The Chronicles of Jonathon Postlethwaite: The Seed of Corruption (27 page)

                            Ben stared in horrified fascination at the face with abyssal eyes  and the huge hooked nose that pressed against the glass. There was something familiar about this man, but he failed to make any connection. Perhaps he was a client from long ago he thought. A swarthy pock marked Arab, some failed revolutionary from the middle east,  a  South  American  dictator,  some  tyrant,  some megalomaniac, he had done business with in the past; he seemed to be all of them, but then none one of them at all.

                            The man at the window did not speak, did not look at  him,  yet  a  language   more   powerful   than speech emanated  from  his  being  -  a  deep  yearning, a desire, something so  powerful  Santiago  feared  he was about to be consumed by him. The man needed Santiago's talents and had drawn  him here. Now the arm's dealer soul had been touched by him and been made promises, promises of rewards which he could not resist. A loud roar of thunder followed the sheet lightening which tore open a rift into core Ben Santiago's being. The face at the window disappeared sinking into the darkness leaving only a silhouette etched on the arms dealer's soul.

                            Santiago jerked awake with a moan in a sweat soaked bed at home in his Manhattan apartment, his boxer shorts sticky with semen. His whole body trembled, alive with energies loosed from his penetrated psyche. He gasped for air in the cool of the air conditioned atmosphere, his desire to find his  summoner  stronger and more irresistible than ever. He desired this man, if he were a man at all, with an inhuman compulsion. He could never rest until he found him, until his soul was touched by him again. It was not about guns, but something deeper....

                            He slept for the rest of the morning until, early in the afternoon, a knock on his door wakened him from an uneasy sleep. He rose stiffly from his bed and donned a dressing gown before answering the door. A small, bald and bespectacled man entered the room with a look of triumph in his eyes and waving a photocopied photograph in front of him.

“We’re close Mr. Santiago!" he shrieked. “Look here, I'm sure that one of these is the place." he handed three copied photographs to his employer who them in detail. His eyes widened with his smile, two of the photographs fell from his hands to the floor.

                            The photographs were just one of many his researcher had brought to him in an effort to satisfy Santiago's curiosity about the dreams which had occurred nightly for the past nine months. His researcher spoke. “The terrain you have described in the dream point to an area in rural north Staffordshire, England. Given that you feel you are being drawn to a town there are only a few possibilities - it has to be one of these - is that it?"

Santiago studied the remaining photograph in his hands and nodded. It was. Last night was the first time he had  seen  it  and  it  was  fresh  in  his  memory.  All  the elements where there. The photograph had been taken from  a  vantage  point  above  the  market  square  which showed the church, its spire and tower, and the retreat of alleyways around it. Santiago's aide smiled broadly. “There are more here." he said, pulling a dozen more photographs  from  his  briefcase,  other  views  of  this particular town his employer had identified. Santiago took them and flicked through the photos.

They showed tourist attractions and local industry. One grabbed his attention immediately, a shot of a back street lined with Tudor buildings. Santiago's jaw fell open.

                            The inn was there on the right, its hanging sign clearly displaying the symbol of the crossed keys. He thought he heard the squeak of rusty hinges, felt buffeted by the raw air of an English winter gale around him, felt himself being drawn into the cold reality of the monochrome. He gasped. Santiago stared excitedly at the picture.

“Get me there Aldus! Get me there as soon as is humanly possible." He instructed his researcher and personal aide. “Alone. Economy flight Incognito. Ben Santiago is not a popular man there remember Aldus." he smiled.

Aldus nodded obediently and left the room. Santiago moved to  the  window  and  looked  out across the Manhattan skyline towards the east.

                            Far out there, across the North Atlantic something drew him to it, communicated with part of him that did not think. It did not calculate, but only yearned for something he could not, as a conscious rational being, identify. Santiago had seen a man at a window, a strangely familiar man, if it were a man. But soon he would find out and did not care whether it was  human or not. It had touched Santiago deeply and darkly, setting something primal loose within his soul. Now he yearned for a full caress in  that  boiling,  mindless darkness and he knew this shadow of  a  man  would give it willingly in exchange for Santiago's expertise.

                            The arms dealer reached for the phone and rang an    international    number.    After    a    few    moments conversation he  put   down   the   phone   and   smiled to himself. Nothing could be easier,  he  thought  and life  would never be the same again. Then he made one final phone call, to the man who had introduced Santiago to the world of gun running, his mentor, an enigmatic and elusive individual, whom he had met only once in his lifetime. Santiago could never remember his face, but today something stirred in his memory. For a moment the face at the window in his dream haunted him. Santiago shook his head - no it couldn't be true, he thought mouth  slowly opening. No, it was impossible surely?

Chapter Nineteen

                            Pinky Makepeace returned to the Cross keys public house at around five thirty. His investigations into the culture and power structure of the world he now found himself had taken up most of a dull winter's day and now the winter's evening had crept into darkness.

                            He walked quickly along the wet pavements which reflected the light of the neon street lamps and illuminated shop signs, oblivious to the natives of this town who walked heads down, their minds turned to their stomachs

and tonight's television. The Scholar was in awe of the volume of brightly lit machines   which   roared   past   him   on   the   central carriageway. The noise was tremendous to his ears, nearly as deafening as the Halls of machines he had visited on the odd occasions. If a technology could produce such  machines  in  such  profusion,  then what  could  they  produce  in  terms  of  military weaponry  he  thought idly to himself.

                            He waited in the market square for nearly an hour, his bundle of crumpled papers clutched under his arm. It was cold now and the rain which had fallen for most of the day had ceased. The air seemed to be turning solid, his exhaled breath turning into clouds of vapour as it condensed in the freezing air.

                            Pinky waited for a gap in the traffic, amusing himself while he waited by attempting to blow rings of frosty breath into the evening air. Eventually the volume of the rush hour traffic diminished and Pinky took his chance to run quickly across the market square to the alleyway where the sign of the Cross Keys hung silent on its hinges in the stillness which had now enveloped the town.

                            He entered the yard stealthily, his eyes seeking out the bakery for signs of the foul baker, and was relieved to see its lights out and the bakery silent. Pinky entered the inn by the side door, expecting  to  find the place in  darkness  and  silence,  but  was  shocked to find the bar room lit by bright electric light and inhabited by strangers, or so they seemed.

                            After he had cleared his spectacles of condensation and his eyes had adjusted to the unfamiliar illumination, he realised that the diners here were not strangers at all, but merely familiar faces in strange clothes. Mrs. Lovenberry sat at the head of the table and to either side sat Flax and Scoggins. Pinky's master's attire of a green woolly jumper and brown baggy trousers had lessened,    to    some    extent,    his    usually menacing appearance. But when Flax's eyes met his own he felt that familiar and malevolent, ever hungry soul, seeking out his.

                            Pinky shivered. Something had happened to his High Hat master. Today he seemed more intense, more malign than he had ever been  before.  Beside him Scoggins sat demolishing the  mashed  potatoes and beef stew Mrs. Lovenberry had prepared for them, with great enthusiasm and did not bother to look up. He now wore a bright, baggy tee shirt emblazoned with a strange design and the word 'Motorhead' in huge letters which, along with his tight, heavily patched, blue jeans made him look as normal as the noisy students, who had called the Scholar a ‘Mosher Fossil' in the library.

                            From the head of the table Mrs. Lovenberry looked up and smiled. There was a motherly look in her eyes, Pinky thought. She seemed  to  have  adopted  them he realised and stifled a  snigger  at  the  absurdity  of the  idea.

                            The old woman was seeking some purpose in her life, she was revelling in the 'family meal' around her old dining table and this seemed to inject something meaningful into her lonely life again, either that - or the ten gold sovereigns that stood in a pile in front of her.

Flax smiled at Pinky and the astonished

                            Scholar nearly  collapsed  in  shock.  His  master's  smile was  the  portal to a hive of malignancy and evil he thought, the forerunner of some terrible atrocity. Pinky shuddered as he hung his coat on the rack and took his place tentatively alongside Scoggins.

“Good evening my man, have a fruitful day?" Flax asked, grinning at him.

Yes  Sir."  the  Scholar  croaked,  totally  unprepared for  his  master's benign greeting. Flax nodded and smiled again.

“Mrs. Lovenberry has found these clothes for us as our others require washing." he informed the Scholar. There are some for you too." He added. Pinky nodded as Flax grinned amusedly. His master had assumed a character so amenable that anyone who did not know him could not be threatened by him, but Pinky was alarmed by it. He tore his eyes way from Flax's dark gaze and began to eat from the plate Mrs. Lovenberry had placed before him.

                            Flax continued his strange discourse. “The weather is a little cool for the time of year, is it not Mrs Lovenberry” he droned almost threateningly.

“Yes, I won't be surprised if we have some snow." the old woman rattled back automatically.

                            None of the three strangers actually knew what she meant by snow, but all nodded their heads in agreement. Flax then looked questioningly towards the Scholar who merely shrugged his shoulders ignorantly while Mrs. Lovenberry's mind, triggered by the mention of snow, drifted into the past.

“Yes." she sighed. “1947 that was a terrible Winter, so cold, so much snow. I hope we’re not in for another like that  one,  God  forbid"  she  said  as  her  eyes  became unfocused and began to recount to her dinner guests, the much narrated and legendary tale of the winter of '47. She had  told  the  tale  so  many  times  that  she  was  hardly conscious  of  what  she  was  saying  or  perhaps  even conscious when reliving it, even though the stories were highly              detailed,              if              not              subjected              to              a              little              factual embellishment here and there.

                            She remembered the red faced men with frosted white beards, the tunnels beneath the snow dug out by displaced persons and Italian prisoners of war. So much snow! But things didn't grind to a halt at the slightest sprinkling like they did today, oh no! People were made of sterner stuff in the olden days. Agnes Lovenberry chuckled often and sighed much throughout her monologue, mentioning her late husband, Ernest, many times.

                            The three men sitting around the table listened intently at first, the stories of the extreme weather at first strange and fascinating, but gradually grew bored and began to fidget uncomfortably. Scoggins produced his favourite stiletto and began to manicure his fingernails. The Scholar, after rapidly and noisily finishing his dinner, shuffled the notes he had assembled that day in preparation for his briefing that evening with Flax.

Only  Silus  himself  sat  as  if  entranced  by  Mrs. Lovenberry's  recollections,  his  dark  eyes  fixed  on  the ancient freak of a woman, but in reality he too had his mind on other things.

                            The old woman continued for nearly an hour then, with a final self-satisfied chuckle, her tired eyes closed and she entered a dream world filled with the good old, bad old days; the memories of a early post-war England.

As she nodded off in her chair head slowly lowering onto her chest, Flax turned to the Scholar.

“You have some useful  information  for  me  then?" he queried the old menace returning to his voice. His servant nodded excitedly.

"Indeed I do your Eminence."

Silus rose from his chair and glanced disgustedly at the old woman, checked that she was asleep  by blowingon her head  and  motioned that Pinky follow him. At the foot of the stairs he stopped and spoke again.