name. All
the kids and beggars had vanished. All the soldiers had stopped and turned to
face the direction from which the shots had come: zombies who had heard their
master’s voice.

Another
shot.

Some
soldiers milled out of a side street, talking excitedly. “ ... fuckin’ nuts!”
one was saying, and his buddy said, “It was Sammy, man! You see his eyes?”

Mingolla
pushed his way through them and sprinted down the side street. At the end of
the block a cordon of MPs had sealed off access to the right-hand turn, and
when Mingolla ran up one of them told him to stay back.

“What is
it?” Mingolla asked. “Some guy playing Sammy?”

“Fuck off,”
the MP said mildly.

“Listen,”
said Mingolla. “It might be this friend of mine. Tall, skinny guy. Black hair.
Maybe I can talk to him.”

The MP
exchanged glances with his buddies, who shrugged and acted otherwise
unconcerned. “Okay,” he said. He pulled Mingolla to him and pointed out a bar
with turquoise walls on the next corner down. “Go on in there and talk to the
captain.”

Two more
shots, then a third.

“Better
hurry,” said the MP. “Ol’ Captain Haynesworth there, he don’t have much faith
in negotiations.”

It was cool
and dark inside the bar; two shadowy figures were flattened against the wall
beside a window that opened onto the cross-street. Mingolla could make out the
glint of automatic pistols in their hands. Then, through the window, he saw
Baylor pop up from behind a retaining wall: a three-foot-high structure of mud
bricks running between a herbal drugstore and another bar. Baylor was
shirtless, his chest painted with reddish-brown smears of dried blood, and he
was standing in a nonchalant pose, with his thumbs hooked in his trouser
pockets. One of the men by the window fired at him. The report was deafening,
causing Mingolla to flinch and close his eyes. When he looked out the window
again, Baylor was nowhere in sight.

“Fucker’s
just tryin’ to draw fire,” said the man who had shot at Baylor. “Sammy’s fast
today.”

“Yeah, but
he’s slowin’ some,” said a lazy voice from the darkness at the rear of the bar.
“I do believe he’s outta dope.”

“Hey,” said
Mingolla. “Don’t kill him! I know the guy. I can talk to him.”

“Talk?” said
the lazy voice. “You kin talk ‘til yo’ ass turns green, boy, and Sammy ain’t
gon’ listen.”

Mingolla
peered into the shadows. A big, sloppy-looking man was leaning on the counter;
brass insignia gleamed on his beret. “You the captain?” he asked. “They told me
outside to talk to the captain.”

“Yes,
indeed,” said the man. “And I’d be purely delighted to talk with you, boy. What
you wanna talk ‘bout?”

The other
men laughed.

“Why are you
trying to kill him?” asked Mingolla, hearing the pitch of desperation in his
voice. “You don’t have to kill him. You could use a trank gun.”

“Got one
comin’,” said the captain. “Thing is, though, yo’ buddy got hisself a coupla
hostages back of that wall, and we get a chance at him ‘fore the trank gun
‘rives, we bound to take it.”

“But ... “
Mingolla began.

“Lemme
finish, boy.” The captain hitched up his gunbelt, strolled over and draped an
arm around Mingolla’s shoulder, enveloping him in an aura of body odor and
whiskey breath. “See,” he went on, “we had everything under control. Sammy there
... “

“Baylor!”
said Mingolla angrily. “His name’s Baylor.”

The captain
lifted his arm from Mingolla’s shoulder and looked at him with amusement. Even
in the gloom Mingolla could see the network of broken capillaries on his
cheeks, the bloated alcoholic features. “Right,” said the captain. “Like I’s
sayin’, yo’ good buddy Mister Baylor there wasn’t doin’ no harm. Just sorta
ravin’ and runnin’ round. But then ‘long comes a coupla our Marine brothers.
Seems like they’d been givin’ our beaner friends a demonstration of the latest
combat gear, and they was headin’ back from said demonstration when they seen
our little problem and took it ‘pon themselves to play hero. Wellsir, puttin’
it in a nutshell, Mister Baylor flat kicked their ass. Stomped all over their
esprit
de corps.
Then he drags ‘em back of that wall and starts messin’ with one
of their guns. And ... “

Two more
shots.

“Shit!” said
one of the men by the window.

“And there
he sits,” said the captain. “Fuckin’ with us. Now either the gun’s outta ammo
or else he ain’t figgered out how it works. If it’s the latter case, and he
does figger it out ... “ The captain shook his head dolefully, as if picturing
dire consequences. “See my predicament?”

“I could try
talking to him,” said Mingolla. “What harm would it do?”

“You get
yourself killed, it’s your life, boy. But it’s my ass that’s gonna get hauled
up on charges.” The captain steered Mingolla to the door and gave him a gentle
shove toward the cordon of MPs. “ ‘Preciate you volunteerin’, boy.”

Later
Mingolla was to reflect that what he had done had made no sense,
because—whether or not Baylor had survived—he would never have been returned to
the Ant Farm. But at the time, desperate to preserve the ritual, none of this
occurred to him. He walked around the corner and toward the retaining wall. His
mouth was dry, his heart pounded. But the shaking in his hand had stopped, and
he had the presence of mind to walk in such a way that he blocked the MPs’ line
of fire. About twenty feet from the wall he called out, “Hey, Baylor! It’s
Mingolla, man!” And as if propelled by a spring, Baylor jumped up, staring at
him. It was an awful stare. His eyes were like bulls-eyes, white showing all
around the irises; trickles of blood ran from his nostrils, and nerves were
twitching in his cheeks with the regularity of watchworks. The dried blood on
his chest came from three long gouges; they were partially scabbed over but
were oozing a clear fluid. For a moment he remained motionless. Then he reached
down behind the wall, picked up a double-barreled rifle from whose stock
trailed a length of flexible tubing, and brought it to bear on Mingolla.

He squeezed
the trigger.

No flame, no
explosion. Not even a click. But Mingolla felt that he’d been dipped in ice
water. “Christ!” he said. “Baylor! It’s me!” Baylor squeezed the trigger again,
with the same result. An expression of intense frustration washed over his
face, then lapsed into that dead man’s stare. He looked directly up into the
sun, and after a few seconds he smiled: he might have been receiving terrific
news from on high.

Mingolla’s
senses had become wonderfully acute. Somewhere far away a radio was playing a
country and western tune, and with its plaintiveness, its intermittent bursts
of static, it seemed to him the whining of a nervous system on the blink. He
could hear the MPs talking in the bar, could smell the sour acids of Baylor’s
madness, and he thought he could feel the pulse of Baylor’s rage, an inconstant
flow of heat eddying around him, intensifying his fear, rooting him to the
spot. Baylor laid the gun down, laid it down with the tenderness he might have
shown toward a sick child, and stepped over the retaining wall. The animal
fluidity of the movement made Mingolla’s skin crawl. He managed to shuffle
backward a pace and held up his hands to ward Baylor off. “C’mon, man,” he said
weakly. Baylor let out a fuming noise—part hiss, part whimper—and a runner of
saliva slid between his lips. The sun was a golden bath drenching the street,
kindling glints and shimmers from every bright surface, as if it were bringing
reality to a boil.

Somebody
yelled, “Get down, boy!”

Then Baylor
flew at him, and they fell together, rolling on the hard-packed dirt. Fingers
dug in behind his Adam’s apple. He twisted away, saw Baylor grinning down, all
staring eyes and yellowed teeth. Strings of drool flapping from his chin. A
Halloween face. Knees pinned Mingolla’s shoulders, hands gripped his hair and
bashed his head against the ground. Again, and again. A keening sound switched
on inside his ears. He wrenched an arm free and tried to gouge Baylor’s eyes;
but Baylor bit his thumb, gnawing at the joint. Mingolla’s vision dimmed, and
he couldn’t hear anything anymore. The back of his head felt mushy. It seemed
to be rebounding very slowly from the dirt, higher and slower after each
impact. Framed by blue sky, Baylor’s face looked to be receding, spiraling off.
And then, just as Mingolla began to fade, Baylor disappeared.

Dust was in
Mingolla’s mouth, his nostrils. He heard shouts, grunts. Still dazed, he
propped himself onto an elbow. A little ways off, khaki arms and legs and butts
were thrashing around in a cloud of dust. Like a comic strip fight. You
expected asterisks and exclamation points overhead to signify profanity.
Somebody grabbed his arm, hauled him upright. The MP captain, his beefy face
flushed. He frowned reprovingly as he brushed dirt from Mingolla’s clothes.
“Real gutsy, boy,” he said. “And real, real stupid. He hadn’t been at the end
of his run, you’d be drawin’ flies ‘bout now.” He turned to a sergeant standing
nearby. “How stupid you reckon that was, Phil?”