A Pair of Aces, Page 2

  The young man stopped talking, dropped the blade to his side. He looked over his shoulder. "That cloud is very dark…slow moving. I sort of bet on rain." He turned back to Richards. "Did I ask you if you thought it would rain tonight?"

  Richards found he couldn't say a word. It was as if his tongue had turned to cork in his mouth. The young man didn't seem to notice or care.

  "After Donny had the visions, he just talked and talked about this house. We used to play here when we were kids. Had the boards on the back window rigged so they'd slide like a trap door. They're still that way…Donny used to say this house had angles that sharpened the dull edges of your mind. I know what he means now. It is comfortable, don't you think?"

  Richards, who was anything but comfortable, said nothing. Just stood very still, sweating, fearing, listening, aiming the light.

  "Donny said the angles were honed best during the full moon. I didn't know what he was talking about then. I didn't understand about the sacrifices. Maybe you know about them? Been all over the papers and on the TV. The Decapitator they called him.

  "It was Donny doing it, and from the way he started acting, talking about the God of the Razor, Jack the Ripper, this old house and its angles, I got suspicious. He got so he wouldn't even come around near or during a full moon, and when the moon started waning, he was different. Peaceful. I followed him a few times but didn't have any luck. He drove to the Safeway, left his car there and walked. He was as quick and sneaky as a cat. He'd lose me right off. But then I got to figuring…him talking about this old house and all…and one full moon I came here and waited for him, and he showed up. You know what he was doing? He was bringing the heads here, tossing them down there in the water like those South American Indians used to toss bodies and stuff in sacrificial pools… It's the angles in the house, you see."

  Richards had that sensation like ice-cold piss down his collar again, and suddenly he knew what that swimming rat had been pursuing and what it was trying to do.

  "He threw all seven heads down there, I figure," the young man said. "I saw him toss one." He pointed with the razor. "He was standing about where you are now when he did it. When he turned and saw me, he ran up after me. I froze, couldn't move a muscle. Every step he took, closer he got to me, the stranger he looked…he slashed me with the razor, across the chest, real deep. I fell down and he stood over me, the razor cocked," the young man cocked the razor to show Richards. "I think I screamed. But he didn't cut me again. It was like the rest of him was warring with the razor in his hand. He stood up, and walking stiff as one of those wind-up toy soldiers, he went back down the stairs, stood about where you are now, looked up at me, and drew that razor straight across his throat so hard and deep he damn near cut his head off. He fell back in the water there, sunk like an anvil. The razor landed on the last step.

  "Wasn't any use; I tried to get him out of there, but he was gone, like he'd never been. I couldn't see a ripple. But the razor was lying there and I could hear it. Hear it sucking up Donny's blood like a kid sucking the sweet out of a sucker. Pretty soon there wasn't a drop of blood on it. I picked it up…so shiny, so damned shiny. I came upstairs, passed out on the floor from the loss of blood.

  "At first I thought I was dreaming, or maybe delirious, because I was lying at the end of this dark alley between these trash cans with my back against the wall. There were legs sticking out of the trash cans, like tossed mannequins. Only they weren't mannequins. There were razor blades and nails sticking out of the soles of the feet and blood was running down the ankles and legs, swirling so that they looked like giant peppermint sticks. Then I heard a noise like someone trying to dribble a medicine ball across a hardwood floor. Plop, plop, plop. And then I saw the God of the Razor.

  "First there's nothing in front of me but stewing shadows, and the next instant he's there. Tall and black…not Negro…but black like obsidian rock. Had eyes like smashed windshield glass and teeth like polished stickpins. Was wearing a top hat with this shiny band made out of chrome razor blades. His coat and pants looked like they were made out of human flesh, and sticking out of the pockets of his coat were gnawed fingers, like after-dinner treats. And he had this big old turnip pocket watch dangling out of his pants pocket on a strand of gut. The watch swung between his legs as he walked. And that plopping sound, know what that was? His shoes. He had these tiny, tiny feet and they were fitted right into the mouths of these human heads. One of the heads was a woman's and it dragged long black hair behind it when the God walked.

  "Kept telling myself to wake up. But I couldn't. The God pulled this chair out of nowhere—it was made out of leg bones and the seat looked like scraps of flesh and hunks of hair—and he sat down, crossed his legs and dangled one of those ragged-head shoes in my face. Next thing he does is whip this ventriloquist dummy out of the air, and it looked like Donny, and was dressed like Donny had been last time I'd seen him, down there on the stair. The God put the dummy on his knee and Donny opened his eyes and spoke. 'Hey, buddy boy,' he said, 'how goes it? What do you think of the razor's bite? You see, pal, if you don't die from it, it's like a vampire's bite. Get my drift? You got to keep passing it on. The sharp things will tell you when, and if you don't want to do it, they'll bother you until you do, or you slice yourself bad enough to come over here on the Darkside with me and Jack and the others. Well, got to go back now, join the gang. Be talking with you real soon, moving into your head.'

  "Then he just sort of went limp on the God's knee, and the God took off his hat and he had this zipper running along the middle of his bald head. A goddamned zipper! He pulled it open. Smoke and fire and noises like screaming and car wrecks happening came out of there. He picked up the Donny dummy, which was real small now, and tossed him into the hole in his head way you'd toss a treat into a Great Dane's mouth. Then he zipped up again and put on his hat. Never said a word. But he leaned forward and held his turnip watch so I could see it. The watch hands were skeleton fingers, and there was a face in there, pressing its nose in little smudged circles against the glass, and though I couldn't hear it, the face had its mouth open and it was screaming, and that face was mine. Then the God and the alley and the legs in the trash cans were gone. And so was the cut on my chest. Healed completely. Not even a mark.

  "I left out of there and didn't tell a soul. And Donny, just like he said, came to live in my head, and the razor started singing to me nights, probably a song sort of like those sirens sang for that Ulysses fellow. And come near and on the full moon, the blades act up, mew and get inside of me. Then I know what I need to do…I did it tonight. Maybe if it had rained I wouldn't have had to do it…but it was clear enough for me to be busy."

  The young man stopped talking, turned, stepped inside the house, out of sight. Richards sighed, but his relief was short-lived. The young man returned and came down a couple of steps. In one hand, by the long blond hair, he was holding a teenage girl's head. The other clutched the razor.

  The cloud veil fell away from the moon, and it became quite bright.

  The young man, with a flick of his wrist, tossed the head at Richards, striking him in the chest, causing him to drop the light. The head bounced between Richards's legs and into the water with a flat splash.

  "Listen…" Richards started, but anything he might have said aged, died, and turned to dust in his mouth.

  Fully outlined in the moonlight, the young man started down the steps, holding the razor before him like a battle flag.

  Richards blinked. For a moment it looked as if the guy were wearing a… He was wearing a hat. A tall, black one with a shiny metal band. And he was much larger now, and between his lips was a shimmer of wet, silver teeth like thirty-two polished stickpins.

  Plop, plop came the sound of his feet on the steps, and in the lower and deeper shadows of the stairs, it looked as if the young man had not only grown in size and found a hat, but had darkened his face and stomped his feet into pumpkins…. But one of the pumpkins streamed long, dark hair.
r />   Plop, plop…. Richards screamed and the sound of it rebounded against the basement walls like a superball.

  Shattered starlight eyes beneath the hat. A Cheshire smile of shiny needles in a carbon face. A big dark hand holding the razor, whipping it back and forth like a lion's talon snatching at warm, soft prey.

  Swish, swish, swish.

  Richards's scream was dying in his throat, if not in the echoing basement, when the razor flashed for him. He avoided it by stepping briskly backward. His foot went underwater, but found a step there. Momentarily. The rotting wood gave way, twisted his ankle, sent him plunging into the cold, foul wetness.

  Just before his eyes, like portholes on a sinking ship, were covered by the liquid darkness, he saw the God of the Razor—now manifest in all his horrid form—lift a splitting head shoe and step into the water after him.

  Richards torqued his body, swam long, hard strokes, coasted bottom; his hand touched something cold and clammy down there and a piece of it came away in his fingers.

  Flipping it from him with a fan of his hand, he fought his way to the surface and broke water as the blonde girl's head bobbed in front of him, two rat passengers aboard, gnawing viciously at the eye sockets.

  Suddenly, the girl's head rose, perched on the crown of the tall hat of the God of the Razor, then it tumbled off, rats and all, into the greasy water.

  Now there was the jet face of the God of the Razor and his mouth was open and the teeth blinked briefly before the lips drew tight, and the other hand, like an eggplant sprouting fingers, clutched Richards's coat collar and plucked him forward and Richards—the charnel breath of the God in his face, the sight of the lips slashing wide to once again reveal brilliant dental grill work—went limp as a pelt. And the God raised the razor to strike.

  And the moon tumbled behind a thick, dark cloud.

  White face, shaggy hair, no hat, a fading glint of silver teeth…the young man holding the razor, clutching Richards's coat collar.

  The juice back in his heart, Richards knocked the man's hand free, and the guy went under. Came up thrashing. Went under again. And when he rose this time, the razor was frantically flaying the air.

  "Can't swim," he bellowed, "can't—" Under he went, and this time he did not come up. But Richards felt something touch his foot from below. He kicked out savagely, dog paddling wildly all the while. Then the touch was gone and the sloshing water went immediately calm.

  Richards swam toward the broken stairway, tried to ignore the blond head that lurched by, now manned by a four-rat crew. He got hold of the loose, dangling stair rail and began to pull himself up. The old board screeched on its loosening nail, but held until Richards gained a hand on the door ledge, then it gave way with a groan and went to join the rest of the rotting lumber, the heads, the bodies, the faded stigmata of the God of the Razor.

  Pulling himself up, Richards crawled into the room on his hands and knees, rolled over on his back…and something flashed between his legs…. It was the razor. It was stuck to the bottom of his shoe…. That had been the touch he had felt from below; the young guy still trying to cut him, or perhaps accidentally striking him during his desperate thrashings to regain the surface.

  Sitting up, Richards took hold of the ivory handle and freed the blade. He got to his feet and stumbled toward the door. His ankle and foot hurt like hell where the step had given way beneath him, hurt him so badly he could hardly walk.

  Then he felt the sticky, warm wetness oozing out of his foot to join the cold water in his shoe, and he knew that he had been cut by the razor.

  But then he wasn't thinking anymore. He wasn't hurting anymore. The moon rolled out from behind a cloud like a colorless eye and he just stood there looking at his shadow on the lawn. The shadow of an impossibly large man wearing a top hat and balls on his feet, holding a monstrous razor in his hand.

  King of Shadows

  Author's Note:

  Outside of the novel itself, and a story that can't be published here, this is my favorite God of the Razor story. It came to me in a flash and I wrote it very quickly. I kept a decidedly Southern tone about it, and tried to write a story that came at the God of the Razor from an unexpected angle. Readers will have to decide if I was successful.

  This first appeared in a book titled Lords of the Razor. This was a tribute to me and to my character, the God of the Razor, and had a number of authors writing about my character, all from their own perspective. Some of the stories were close to the original conception, and some went far afield and were unique in their own way. Some were humorous. It was a wonderful book and I was proud of it, and it was wonderful to have a publisher do something like this out of respect for my work and my creation.

  All I can say is what Elvis would say. Thank you, thank you very much.

  Actually, this is a common Southern way of thanking people, but Elvis's fame has sort of led it to be associated with him. I catch myself saying it all the time, and I think that some believe I'm imitating Elvis, perhaps because of my Elvis story, "Bubba Hotep."

  I ain't. I'm just being Southern Texas Boy grateful.

  So, once again: Thank you, thank you very much.

  Leroy was as shocked as if someone had handed him an electrically charged wire. He got the shock when he learned he was about to have a little brother, and that his surprise sibling would make his first appearance at the age of eleven. Being fourteen himself and knowing full well how babies were made and where they came from, it twisted up all kinds of images in his head, and he didn't like a one of them. Some of them he hated with a deep sincerity that only a Biblical literalist could grasp.

  His mama told him about his new brother and told him the boy's name was Draighton, and that Draighton would share his room with him, because there wasn't any other way, the house being small and all.

  "I have a little brother? And he's eleven? And he's named Draighton? That's a real name?"

  Now that the image of an eleven year old springing from his mother's womb ready to start fifth grade had fallen out of his head, a new idea came to him. His father had had a child by someone other than his mother, and there had been a discovery, and now this new child, branded with the name Draighton, would soon be coming to live with them, in his room, sharing his bed, eating part of the food that before Draighton's arrival had been his except for sharing with his parents and the garbage disposal.

  He thought his mother was taking this all rather well, this new found son by another woman, till she said, "Now, he's not your brother by blood. He's a friend's boy, but he was good friends with your daddy, and this fella, Jimmy Turner, well, he was a nervous sort. And just the other day he took to drink and lost his head. He killed his wife, then himself. Cut her and his throat with a big old razor. He left a will that wanted Draighton to come live with Herman and me, and the court, after a bit of finagling here and there, decided to let him."

  "Why didn't his daddy kill him too?" Leroy asked.

  His mother thought this was nothing more than a simple question, but it was really a statement of disappointment.

  "He was on a camping trip with the Boy Scouts when it happened. It was a two week trip. In some mountains or another out in New Mexico, or Arizona. Some desert place. Jimmy starting acting a little odd at work. Everyone said so. And he must have known things were slipping, and that's why he made out the will. Did it two, maybe three months before the tragic accident."

  "It don't sound like an accident."

  "Well, technically, I suppose you're right."

  "Technically," Leroy said, "ain't it a murder and suicide?"

  "Technically, yes."

  Well now, this was all intense and surprising news, and Leroy took it the way he took most unpleasantness. Badly. He went to his room and jacked off twice, thinking he ought to get some of it out of his system now, since the operation was going to be more difficult in days to come, and he was not the sort of boy that liked the idea of talking about such things with a friend, or even a new brother,
and the idea of them sharing in such an endeavor was unappealing, though some of the boys at school liked it, and had even participated in what they called a circle jerk. The thought of this alone made Leroy's stomach churn. The mere vision of some other boy seeing his equipment, or heaven forbid, touching it, sent shockwaves through him. What surprised him was that the other boys thought the whole thing funny and could see no homosexual attachments to the project, yet, due to his glasses and not overly attractive appearance, were quick to call him queer or fag, or at the least, four-eyes.

  Leroy had only in the last year gotten to the point where he viewed the whole notion of sex as more than a fire that drove him to such episodes as he had just completed, lying on his bed drying from a humiliating activity with sticky Kleenex in his lap. He had lately realized the connection between his apparatus and that of the female of the species, it having been explained to him in the manner of plug and outlet by a senior boy, and the thought of it disgusted him. But none of this was as confusing or disturbing as the notion of a new brother, full blown with a personality, and close enough in age the kid might want to fight, and might even be able to beat him up. This was a real concern, as he had already taken two sound whippings from a girl at school, who besides being cursed with a massive facial outbreak of impetigo, a curse that extended throughout most of the first through eighth grade to such an extent that when those divisions of the school were on the playground it looked like a goddamn leper colony. And if that wasn't bad enough, like all the impetigo-cursed, this girl's sores were covered in a purple iodine medication that gave her the look from a distance of being a spotted pup parading on hind paws. Besides the impetigo sores, she was sick-bird-scrawny, had one eye that wandered, and rode the short bus to school and had to have help to find it at departure time every afternoon.