Chaingang

20

JACKSON'S GROVE

The night brought a hard, cold blanket of rain. From where he stood, in a copse of trees at the edge of Jackson's Grove some fifteen miles to the east of Waterton, the tiny farmhouses in the distance looked like frightened survivors huddled against the weather, and whatever else might be lurking out there in the cold rain. He smiled his parody of a huge grin at the thought, thinking of himself as the “whatever else.” It always amused him that the worst thing out in the darkness, or the fog, or the great unknown—was him.

Distant fires smoldered on open hearths in sharecropper shacks and small frame, tar-papered rural dwellings. The monkey people were at their most vulnerable at night, but on a morning such as this, he always thought of them as a stupid, terrorized herd, absurdly easy to manipulate and destroy.

The curtain of rain enveloped everything in a stinking veil of wormy fish odor that he did not find unpleasant. The wet stench and the smell of his own scent in his nostrils accentuated the desolate look of these flatlands, broken only by occasional clots of woods and turnrow tree lines, and the little Monopoly-board houses of potential victims. It was his kind of morning.

Near the distant river there were rocks, willows, and a long ribbon of blacktop that fringed the man-made river levee. He thought about the woman and hardened, breathing slowly, savoring the memory of her look. He would have to get a live one next time. That was how he thought of it—a live one. Somewhere at the end of the blacktop, perhaps, she waited for the taking.

The rain increased in intensity, painting the landscape in a misty silver haze, and he gathered the huge tarp around his face and stomped out of the woods to the used Oldsmobile.

Chaingang Bunkowski could not waddle in off the street, reeking of subterranean sewers and dank drainage culverts, and ask to test-drive a new Peugot. He could, but it would be to create an unforgettable and altogether remarkable image. Nor could he wander into his friendly neighborhood BMW dealer's showroom without arousing considerable suspicions. So that was always the initial consideration when he interfaced with the monkeys: his predetermination of which places might allow him to effectively “blend in” and operate in the persona of a more or less “normal” consumer.

The buying of a used car was typical of such acts, and needed to be handled in the most surreptitious manner, with special care toward the selection of dealers. Williams Auto Mart, a lonesome strip of previously owned chrome, iron, and fiberglass just inside the twenty-five-mile barrier reef of so-called safety, looked appropriate.

Handling the prelims via telephone, delineating parameters, testing resistance quotients, probing the acceptable behavior tolerances, assessing risk factors, preselecting product possibilities, he further narrowed his field of choices.

There was a 1982 Cutlass, an “extremely clean” four-door Buick Century. The salesman, Mr. Williams, thought it was a ‘79. And there was the ‘81 Delta, which he ended up taking for pocket change. It didn't look like much, but it ran just fine.

The pink slip and appropriate DMV paperwork, replete with sanitized history and photo-correct laminated rectangle to match his tags (almost certain not to jar any wants-and-warrants priors) all made him as close to street-legal as he could reasonably get.

These formalities additionally paved the way for certain creature comforts like a place of inexpensive lodging, even a rental property, and—if he wanted to push it—financial respectability at the thrift institution of his choice.

It was, to be sure, a world of cars. Cars, trucks, RVs, and bikes were the core of civilized society. If you had a driver's license and a paid-for pink slip, you couldn't be all bad, so the inference seemed to be. And with that magic talisman, matching registration papers, and an engine block with original numbers—you had what it took to earn the Man's theoretical blessing.

Open the correct door, say the secret words, and you could then open checking accounts, apply for credit cards, hold your head up high, and walk tall and straight as any other lawful taxpayer.

“C. Woodruff” was a GM man, by golly, and he'd drive this old Delta till the bottom rusted out of it. And if Chaingang Bunkowski slammed his nearly 500 pounds into it too many times, the process might be accelerated, but it made a convenient and affordable throwaway.

The car ran quite well, he thought, although he immediately detected bad brakes, and his sensors filled him with an abiding distrust of the master cylinder.

Such thoughts were far from the top level of his perception as he slowly negotiated the pothole-laden blacktop, the faulty wipers producing a rather pleasing background noise. He was somewhere else at the moment, far from Waterton and Jackson's Grove, Missouri, collating and reassessing tables, lists, logs, balance sheets, and graphs. Analyzing deceits, misstatements, distortions, inventions, falsifications, and an entirely counterfeit spectrum of lies imposed by Uncle's hidden agenda.

The physical Chaingang, a well-oiled dispenser of final solutions, trained to kill with machinelike precision and efficiency, was controlled by his mental computer. That computer, in turn, reacted to a variety of triggers, some of them as inexplicable as the influences and confluences of earth, wind, sky, and water.

This morning it had come to him as cold rain, and the thing—whatever it was—had triggered the computer as the beast slept. He came awake with a violent jolt, full power of concentration locked in, packing his belongings with a vengeance, leaving his apparently safe hideaway in Tinytown for the last time.

With the blanketing rain had come a mysterious honing of the discriminatory faculties, a deepening of the sensory capacities, a sharpening of the perspectives—real-time and historical—an enhancement of creative thought and intuitive analysis, and whatever it was that Dr. Norman defined as “physical precognition."

This data-base-directed logic bomb, this cold-hearted heart-taker, idiot savant killer, mindless monster without redeeming humanity, saw the reality with eyes that few of us are even permitted to open.

He drove, driving on automatic pilot, the sky eyes forgotten, because he knew—understood the larger game. He saw the invisible wires. Comprehended, for the first time, the real plan, of which he was only a disposable extra. Stopped. Stood, hiding in rain-drenched woods, listening and sensing the busy, invisible world around him:

Under his 15EEEEE feet, ciliated protozoans, minute infusorian organisms, decomposed. Slow-moving tardi-grades, microscopic eight-wheelers, came from their watersheds and mossbanks. His computer sorted assertions, theses, conjecture, hypotheticals, ipse dixits; chose the most likely unproved dictum. Scanned.

And just as the four pairs of microlegs moved the tardi-grades in the direction of the decomposing protozoans, the thing that no one could explain pulled him in the direction of the least resistance.

Who understands—in an earthly sense—the mysteries of faith? There are those phenomena that are unknowable, but made conceivable to reason by one's spiritual soul.

Those who believe in God are in very real touch with the supernatural, mystical, yet incontrovertible truth of a holy divinity. The Lord's invisible but certain presence chums out of the believer's heart, appealing to the noble aesthetic sense that is the sum total of one's inner reality.

For Daniel Bunkowski the inner essence is altogether different. Where someone else has the Immaculate Conception, for example, he has this—the thing that lets him see.

This is the truth of what Chaingang believes: that an unseen, unknown watcher clicks a hidden field cam loaded with Ektachrome 400 stock, shooting with one one-hundredth-second shutter speed at f11, using 200-mm telephoto, and he is going to take those fingers that hold that camera and RIP THEM FROM THE ARMS AND THEN RIP THE ARMS FROM THE HANDS AND THEN RIP THE HANDS FROM THE MONKEY SOCKETS and that is what he truly believes in the madness of this cold, wet dawn.

There is a prison term for a con who has an ability to work himself free from handcuffs—even when “black-boxed.” The phrase sits on Chaingang's mental shoulder and smiles: monkey pawed, such an inmate is called. For a souvenir he will take a pair of these monkey paws. That is Daniel Edward Flowers Bunkowski's inner reality.

He was passing through Briarwood on his way toward Tennessee. He'd decided he'd shag a motel, maybe give some thought to an appropriately déclassé rental of some kind—there were ways to remain away from the transaction, but these ways all required elaborate setups and time. He liked the looks of the isolated phone and stopped the Delta, heaved his bulk out from the groaning scat, and splashed through a deep puddle toward a bank of vending machines and telephones.

He stopped in front of a large soft-drink unit, almost blocking it from view as he spread his massive poncho even further, reaching in as if to get coins. He was reaching in for his tubular pick. Great for coin ops like commercial washers and soda dispensers. He carefully inserted the business end, adjusting the tension with the knurled collar as neoprene O-rings held the feeler picks in place. He was a superior locksmith, among his other talents, and could penetrate a simple center-spaced TL with his mind on autopilot. He swung out the coin tray and helped himself. Took a bottle of cold soda and closed the machine, going to the nearby wall phone to dial.

“East Coast Big and Tall,” the woman's voice announced after a few rings.

“Howdy, could I speak to a salesperson, please?"

“Surely. One moment."

“Yes?"

Chaingang placed an order with the salesman who answered. Referring to a catalog number in his head. Charging it to Mr. W. W. Conway, who had just rented a tiny mail drawer. His order would be shipped via general delivery, Briarwood, which would be routed from the nearest small town USPS office.

Mr. Conway had been referred by a longtime satisfied customer of the eastern company that specialized in clothing for very tall or very stout males. He assured the nice man that his remittance would be immediately forthcoming. Thanked him. Hung up, and went into the store.

The place with the handy machines outside was called a Mini-Mart. He waddled inside to shoplift, more out of habit and meanness than need. The beast always carried a substantial sum of money tucked away for emergency usage, and true to form, Dr. Norman had seen to it that his duffel bag's money stash had been replenished. But Chaingang shoplifted out of principle.

Had he been born with a taste for money or material goods, rather than blood and vengeance, he would have been a master burglar or armed robber. He was a superbly talented “natural” thief, and an awesome shoplifter.

“Hi-dee, Kenny hep you?” it sounded like the clerk said, eyeing this stinking giant from behind the counter.

Chaingang ignored him. No, Mr. Monkey Man, you cannot hep me. Kenny hep yourself? He examined the prices of things he didn't want, eyes immediately clocking the surveillance mirror, and positioning himself so that one of his hands was blocked by his bulk.

The master of playacting and misdirection held up a can of ravioli with his left hand, swiping chili with his right.

None of this stuff looked particularly edible. Berthalou Irby had spoiled him for these lesser culinary offerings. He wanted to go back to the Irby house, bag Mrs. Irby, shag the retard, and eat the rest of the stuff in the basement. It was a very real and strong pull, the kind that sometimes went over the line and nagged him into enacting a particularly attractive fantasy.

He picked up a package of American cheese, knowing Kenny Hepyou was watching his actions very closely, enjoying himself thoroughly as he dropped a packet of smoked ham into his voluminous chain pocket.

“You got any trella crane?” he rumbled.

“Beg pardon."

“Trella scrate. Where do you keep it?"

“Cellophane? You mean like Handi-Wrap?"

“Heinie wipe.” He opened a jelly jar and forced the top back at a tilt.

“It's over yonder. First aisle."

“Somebody done opened this here grape jelly, ‘n’ stuck their dick innit or whatever, ‘n’ screwed the top back on against the threads.” He was moving down the aisle toward the clerk. Feeling dangerous and lucky.

“What's that now?"

“Somebody dicked in your jelly back there yonder. Top looks like it's got trella scration all over it. Thought you'd like to know.” He shrugged, ever the helpful patron.

The clerk went back and saw the jelly.

“Kids come in here. They probably done it."

“Yids? Uh-huh.” Chaingang hadn't had this much fun in a long time. Not without actually hurting someone.

“Did you find the Handi-Wrap?"

“Why would I want to do that?” Chaingang asked, genuinely appearing to be puzzled, having just shoved two stroke books up under his jacket.

“I thought you said you was wanting some Handi-Wrap and—"

It was too much for him. He made a coughing noise and the huge tractor-strength steel snake uncoiled and put the clerk out of his misery.

Instantly, the second he saw the poor man fall into the potato chip bags, he was irritated with himself. He had forgotten, uncharacteristically, that he was driving a semilegal Delta ‘88 he'd gone to a great deal of trouble to acquire. Now he'd just put his ride, his hide, and his clean tags at risk so he could hurt Kenny. Not smart.

He hit NO SALE and cleaned out the big stuff, pulling the tray up and seeing checks and—surprisingly—a gold coin. He was always finding interesting treats. He tucked the small gold piece away as a lucky charm, went around and checked Kenny's wallet, and felt a tiny surge of pleasure seeing that it contained nearly six hundred dollars.

Moving with a burst of speed, he chugged out the door and hurled his quarter ton of weight into the poor front seat of the old car, grinding the ignition to life, and pulling out into the northbound lane. There were no witnesses. No traffic to speak of. But of course, the sky eye man would be duly recording his moves. Of no consequence.

He'd ordered, and within a few minutes, paid for, his little going-away present to himself. Later, when he'd had his fill of this community, he'd have a nice, fresh get-out-of-town ensemble all ready and waiting for him.

At the next roadside phone that presented itself, a Mr. Conway dialed—strictly by coincidence—Perkins Real Estate, calling from the Tinytown phone book chained to the wall. Asking about rental properties.

“I'm sorry,” an elderly woman's voice informed him. “This office is not presently open for business.” She referred him to a realtor in Maysburg and he called there, “hoping to rent a small trailer or farmhouse."

“We've got something about ten miles north of here. It's a two-bedroom. But it's not in very good condition right at the moment, I'm afraid,” a man's voice told him.

“That's all right. I'm not real fussy. I could even hep fix it up before the wife and kids get here. How much is it and—” He started to use the phrase “take occupancy,” edited his choice of words, and said, “Would I be able to move in right away?"

“It's only fifty a month, sir. The owners just want to keep it rented so the house doesn't deteriorate any faster than it has. And you know, you can't get insurance on a dwelling unless it's occupied—so that's why it's available. But it's really rough, I won't kid you about that."

“It sounds just fine.” It sounds like a fine shithole. “Could I look at it right now?"

“Yeah.” The voice paused. “Let's see—what time is it? Uh—where are you now?"

“Just over yonder a ways from your office.” Chaingang was really having fun with the monkeys. “I'm over by trella scrate's, and I could be over there in a few minutes. I could meet ya at the farmhouse or—"

“Nah, you better meet me here at the office and follow me out there. It's pretty hard to find—way out on an old gravel road in the country. I doubt if you could find it by yourself."

“Okay. I'll be there in a few minutes."

“Fine. And your name, sir?"

“Conway."

“Is that first or last?"

“Uh-huh,” Chaingang said, his face contorted by the rictus of a snaggletoothed grin. “See ya in a minute.” He hung up the phone and flung himself back into the car. Kenny Hepyou had turned it into a good day after all. The fun was just starting.

Disturbed in his slumber by ever-watchful sensors, the beast shakes his bulk loose from the folds of deep sleep, belches an eight-inch naval salvo of gas, scratches, yawns expansively as he pulls himself to his feet.

Infested repose gave this gargantuan monster physical rest, but it was a restless dormancy. He is awake in two filmy eye-blinks, and as the sleeping behemoth emerges from the swamp of nocturnal hybernation, he is aware of a vague layering of intelligence and trivia.

He scans the dossier page on Virgil Watlow, and the phrase “dog buncher,” the name for the scum who act as procurers for laboratories, tears a fingernail off inside his mind. In this dormant period some part of his brain has been relishing the memory of a woman at his second murder trial, and his mindscreen catches a fragment of her courtroom shrieking, the termagant's shrill “—and then and there, Daniel Bunkowski did proceed to strangle, bludgeon, and mutilate—” He savors the verbs, trying to taste her in his head.

But the sensors override all of this pleasurable trivia with the unmistakable urgings that he has learned to interpret as warnings. They came during his steep. Mental printout lighting the lip of his pocket of slumber with opaque, filtered rays of illumination. The beast, snoring away down in the shadowy hole at the bottom of his awareness, is somehow touched by this unexplainable phenomenon. It reaches down into his mysterious inner trench, and his subconscious moves him, trailing slime and mutant poisons, as he is nudged toward the light source. He is moving, on automatic pilot. Dressing. Not bothering to curse the bad luck that refuses to let him rest for a few days in his own rental home. Especially when he went to so much trouble to get the car, interface with the monkeys, play the game, talk the tall. But he would rather be safe than lazy. He can be lazy later, when Mr. Watlow has had a full manicure, pedicure, Chaingang cure. When all those bad teeth have been extracted. He wants to take his time with the dog buncher oh by Christ in Holy Heaven how he wants to RIP EVERY NAIL, TOOTH, HAIR, STRIP OF SKIN FROM THE DOGIE MAN.

Idly, to occupy his mind as he packs, he unscrews fuses, takes down trip wires; sorts the intelligence his mindscreen provided. Somewhere in all the analyses of meetings with realtors and dead convenience-store clerks, he will see the red flag. An unacceptable risk factor that has come to alert him in the night. Something he missed, that his sensors caught. And perhaps by then he will be long gone from this temporary haven.

In the car. Moving. He gives himself over to the vibes once again. That strange, powerful mind clicks, purrs; assessing, collating, accepting or rejecting what the eyes see and what the brain transmits.

His mindscreen searches for remote haunts where the ambience is just so. This plowed ground is too obviously arable, that chunk of bush insufficient protection in the wintry nights that will come. He registers a rusting metal sign: REELECT BUBBER (something) as he drives past eighty acres of early morning smoke and corn field stubble.

Rusty corn pickers. Hollow catalpa large enough to inhabit. Looming, twisted walnut trees stand by a decrepit tractor shed, against which eight giant tractor tires have slowly disintegrated. All of this flags his concentration. Across the road ten or twelve acres of tulip poplar, maple, and sycamore slowly inch their way up. The word NUSERY registers. He keeps moving. Searching. Hating.

He was in a funk. Parked. Irritated. The vibes were stubborn. His computer wasn't down so much as it was operating on the wrong level at the moment. He felt frustrated by his own warning devices.

Chaingang's equilibrium, a wild thing at best, was maintained by a bizarre system of interlocking defensive mechanisms that were the emotional equivalent of a surge suppressor.

Just as there were those dangerous sights, smells, and tactile sensations that could send him off into a boiling fury, there were sounds that grated on his psyche worse than the vilest curse: a hallway scream, a certain footfall, the cry of an animal in pain, a ripping sound of masking tape, a taut guy wire struck by a hammer just so—any number of noises could push him over the edge.

Banging noise. Loud, harsh voices. Guffaws. Rednecks in the field. The abrasive sounds reached out for him. Something moved beneath his vision arc. He looked down as the grasshopper jumped. The next time it moved, he was over it, and the insect was captured in a hand that was roughly the diameter and density of a bowling ball. The fingers, like steel cigars, held the thing, its hind legs scissoring for traction.

Squoosh! It was much the same with that first cut that exposed the internal human organs. The ritual itself gave pleasure, pleasing him the same way a child is pleased and riveted by the pulling apart of a grasshopper, and the gooey, gross-out look and feel of its exposed ventriculus.

Again the loud hammer strike on steel and the grating human voices. The eyes scan large walnut trees, searching hungrily for nutmeats, walnuts, squirrel sign, dog tracks, deer prints. He retrieves a long-distance killing tool from his duffel. Moves off in the direction of the voices, carefully threading the noise suppressor in place. That is his idea of a pun—this is a noise suppressor that he is about to utilize. A field-expedient noise suppressor.

The monster's computer does not react to the noise that carries, or the snatches of conversation and laughter.

“Nitrate.” The jarring sound of the hammer.

“—got two tanks of beans over at the other place."

His mind sees two magic Butler grain silos, but the computer ignores this vision. He is memorizing mnemonics and equations for the computation of induction and capacitance. Trying to tap into himself—see the thing that is so jarringly off kilter.

“—it's gone up, too. I just don't know what—"

Capacitance:

“—damn girl run away with him, and we got the boy to look after, so—"

The property of an electrical nonconductor that permits the storage of energy as a result of electrical displacement when opposite surfaces of the nonconductor are maintained at a difference of potential. He tries to scan.

“It's getting too tough out there to cut."

IFPEC is his induction mnemonic. He cannot think for the noise of the hammering on metal. This monkey man will pay for intruding on his concentration, he thinks, recognizing his petulant mood and not caring.

“You oughta see what (something) got docked for moisture. I mean—"

The bolt moves in between a huge index finger and thumb. One up the pipe.

“I don't like throwin’ em out the back."

“Never seen anything like this year."

Safety off. Finger in the trigger housing.

“I put down potash and phosphorus on that ground over by the other place, ya know?"

“Yeah."

“That fertilizer is up seventy a ton. I was gonna put wheat in behind it."

“Fuel cost me fourteen hundred dollars more this year,” the man pounding on something behind the combine said, “and two days later I swear if it don't drop nine cents."

Both in view now. This is what they mean by targets of opportunity. He keeps moving, stepping out where they can see him clearly. The one with the hammer turns.

“Hey,” he snarls, in a cautionary warning tone. Trigger pressure.

BAM.

BAMABAMABAMABAM.

BAM.

BAMBAMABAM.

Nobody near us to see us or hear us, he whistles, waddling across to the bodies.

The hammer of justice. His face is contorted in a maniac's parody of a smile. The hammer is dwarfed by his fist.

Italians have a joke they sometimes tell in restaurants and at the dinner table. Ever eat any Sicilian chicken? No? It's the same as regular chicken, but all the bones are broken.