The Touch Read online

  Yet again the tall man had spoken at length, and more than ever his words were insulting—it seemed deliberately so.

  “A penalty?” Gundawei roared, stepping down from the dais. “You shall what? Enforce a penalty?” He spat the words out. “Do you dare to threaten me, and in my own palace?”

  “You have broken your promise.” The visitor stepped back a short, jerky pace. “I cured your son. Where is my payment?”

  “There is no cure for AIDS,” the General cried. “You liar, you charlatan! Why, any witch doctor from any one of a hundred mud-hut villages could have done as much, and more!”

  “No cure?” said the other, apparently unmoved and utterly unafraid. “But what of your son’s arm? I touched him there.”

  “A touch! A touch?” screamed Gundawei. “What’s in a touch? I should pay ten million dollars for a single touch? A touch of madness, that, Guyler Schweitzer!”

  But Peter Gundawei stepped between the two, rolled up the right sleeve of his jacket, dared to show the General the place where his dark flesh was clearly marked with four fingers and a thumb, as if his skin had been bleached there. “Father, look. I bear the mark!”

  The General brushed him aside and cried, “Young fool! Now be quiet! Hush! Hush! And you, Schweitzer . . . are you a madman? Don’t you know how easily I can make you disappear?”

  Now the visitor’s thin lips cracked in a malevolent smile, displaying tiny, needle-sharp teeth that glinted with an almost mother-of-pearl sheen. “Your son’s arm bears my mark,” he said, “but I am without payment. Yet when you called I came, and you showed me gold, a great treasure. Where is it now? Hidden away from me?”

  “It’s gone!” the General screamed. “Just as you shall soon be gone! A hundred thousand enemies are gathered on my borders. My gold has turned to paper: money to pay my soldiers. The gold you see in these rooms is the only gold! But even if I had it I would not have paid it. What, for your so-called cure? My son was not eating; he had a malaise, some fever that has passed of its own accord. As for the marks on his arm: you use an acid to scorch, mutilate your victims, and then demand payment for this . . . this so-called miracle, this assault, this sleight of hand! What? Did you think I was simpleminded? Bah! And now I am done with you!” He waved his hand dismissively.

  “A penalty, then,” said the other, still unmoved.

  Gundawei thrust his purple, grimacing face up at the tall man and said, “A penalty? By all means, but you are the one who shall pay it.” He jumped up on the dais, yanked on a bellpull, cried, “Girl!”

  A young woman ran out from the corridor nearest the great doors. The General pointed at the doors and shouted, “Fetch my guards!”

  The man called Guyler Schweitzer turned to Peter Gundawei, who was still flustered, and said, “I have to go. But what was given must be taken back.” As he bent close the youth saw something in the dark hollows of his eyes, an odd expression, that caused him to back away. The other moved awkwardly yet rapidly closer, reached out a spidery hand, and circled the young man’s neck in long fingers. It lasted only a moment—not so much a grip or powerful hold as a touch, almost a caress—before the youth was released, staggered away, tripped on a corner of the dais, and fell on his backside.

  The General had seen the incident, the moment of contact, between Schweitzer and his son; he rushed toward the tall man with a thick arm and clenched fist upraised. And meanwhile the dictator’s girls were on their feet, fleeing this way and that, anxious to lose themselves in the maze of rooms and corridors; and the great doors were being hauled open, while the shouting of soldiers grew louder where they crowded outside.

  “You . . . you . . . you!” the General screamed, beginning to froth at the mouth and aiming a blow.

  But again his visitor moved: shot out a hand, trapped the falling arm in a vise-like grip and effortlessly held it there, straining in mid-fall,immobilized, impotent. And then he said, “Ah, no, General, not me—you.”

  Wilson Gundawei felt the touch: his great weight, and all of his strength, held in this strange man’s thin fingers—yet it felt like little more than a touch. And it burned—but not with any sort of heat the dictator understood. More a peculiar tingling, an almost electrical current that caused a vibrating, crippling loss of control over his own flesh. First in his arm, then his shoulders, neck, and head, and finally the rest of his trunk and all his limbs.

  Pulling free of his enigmatic visitor, the General managed to lurch onto the dais before his legs buckled and he fell into a seated position with his back to the bed.

  His son, weary now, and with his white suit hanging loose on him, crawled to Gundawei’s feet, staring at him through red-rimmed eyes where the General began to writhe and shriek aloud in some unbearable agony. And terrified now beyond all measure, the youth cried, “Father? . . . Father!”

  But the General—tearing frenziedly at his robe until it shredded, and clutching at his belly—seemed not to hear him. His navel was stretching, slowly enlarging, opening outward. It formed a sphincter that slowly peeled back on itself, until his stomach looked like a huge black overripe pomegranate splitting in the sun . . . and already its juicy red seeds—its pulp, his guts—were becoming visible.

  Peter Gundawei looked to the tall man for help, held out a trembling hand to him; but that one merely shrugged and said, “The penalty, yes.” And then, unexpectedly and horrifically, he showed emotion—a form of emotion, at least—rocking on his heels to a chittering, staccato burst of what could only be mad laughter. A moment more and he fell silent, touched a button on what had seemed to be an inexpensive watch, and nodded a final, cynical farewell. Then his tall, slender figure shimmered like a mirage, turned transparent, and was gone.

  Gone, vanished as if he had never been there at all . . .

  Several of the ornate bulbs in the three great chandeliers had shattered, raining smoking glass and molten filaments onto the marble floor. Electrical connections in the lights and central fan hummed and snapped, showering white-hot sparks everywhere, in all directions, through the now smoky atmosphere of General Gundawei’s inner sanctum. The fan itself ran amok, first slowing to the point of stopping, then whirring into frantic activity, rocking on its stem as its blades lashed the ozone-tainted air. A moment later and the entire assembly tore loose from the ceiling and crashed to the floor.

  The screams of half-naked girls running this way and that, the whites of their round, frightened eyes strobing on and off, like a swarm of trapped fireflies in the reeking blue smoke and crazily erratic lights. And the soldiers in a tangle, dazed and stumbling, their weapons at the ready with nothing to shoot at. And Peter Gundawei—thin as a rake, with staring, muddy-brown eyes in a suddenly hollow face—straining away from his father now, yet unable to look away as the General’s flesh shrank from his bones and his juices spilled from the dais onto the marble flags.

  Then the officer in charge of the guard—an older man, a captain—found his way to the dais and saw what was there: saw Gundawei, his General, still alive, his huge eyes blinking furiously . . . even though his brain was emerging from an expanding ear while his upper lip and nose curled upward in a single masklike sheet from his red-dripping skull! And Peter Gundawei, the General’s son, gasping his life out with his white western suit all wrinkled and floppy on his diseased, AIDS-shrivelled body!

  A moment longer the Captain stared, his eyes scarcely able to accept what they saw. Then—

  A girl collided with him, clutched at him, said, “Father! Oh, Father!” His own daughter. And finally he knew what to do.

  Ordering his men out of the room, he wrapped his daughter in a purple sheet from the huge bed, told her not to look, and set her aside out of harm’s way. Then came the sharp stutter of his automatic gunfire, momentarily drowning the angry snapping and buzzing of shorting electrics, and adding the acrid stench of cordite to the room’s other stenches.

  And so the pair on the dais died, but mercifully . . .

  Not that the Captain
was strong on mercy. His daughter was only one of many girls taken by the General, true . . . but still she had been too high a price to pay for her father’s miserable rank, despite that he’d been given no choice in the matter. Now he stripped the stars from his epaulettes, tossed them onto the bed, and called his men back into the room.

  “Ask no questions,” he told them, “but there’s been murder here. Now then, search the rooms—and quickly! Gather up every precious thing, anything of value. Our country has been drained to the dregs, so from now on we must help ourselves.”

  Respecting him, they ran to do his bidding. And in a while when they had stripped even the bead curtains, then he set fire to the bed . . .

  At the airport, close to the executive jet itself, the tall man blurred back into being. His pilot saw him from the cockpit and started at his employer’s sudden appearance out of nowhere. But at Guyler Schweitzer’s signal—the urgent, circular motion of a claw-like hand—he regained his composure and started up the engines.

  Seated in the shade of the down-at-heel airport building, the members of General Gundawei’s so-called honour guard were taking it easy, smoking and chatting. But as the whining of the engines became a dull roar they looked up to see the tall, thin man boarding the airplane, and as the door closed pneumatically behind him they stubbed their cigarettes, grabbed their weapons, and came to their feet.

  The plane was taxiing, turning about to face the length of the neglected runway; while inside the building a telephone was ringing, ringing, ringing. A soldier went inside to answer it—then came running back to his comrades, yelling and gesticulating at the jet, but much too late. For the airplane was already powering along the runway and accelerating to takeoff speed.

  Then it was in the air, climbing rapidly, banking steeply, presenting its lone passenger with the opportunity to look down through his window at the straggly group of soldiers where they shielded their eyes from the sun’s glare to gaze up at him. From here they were like so many ants . . . but then again, so were all men to the creature that called itself Guyler Schweitzer.

  Sitting there, he felt a sudden motion, an eruption in the flesh at the back of his neck under his kaftan, and in a matter of moments something vaguely resembling a second head, a bubble of grey-green, red-tinged stuff like pus from a great boil rose up from his kaftan and crept like a slug onto his shoulder; and he did nothing to suppress it. The thing had small crimson eyes and tiny black nostrils like the pits in a coconut. And for all that for now this familiar had no mouth, still it spoke to him:

  My Mordri, you kept me down when I would have been up. Why would you do that to me?

  And despite that he didn’t need to, Guyler Schweitzer answered out loud. “Because you might have caused a fuss. This was dangerous territory, my Khiff. I did not desire that you should frighten anyone prematurely, and I wished no harm to befall you yourself. You should thank me.”

  I will thank you, if you will share. And then, avidly: Did you . . . did you hurt someone?

  “That was the nature of my visit, yes.”

  And I may absorb your memories?

  “Of course, as always!”

  Now?

  “By all means.”

  And extending a pseudopod into Schweitzer’s ear, the thing shrank into him, appearing to deflate like a ruptured balloon.

  Then, turning again to the window for a last glance at the dwindling airport, Schweitzer bared his small, sharp mother-of-pearl teeth in something other than a snarl—in fact a sneer—before sitting back, and finally relaxing into his seat.

  And in his head the Khiff fed on all that he had seen and done in the palace of General Wilson Gundawei . . .

  7

  Scott St. John woke up with a headache that had cost him almost half a bottle of fine brandy, which still hadn’t given him a good night’s sleep! Which was probably why he’d done it—spent most of yesterday evening drinking—because he’d hoped it would put him down, free his mind of all its questions, and—if only for a night—stop it chasing its tail in this endless round . . . or so he told himself. But in fact (and now he contradicted himself) he hadn’t really noticed he was drinking to that extent, not at the time. It was because he’d been trying to work things out—turning things over and over again in his head as he looked for an explanation, a TOE, his own personal “Theory of Everything”—that he’d kept topping up his glass until it had become automatic and, well, sort of repetitive. A sorry excuse . . .

  And to think that only twenty-four hours ago he’d been congratulating himself that he hadn’t become an alcoholic . . . yet! No, and not yet either (he hoped), but he would definitely have to watch it.

  He remembered hearing the alarm go off at 6:00, then nothing. So he’d obviously gone back to sleep. And why the hell had he set the alarm for 6:00 anyway? Because he’d wanted to go and talk to that girl, that woman, that who or whatever she was . . .

  God! The woman! The only one who might have answers to any of this!

  He came out of bed on the double, which only served to set his head throbbing like a tom-tom. And then, cursing his stupidity that he’d let himself sleep in, he dressed, skipped washing and shaving, took three aspirins in water, and rushed out to the garage . . . only to run back inside again for his car keys!

  The car: he’d driven it maybe twice since Kelly died—on one occasion coming close to having an accident, and on another forgetting to pay after filling her up—and his insurance must surely have run out by now. Several reasons why he’d been doing so much walking of late. But now, this business with the woman: it was important, and he might already be too late. Only please don’t let him get pulled over, not with all this booze in him.

  The woman, yes. His mystery woman:

  He had dreamed of her again last night, he knew that much, but this hangover was getting in the way of remembering what it had been about. She hadn’t actually put in an appearance in the dream (if she had, he thought he would surely remember that), but it had been her voice: he’d heard her voice, repeating much the same things that she’d told him yesterday. So then, deep in his subconscious he had obviously put a lot of weight on what she’d told him. Now, driving to the newsagent’s, Scott tried to recapture more surely the dream, her words, something of the meaning of the thing, and once again of everything else that had or was still happening. And rightly so because:

  “Do think about what has happened to you,” she’d told him. “Do think about your loss . . .” (The loss of Kelly? It could only be.) “But try to think coldly, without anger, pain, or passion.” (Why? Because it was somebody’s fault? Kelly’s death, someone’s fault?) And once again, as before: “If something strikes you as strange, try to explore it but from a safe distance.” And, finally: “Don’t look for me. When it’s time, I shall find you . . .”

  Well, to hell with that last! Something—and perhaps more than one something—was most definitely happening to him. And if she knew the answers, if she had any idea at all about what was going on, then he simply must seek her out!

  Parking the car close to the newsagent’s shop, Scott went in and picked up his newspaper, scanned the aisles for his mystery woman, and was disappointed. He tried to ignore the annoying, knowing sidelong glances from the other woman, the one in hair curlers who was watching him, waiting to serve him; but he hadn’t paid for his newspaper yet, and he still had to purchase cigarettes over the counter, where as usual she would have his change ready.

  Winking at Scott as he reached for his change, she trapped his hand in hers and said, “Tsk! tsk! Too bad. I seen you looking for her—that sick puppy look on your face. Still all hot and bothered for her, are you? A pity. Maybe you should go for something more available like.”

  Scott forced a smile and said, “Don’t go giving me ideas, darling. But . . . has she been in?”

  The woman let go his hand. “No, she hasn’t been back. Not yet, anyway. P’raps you didn’t make that much of an impression on her, but maybe if you was to wait
around awhile . . . ? I’m on me own this morning, you see, and now the rush is over I could maybe, well, lock up the shop for an hour and make us a coffee or something—er, in the back room—you know?”

  Oh, yes, Scott knew, and answered, “Of course I’d love to, but I’ve an appointment—er, with the doctor—you know?”

  For a moment she looked shocked and leaned back from him, then said, “Garn! You’re puttin’ me on! Ah well, that’s me: no luck at all. But I must say I don’t know what you sees in that one. A tarty-looking piece if you ask me.”

  Scott fished for a card in his inside pocket, gave it to her, and said, “Look, do me a favour—and who knows, maybe one day I’ll repay it? But if she comes in again give her my card, will you? I really would appreciate it.”

  “Really?” She was almost panting.

  Returning her wink from earlier, Scott said, “Now then—you will be a love, won’t you?”

  Outside the shop he shuddered, lit his first cigarette of the day, got in the car, and headed for home . . .

  Scott wasn’t his usual, or more properly his recent, self. Not by any means. He realized this on the way home, knew that what he had felt after the mystery woman had touched him had stayed with him; that he had been . . . been what, changed? Definitely. And maybe uplifted? Well, a little of both, actually; which had to be a good thing, because he sensed that he knew where he was going now. No more arriving at this, that, or some other destination without knowing how he’d got there. He didn’t quite have it all together, not yet, but at least there was a direction, a desire for—

  —For what? For revenge? Absolutely, if Kelly’s death had been anything other than natural. And thinking of it like that, why, it had been anything but natural! A wasting disease? Oh, it had been that alright! But one they couldn’t put a name to? How often does that happen? All he’d known at the time was that she was sick. He’d simply accepted what they told him, what his own five senses had told him: that the love of his life was shrinking away and dying.