AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He could smell the dogs. Or rather, their urine.
"Sorry, Ali," he said. He went into the cabin-it had two bed-couches set at angles that joined at the front, and moldy-smelling carpeting that looked like the perfect place to hatch fleas-and opened a tiny top hatch to air it out. There was a tiny washroom and sink. He tried the tap and got nothing.
"Thanks, Forbes," Duvalier said to him as she almost fell into the cabin and plunged, facedown, onto the bench.
Valentine knelt beside her and checked her pulse again. It was fast but strong. Still no trembling.
Another piece of Doctor Jalenga's lecture rose from the tar pit of Valentine's memory. A few people had proven immune to the various strains of ravies virus, or fought it off with nothing more than a bad fever. He crouched next to her-crouching was all that was possible in the tiny cabin-and touched her back. It was wet through, wet enough to leave his hand slick and damp.
She stirred. "Got any water?" Duvalier asked, rolling over. Her hazel eyes looked as though they were made of glass.
Valentine poured her another cup from his canteen. Perhaps a half cup remained. He needed to get them some supplies.
"Why are we back, David?" she asked.
"We're not back. We're in Memphis."
"That's what I mean. Back in the KZ."
"We're trying-"
"We're trying to die."
He put his hand on her forehead. It felt hot and pebbly. "We're doing no such thing."
"That's why we keep going back in," she insisted. "Every time we get out of the KZ, all we can think about is the next trip in. Now why is that? We feel guilty. We want to die like them."
"Rest. I'm going to see about food and something to drink." He unbuckled the shoulder holster.
He went up on deck, feeling alone and vulnerable. Such a tiny piece of information measured against the vastness of the structure above him-
After a moment's thought he locked the door to the cabin with the padlock again. The orblike superstructure atop the Pyramid seemed designed to stare straight down into the back of his boat.
Job at hand. Eat the elephant one bite at a time.
His neighbor had a comic book perched on his bulging stomach.
"Excuse me, Mr. Abernathy," Valentine called. "Is there a market around?"
"Inside the Pyramid. Plaza north. Jackson, was it?"
"Jacksonville."
"Where you two from ?"
"The Gulf." Valentine jumped up onto the wharf. "Excuse me, my friend's feeling a little sick."
"You two ever been to Dallas?"
Valentine pretended not to hear the question and waved as he walked down the wharf as quickly as he could. The boat attendant saw him coming and suddenly found something to do inside a rusted catamaran.
Valentine ignored him and crossed a wide plaza to the Pyramid. From close-in the base seemed enormous, flanked by concrete out-croppings with pairs of City Guard doing little but being visible.
A towering stone pharaoh, leaning slightly to the left thanks to the earthquake, Valentine imagined, looked out on the main parking lot with its hodgepodge of trailers from the bottom of an entrance ramp.
He walked up the ramp and noticed dozens of chaise lounges on the southwest outer concourse. Women and men, mostly in bathing suits or camp shorts, lounged and chatted and drank while waiters in white shirts and shorts dispensed food and drink from a great cart. It struck Valentine as similar to the lunches in the yard of the Nut.
No double line of fencing topped with razor wire separated these people from their freedom. Habit? The security of position? One deeply tanned man snored into a white naval hat with braiding on its black brim, a thick ring of brass around his white-haired knuckle.
