Carlin was in and out of consciousness all the time now. Once he had been able to discriminate between the dark and the light; sometimes he was awake and other times he was sleeping but as the treatments went on, as the pain grew, as the barriers of his body had created to shield him from the pain crumpled, he found that there was no longer any discrimination, that he had lost that sense of partitioning between waking and sleep through which human lives were lived.
Now he tumbled in and out, the periods blending together so that he barely knew whether he was sleeping or waking at all. Sometimes he would imagine himself striding powerfully around the room, throwing off the pain and taking control of the situation in his old, demanding way, and he knew that that had to be a waking state until he opened his eyes, thick with pain and encrusted slime, to find that he had been sleeping. Sometimes he thought he was dreaming of a pain so shuddering and intense that it was dismembering his body piece by piece, he falling into the center of it as one might fall into a particularly demanding woman, and that would have to be sleep except that he knew he was awake.
And all the time now there were the thoughts of Janice in his mind. He could smell her, hear her, see her screaming. He should not have killed Janice, he knew that now. His luck had turned bad when he had killed her. All of the time—and he had not known it—she was his luck, she had tied him to life. Now he lay in a basement and he was dying.
He was no longer conscious of men coming into the room, men leaving the room, men beating him and men leaving him alone, bits and pieces of gruel or pap being put into his mouth, tickling along the soles of his feet. He was in a pain so solid and final that it might have been pleasure or ice or anything; it was a pain that transcended pain and became something else again. This might be martyrdom, he thought, in one of his feeble periods of waking; maybe this was how the martyrs felt except that there was nothing glorious about this at all. It was all a myth. Torture was sweaty and disgusting and painful and breaking, and soon you were not a man at all and the thing that was not a man could take no pleasure from virtues. It sweated and voided and fouled itself and stank and cried and spat. That was your martyrdom for you.
So when the four men walked into the room, one of them Montez, two of them guards, a fourth someone he did not know who Montez told him was Wulff, Carlin was convinced he was dreaming again. It had to be a dream; it was impossible that this was happening. He had never met Wulff. Teams of the best men he could find had been unable to locate him, to bring him to bear. Wulff was the avenger, he was going to destroy him. How could he be in this basement? Someone or something threw water on his face and Carlin gasped into alertness, faded away again and more water came, shocking him, grinding him to awakeness. Something was propping him with pillows and then he was sitting, staring. He knew he was awake now. There were the two guards who always accompanied Montez, there was Montez himself, there was a very tall man in fatigues who looked at Carlin in a way that Carlin could not understand. He rubbed his eyes. He tried to speak but his voice wouldn’t come and he fell back. There was more water in his face and more propping and then he was awake. Definitely he was awake this time, he knew it.
“This is Wulff,” Montez said. “This is the man from whom you fled.”
“Yes,” the man said, “he’s right. I’m Wulff.”
Carlin said nothing. There was nothing to say. He knew that he was going to die soon in this room. In a way the man that had just come was responsible for all of it, but this did not change the situation. It changed nothing. “Wulff,” he said, framing the word like a child, pursing his lips, “Wulff.”
“He’s going to join you, Carlin,” Montez said, “you’ll get a good chance to know him.”
“Wulff,” Carlin said again.
“Maybe you will be able to understand him,” Montez said, “because I cannot. I have tried hard to reach some kind of understanding. I have tried to accommodate myself to this man, and it simply cannot be done. But perhaps when his condition approximates yours we will be able to reach some of that understanding.”
“Wulff.”
“No,” the man called Wulff said, and turned in profile to Carlin. He was a big man, all right, a big son of a bitch, tough, no question about it, but how could he kill thousands of men? How could he do what he did, he was only one man. “No, I’m not going to stay down here with him. You’ve got this wrong, Montez. You misunderstand everything. You’re not calling the shots here. I am.”
What was this man thinking of? Carlin thought faintly. Montez was in control of everything now, two guards, three guns, Carlin tortured and helpless, Wulff about to be murdered. Didn’t Wulff understand? There were certain things in this world that you simply could not fight. He blinked, tried to signal Wulff with his eyes that it was hopeless. “Please,” he said then, weakly, “please don’t—”
Montez smiled. “You see?” he said to Wulff, “do you see now? Even your friend is pleading with you to be reasonable. Carlin is a reasonable man. Aren’t you a reasonable man, Carlin? You are trying to help him.”
“Please,” Carlin said, “don’t do it.” His voice was coming back; desperation gave him urgency. He didn’t have much life, but what little was left he wanted to hold onto. That’s how they got you. That was how they always sucked you in, life would hold, life would assert its power. “Please.”
“This man is trying to help you,” Montez said. “He has been where you will be and he is your friend. He understands the situation. He is trying to tell you with all his spirit not to make a fool of yourself.”
“Put down the gun,” Wulff said to Montez. “Put it down now.”
Montez smiled at him and raised the gun. “You’re crazy,” he said, “you are crazy. Move away or I’ll shoot you.”
Wulff turned toward the guards. Was he crazy? Yes, Carlin thought, he had to be crazy. He had never seen anything like this. This was impossible. “Put down your guns,” he said to the guards, “put them down if you won’t train them on him. This is between the two of us.”
The guards dropped their guns. First the younger, then the older unhooked the rifles from their shoulders. They clattered to the floor. Open-palmed, they turned toward Wulff nodding.
Montez said, “Everybody is crazy. Both of you are as crazy as he is. I will kill you both.”
“No you won’t,” Wulff said. He raised his hand and the gesture induced such a terrible if momentary calm that Carlin had to gasp again. He must be dreaming. All of this had to be a dream. Montez did not move.
“Give me the gun,” Wulff said. “Hand me the gun end over end, Montez. Otherwise I’ll have to go for it and you’ll be killed. If you cooperate it will be much easier and I won’t kill you. I’ll just make you suffer for a while.”
“You are crazy.”
“No,” Wulff said, “you are crazy. Your power comes from your craziness, but now I have power that is making you sane. You understand that you cannot stay against me, Montez, because I am right and you are wrong. Your men understand that. You should, too.”
“No.”
“Then you’re crazy too.”
“Don’t,” Carlin said, “please don’t. Please don’t now, you’ll get us all killed.”
“No I won’t,” Wulff said. “Besides, you’re dead already,” and then he made a gesture at Montez, what happened then was too fast for Carlin, his dazzled senses could not follow it. One moment Montez was in position, trying to level the gun, and then Wulff had closed on him and Montez was no longer standing, the man had turned over on the floor, the gun was free, the gun was kicked away and Wulff was moving in even closer. Montez was on the floor squealing. Wulff kicked him hard in the face once and the squealing stopped. Wulff moved away, breathing hard and looked at the guards.
“I don’t believe this,” Carlin said. “I don’t believe it.”
“All right,” Wulff said, “you may go.”
“It is going to be very bad for us,” the older one said. “They will not understand.”
“There is no one to understand,” Wulff said. “Are you the only ones in the house?”
“In the house, yes. Outside there are five on duty, some sentries, some working in the garden disguised. They will not know what has happened if we leave.”
“All right,” Wulff said, “that’s good. That can be worked with.” He bent over, picked up Montez’s gun, put it in his pocket. “Go upstairs and just stay in the house for a while. As long as the house is secure, we’ll think of something.”
“It is going to be very bad,” the younger one said. “It is going to be very bad.”
“We will take one thing at a time,” Wulff said. “We will not be concerned with the future, but only with present time and the present will become the future. Make sure the house is secure and stay up there.”
“All right,” the older guard said. He turned and went, the other followed him. Carlin heard the door click at the top of the stairs. He looked at Wulff, unbelieving. Montez groaned and turned on the floor. Wulff went over and very efficiently kicked him under the heart and Montez was still.
Carlin said, “I don’t believe it. I don’t believe what you’ve done.”
“You had better.”
“I never saw—”
“You had better believe it,” Wulff said. He raised a hand, wiped a little sweat from his forehead, came in on Carlin. “It happened all right. You knew it was going to happen.”
Carlin tried to move but could not. The pain, dull for a while, was efficient, terrible. He was dead. He knew it. Deep internal hemorrhage. But he was in more contact than he had been for a long time. “Why?” he said. “Why did you do it?”
“That’s very simple,” Wulff said, looking over at Montez, then back at Carlin. “You know the answer to that one.”
“I don’t know the answer to anything.”
“Sure you do,” Wulff said and looked at Carlin up and down and Carlin felt the fear beginning; it was impossible after what he had gone through that he could feel yet more fear, and yet he did, this was something else, this was hitting him at a level that Montez for all his ingeniousness never had. “What are you doing?” Carlin said. “Why?”
“You know why I did it,” Wulff said. “You know why.”
“Yes,” Carlin said, deep in his throat. He could barely speak. “Yes I do.”
“He tortured you and you’re in bad shape and you’re going to die, Carlin. You’re going to die very soon.” Wulff reached into his pocket, took out the gun, pointed it at Carlin. “But that isn’t enough,” he said. “That’s no satisfaction at all. I don’t want you to just die and I don’t want to know that he did it to you. I want to kill you myself. It’s very important that you die by my hand.”
“You’re crazy,” Carlin said. It was not analysis but terror. He had never been so frightened in his life, even at the worst of it.
“They all say that,” Wulff said. “They all say crazy when they mean sane. But that’s all right. I wasn’t here to debate with Montez and I’m not here to debate with you either. I’m just here to kill you.”
“Why?”
“Because you killed a few good men,” Wulff said, “and you’re a death merchant and a killer who would have gotten crazier and crazier, and you’re practically the last one left, and I think I wanted you more than anyone, even more than Calabrese because I had respect for that old bastard and he really wasn’t into drugs and death, he was just into money—drugs and death were incidentals. But you’re a new breed, Carlin. With you it was shit all the way, shit and death and that’s the worst. I couldn’t take it. I couldn’t take that and I wanted you very badly.”
Deep in pain, deep into the sense of his own death, Carlin said anyway, “Please don’t. I’m hurt. I’m going to die. Let me die—”
“No,” Wulff said, “no, it wouldn’t be the same. It wouldn’t feel good. Death isn’t worth anything unless it feels good, Carlin. I owe you this one.”
He pulled the trigger and Carlin saw nothing else, at the center of the single white hot flash there was a crevice into which he fell, but blind, blind forever he screamed and all the way down toward the end wondering, at the last of it, whether you went alone or whether you joined those who followed or whether, when you came right down to it, it made any difference at all.
He never heard Wulff shoot Montez.