Eastern Standard Tribe Part 31

"Arthur, I'm so worried about you. I spoke to your cousins yesterday, they tell me you're not doing so good there."

"No, no I'm not." The st.i.tches in my jaw throb in counterpoint with my back.

"I tried to explain it all to Father Ferlenghetti, but I didn't have the details right. He said it didn't make any sense."

"It doesn't. They don't care. They've just put me here."

"He said that they should have let you put your own experts up when you had your hearing."

"Well, of *course* they should have."

"No, he said that they *had* to, that it was the law in Ma.s.sachusetts. He used to live there, you know."

"I didn't know."

"Oh yes, he had a congregation in Newton. That was before he moved to Toronto.

He seemed very sure of it."

"Why was he living in Newton?"

"Oh, he moved there after university. He's a Harvard man, you know."

"I think you've got that wrong. Harvard doesn't have a divinity school."

"No, this was *after* divinity school. He was doing a psychiatry degree at Harvard."

Oh, my.

"Oh, my."

"What is it, Arthur?"

"Do you have Father Ferlenghetti's number, Gran?"

28.

Tonaishah's Kubrick-figure facepaint distorted into wild grimaces when Art banged into O'Malley House, racc.o.o.n-eyed with sleepdep, airline crud crusted at the corners of his lips, whole person quivering with righteous smitefulness. He commed the door savagely and yanked it so hard that the gas-lift snapped with a popping sound like a metal ruler being whacked on a desk. The door caromed back into his heel and nearly sent him sprawling, but he converted its momentum into a jog through the halls to his miniature office -- the last three times he'd spoken to Fede, the b.a.s.t.a.r.d had been working out of his office -- stealing his papers, no doubt, though that hadn't occurred to Art until his plane was somewhere over Ireland.

Fede was halfway out of Art's chair when Art bounded into the office. Fede's face was gratifyingly pale, his eyes thoroughly wide and scared. Art didn't bother to slow down, just slammed into Fede, bashing foreheads with him. Art smelled a puff of his own travel sweat and Fede's spicy Lilac Vegetal, saw blood welling from Fede's eyebrow.

"Hi, pal!" he said, kicking the door shut with a crash that resounded through the paper-thin walls.

"Art! Jesus f.u.c.king Christ, what the h.e.l.l is wrong with you?" Fede backed away to the far corner of the office, sending Art's chair over backwards, wheels spinning, ergonomic adjustment k.n.o.bs and rods sticking up in the air like the legs of an overturned beetle.

"TunePay, Inc.?" Art said, booting the chair into Fede's shins. "Is that the best f.u.c.king name you could come up with? Or did Toby and Linda cook it up?"

Fede held his hands out, palms first. "What are you talking about, buddy? What's wrong with you?"

Art shook his head slowly. "Come on, Fede, it's time to stop blowing smoke up my c.o.c.k."

"I honestly have no idea --"

"*Bulls.h.i.t!*" Art bellowed, closing up with Fede, getting close enough to see the flecks of spittle flying off his lips spatter Fede's face. "I've had enough bulls.h.i.t, Fede!"

Abruptly, Fede lurched forward, sweeping Art's feet out from underneath him and landing on Art's chest seconds after Art slammed to the scratched and splintered hardwood floor. He pinned Art's arms under his knees, then leaned forward and crushed Art's windpipe with his forearm, bearing down.

"You dumb sack of s.h.i.t," he hissed. "We were going to cut you in, after it was done. We knew you wouldn't go for it, but we were still going to cut you in -- you think that was your little wh.o.r.e's idea? No, it was mine! I stuck up for you! But not anymore, you hear? Not anymore. You're through. Jesus, I gave you this f.u.c.king job! I set up the deal in Cali. f.u.c.k-off heaps of money! I'm through with you, now. You're done. I'm ratting you out to V/DT, and I'm flying to California tonight. Enjoy your deportation hearing, you dumb Canuck boy-scout."

Art's vision had contracted to a fuzzy black vignette with Fede's florid face in the center of it. He gasped convulsively, fighting for air. He felt his bladder go, and hot urine stream down his groin and over his thighs.

An instant later, Fede sprang back from him, face twisted in disgust, hands brushing at his urine-stained pants. "d.a.m.n it," he said, as Art rolled onto his side and retched. Art got up on all fours, then lurched erect. As he did, the axe head in his pocket swung wildly and knocked against the gla.s.s pane beside his office's door, spiderwebbing it with cracks.

Moving with dreamlike slowness, Art reached into his pocket, clasped the axe head, turned it in his hand so that the edge was pointing outwards. He lifted it out of his pocket and held his hand behind his back. He staggered to Fede, who was glaring at him, daring him to do something, his chest heaving.

Art windmilled his arm over his head and brought the axe head down solidly on Fede's head. It hit with an impact that jarred his arm to the shoulder, and he dropped the axe head to the floor, where it fell with a thud, crusted with blood and hair for the first time in 200,000 years.

Fede crumpled back into the office's wall, slid down it into a sitting position.

His eyes were open and staring. Blood streamed over his face.

Art looked at Fede in horrified fascination. He noticed that Fede was breathing shallowly, almost panting, and realized dimly that this meant he wasn't a murderer. He turned and fled the office, nearly bowling Tonaishah over in the corridor.

"Call an ambulance," he said, then shoved her aside and fled O'Malley House and disappeared into the Piccadilly lunchtime crowd.

29.

I am: sprung.

Father Ferlenghetti hasn't been licensed to practice psychiatry in Ma.s.sachusetts for forty years, but the court gave him standing. The judge actually winked at me when he took the stand, and stopped scritching on her comm as the priest said a lot of fantastically embarra.s.sing things about my general fitness for human consumption.

The sanitarium sent a single junior doc to my hearing, a kid so young I'd mistaken him for a hospital driver when he climbed into the van with me and gunned the engine. But no, he was a doctor who'd apparently been briefed on my case, though not very well. When the judge asked him if he had any opinions on Father Ferlenghetti's testimony, he fumbled with his comm while the Father stared at him through eyebrows thick enough to hide a hamster in, then finally stammered a few verbatim notes from my intake interview, blushed, and sat down.

"Thank you," the judge said, shaking her head as she said it. Gran, seated beside me, put one hand on my knee and one hand on the knee of Doc Szandor's brother-in-law, a hotshot Harvard Law post-doc whom we'd retained as corporate counsel for a new Limited Liability Corporation. We'd signed the articles of incorporation the day before, after Group. It was the last thing Doc Szandor did before resigning his post at the sanitarium to take up the position of Chief Medical Officer at HumanCare, LLC, a corporation with no a.s.sets, no employees, and a sheaf of s.h.i.tkicking ideas for redesigning mental hospitals using off-the-shelf tech and a little bit of UE mojo.

30.

Art was most of the way to the Tube when he ran into Lester. Literally.

Lester must have seen him coming, because he stepped right into Art's path from out of the crowd. Art ploughed into him, bounced off of his dented armor, and would have fallen over had Lester not caught his arm and steadied him.

"Art, isn't it? How you doin', mate?"

Art gaped at him. He was thinner than he'd been when he tried to shake Art and Linda down in the doorway of the Boots, grimier and more desperate. His tone was just as bemused as ever, though. "Jesus Christ, Lester, not now, I'm in a hurry.

You'll have to rob me later, all right?"

Lester chuckled wryly. "Still a clever b.a.s.t.a.r.d. You look like you're having some hard times, my old son. Maybe that you're not even worth robbing, eh?"

"Right. I'm skint. Sorry. Nice running into you, now I must be going." He tried to pull away, but Lester's fingers dug into his biceps, emphatically, painfully.