The Talisman

Interlude

Sloat in This World (IV)

On the tenth of December, a bundled-up Morgan Sloat was sitting on the uncomfortable little wooden chair beside Lily Sawyer’s bed—he was cold, so he had his heavy cashmere coat wrapped around him and his hands thrust deep into its pockets, but he was having a much better time than his appearance suggested. Lily was dying. She was going out, away, to that place from which you never came back, not even if you were a Queen in a football field–sized bed.

Lily’s bed was not so grand, and she did not in the least resemble a Queen. Illness had subtracted her good looks, had skinned down her face and aged her a quick twenty years. Sloat let his eyes roam appreciatively over the prominent ridges of bone about her eyes, the tortoiselike shell of her forehead. Her ravaged body barely made a lump beneath the sheets and blankets. Sloat knew that the Alhambra had been well paid to leave Lily Cavanaugh Sawyer alone, for it was he who had paid them. They no longer bothered to send heat up to her room. She was the hotel’s only guest. Besides the desk clerk and cook, the only employees still in the Alhambra were three Portuguese maids who spent all their time cleaning the lobby—it must have been the maids who kept Lily piled high with blankets. Sloat himself had commandeered the suite across the hall, and ordered the desk clerk and the maids to keep a close eye on Lily.

To see if she would open her eyes, he said, “You’re looking better, Lily. I really think I see signs of improvement.”

Without moving anything but her mouth, Lily said, “I don’t know why you pretend to be human, Sloat.”

“I’m the best friend you have,” Sloat responded.

Now she did open her eyes, and they were not dull enough to suit him. “Get out of here,” she whispered. “You’re obscene.”

“I’m trying to help you, and I wish you’d remember that. I have all the papers, Lily. All you have to do is sign them. Once you do, you and your son are taken care of for life.” Sloat regarded Lily with an expression of satisfied gloom. “I haven’t had much luck in locating Jack, by the way. Spoken to him lately?”

“You know I haven’t,” she said. And did not weep, as he had hoped.

“I really do think the boy ought to be here, don’t you?”

“Piss up a stick,” Lily said.

“I think I will use your bathroom, if you don’t mind,” he said, and stood up. Lily closed her eyes again, ignoring him. “I hope he’s staying out of trouble, anyhow,” Sloat said, slowly walking down the side of the bed. “Terrible things happen to boys on the road.” Lily still did not respond. “Things I hate to think about.” He reached the end of the bed and continued on to the bathroom door. Lily lay under her sheets and blankets like a crumpled piece of tissue paper. Sloat went into the bathroom.

He rubbed his hands together, gently closed the door, and turned on both taps over the sink. From the pocket of his suitcoat he extracted a small brown two-gram vial, from his inner jacket pocket a small case containing a mirror, a razor blade, and a short brass straw. Onto the mirror he tapped about an eighth of a gram of the purest Peruvian Flake cocaine he’d been able to find. Then he chopped it ritualistically with his blade, forming it into two stubby lines. He snorted the lines through the brass straw, gasped, inhaled sharply, and held his breath for a second or two. “Aah.” His nasal passages opened up as wide as tunnels. Way back there, a drip began to deliver the goodies. Sloat ran his hands under the water, then for the sake of his nose drew a little of the moisture on his thumb and index finger up into his nostrils. He dried his hands and his face.

That lovely train, he allowed himself to think, that lovely lovely train, I bet I’m prouder of it than I am of my own son.

Morgan Sloat revelled in the vision of his precious train, which was the same in both worlds and the first concrete manifestation of his long-held plan to import modern technology into the Territories, arriving in Point Venuti loaded with its useful cargo. Point Venuti! Sloat smiled as the coke blasted through his brain, bringing its usual message that all would be well, all would be well. Little Jacky Sawyer would be a very lucky boy ever to leave the odd little town of Point Venuti. In fact, he’d be lucky ever to get there in the first place, considering that he’d have to make his way across the Blasted Lands. But the drug reminded Sloat that in some ways he’d prefer Jack to make it to dangerous, warped little Point Venuti, he’d even prefer Jack to survive his exposure to the black hotel, which was not merely boards and nails, bricks and stone, but was also somehow alive . . . because it was possible that he might walk out with the Talisman in his thieving little hands. And if that were to happen . . .

Yes, if that absolutely wonderful event were to take place, all would indeed be well.

And both Jack Sawyer and the Talisman would be broken in half.

And he, Morgan Sloat, would finally have the canvas his talents deserved. For a second he saw himself spreading his arms over starry vastnesses, over worlds folded together like lovers on a bed, over all that the Talisman protected, and all that he had coveted so when he’d bought the Agincourt, years back. Jack could get all that for him. Sweetness. Glory.

To celebrate this thought, Sloat brought the vial out of his pocket again and did not bother with the ritual of razor and mirror, but simply used the attached little spoon to raise the medicinal white powder to first one nostril, then the other. Sweetness, yes.

Sniffing, he came back into the bedroom. Lily appeared slightly more animated, but his mood now was so good that even this evidence of her continuing life did not darken it. Bright and oddly hollow within their circles of bone, her eyes followed him. “Uncle Bloat has a new loathsome habit,” she said.

“And you’re dying,” he said. “Which one would you choose?”

“Do enough of that stuff, and you’ll be dying, too.”

Undeterred by her hostility, Sloat returned to the rickety wooden chair. “For God’s sake, Lily, grow up,” he said. “Everybody does coke now. You’re out of touch—you’ve been out of touch for years. You wanna try some?” He lifted the vial from his pocket and swung it by the chain attached to the little spoon.

“Get out of here.”

Sloat waggled the vial closer to her face.

Lily sat up in bed as smartly as a striking snake and spat in his face.

“Bitch!” He recoiled, grabbing for his handkerchief as the wad of spittle slid down his cheek.

“If that crap is so wonderful, why do you have to sneak into the toilet to take it? Don’t answer, just leave me alone. I don’t want to see you again, Bloat. Take your fat ass out of here.”

“You’re going to die alone, Lily,” he said, now perversely filled with a cold, hard joy. “You’re going to die alone, and this comic little town is going to give you a pauper’s burial, and your son is going to be killed because he can’t possibly handle what’s lying in wait for him, and no one will ever hear of either one of you again.” He grinned at her. His plump hands were balled into white hairy fists. “Remember Asher Dondorf, Lily? Our client? The sidekick on that series Flanagan and Flanagan? I was reading about him in The Hollywood Reporter—some issue a few weeks ago. Shot himself in his living room, but his aim wasn’t too cool, because instead of killing himself he just blew away the roof of his mouth and put himself in a coma. Might hang on for years, I hear, just rotting away.” He leaned toward her, his forehead corrugating. “You and good old Asher have a lot in common, it seems to me.”

She stonily looked back. Her eyes seemed to have crawled back inside her head, and at that moment she resembled some hard-bitten old frontier woman with a squirrel rifle in one hand and Scripture in the other. “My son is going to save my life,” she said. “Jack is going to save my life, and you won’t be able to stop him.”

“Well, we’ll see, won’t we?” Sloat answered. “We’ll just see about that.”