"Why me?" asked Kline.
"You have a certain amount of experience in investigation," said Gous.
"Not investigation exactly, but infiltration," said Ramse.
"And you don"t flinch, Mr. Kline," said Gous.
"No, he doesn"t flinch."
"But " said Kline.
"You"ll be briefed," said Ramse. "You"ll be told what to do."
"But the police "
"No police," said Ramse. "It was hard enough to get the others to agree on you."
"If it hadn"t been for the hand," said Gous.
"If it hadn"t been for the hand," said Ramse, "you wouldn"t be here. But you"re one of us, like it or not."
III.
He woke up when the car stopped before a set of metal gates. It was fully dark outside.
"Almost there," said Ramse from the front.
The gate opened a little and a small man stepped out, turning pale and white in the overbright halogen glow of the headlights. The man came over to the driver"s door. Kline could see he was missing an eye, one closed lid seeming flat and deflated. He was wearing a uniform. Ramse rolled down the window, and the man peered into the car.
"Mr. Ramse," said the guard. "And Mr. Gous. Who"s in the back?"
"That would be Mr. Kline," said Ramse. "Hold up your arm, Mr. Kline," said Ramse.
Kline lifted his hand.
"No, the other one," said Ramse.
He lifted the stumped arm and the guard nodded. "A one?" he asked.
"Right," said Ramse. "But self-cauterized."
The guard whistled. He made his way away from the window and back to the gates, which he drew open wide just enough for the car to pa.s.s through. Through the rear window, Kline watched him draw it shut after them.
"Welcome home, Mr. Kline," said Ramse.
Kline didn"t say anything.
They pa.s.sed a row of houses, turned down a smaller road where the houses were a little more spread out, then down a third smaller tree-lined alley that dead ended in front of a small, two story building. Ramse stopped the car. The three of them climbed out.
"You"ll be staying here, Mr. Kline," said Ramse. "First floor, second door to the left once you go through the entrance.
"There"s probably an hour or two of night left," he said. "We"ll see you in the morning. For now, why don"t you try to get some sleep?"
When he went in, he couldn"t figure out how to turn the hall light on so, instead, wandered down the dark hall dragging his hand along the wall, feeling for doorways. His fingers stuttered past one. He lifted his fingers from the wall and brought them near his face. They smelled of dust. He went on until he came to another doorframe, fumbled around for the handle.
Inside, he found a switch. It was a small windowless room, containing a narrow single bed with a thin, ratty blanket. In one corner was a metal cabinet. The floor was linoleum, a streaked blue. The light, he saw, was a naked bulb, hanging from the center of the ceiling. The walls" paint was cracking.
Welcome home, he thought.
He closed the door. There was no lock on it. He opened the cabinet. It was full of stacks of calendars, each month featuring a woman in various states of undress, smiling furiously. He looked at the first picture for some time before realizing the girl was missing one of her thumbs. With each month, the losses became more obvious and more numerous, March losing a breast, July missing both b.r.e.a.s.t.s, a hand, and a forearm. The December girl was little more than a torso, her b.r.e.a.s.t.s shaved off, wearing nothing but a thin white cloth banner from one shoulder to the opposite hip, reading Miss Less is More.
He put the calendar back and closed the cabinet. Turning off the light he lay in the bed, but kept seeing Miss Less is More"s face contorted with joy. There was Ramse"s face too, his mutilated ear just above the car seatback angling itself toward him. His own stump was tingling. He got up and turned on the light, tried to sleep with it on.
He dreamt that he was sitting at the table again, the gentleman with the cleaver standing before him, cleaver coming down. Only in his dream he wasn"t just the man losing his hand but also the man with the cleaver. He watched himself bring the cleaver down and the hand come free and the fingers pulse. The sheared plane of his wrist grew pale and then suddenly puffed, blood pulsing out. He stripped off his belt with his remaining hand and tightened it quickly around his arm until the bleeding slowed and mostly stopped. He watched himself do it, holding the cleaver in his hand. Then he watched himself, pale, holding the belt tight, go to the stove and turn it on, wait for the coils of the burner to smoke and begin to glow. He put his stump down and heard it sizzle and smelt the burnt flesh, and when he lifted the stump away it was smoking. Bits of flesh and blood were stuck to the burner and smouldering.
Then then, with his left hand, face livid with pain, he took out his gun and, left-handed, shot himself through the eye. It was a h.e.l.l of a thing to watch, a h.e.l.l of a thing to feel. And as soon as it was over it started again, and kept starting until he forced himself awake.
Gous and Ramse were in the room, the first standing at the open cabinet looking through the calendar, rubbing at his crotch with his stump, the second standing near the bed, looking at Kline.
"Rise and shine," said Ramse.
Kline sat on the edge of the bed, pulling his pants on awkwardly with stump and arm. Ramse watched. Only when he was done did he say, "There"s new clothes for you."
"Where?" asked Kline.
"Gous has them," said Ramse. "Gous?" he said, louder.
"What?" said Gous, turning stiffly away from the calendar, face red with shame or heat, or perhaps both.
"Clothes, Gous," said Ramse.
"Oh, right," said Gous, and picking up a pile of clothing near his feet, threw it to Kline.
Kline stripped out of the clothes he had just put on as Ramse watched. The new clothing consisted of a pair of gray slacks, a white shirt, a red clip-on tie. The b.u.t.tons weren"t easy one-handed, particularly since the shirt was freshly starched, but after the first three it got easier. He tried to leave the tie on the bed, but Ramse stopped him.
"Put it on," he said.
"Why?"
"I"m wearing one, Gous is wearing one," said Ramse. And indeed, Kline had failed to notice, their outfits were the same as his: white shirts, gray slacks, red clip-on tie. He found himself wondering how Ramse had managed to put on his shirt by himself. Perhaps he hadn"t.
"Look," said Ramse, once they were out the door and walking down the drive. "Things are done in certain way here. We hope you"ll try to respect that."
"All right," said Kline.
"The other thing," said Ramse. "The investigation."
"He"s taking you to Borchert," said Gous.
"I"m taking you to Borchert," said Ramse. "He"ll tell you about the investigation."
"Who"s Borchert?"
"It"s not who"s Borchert," said Ramse, "but what he is. And what he is is a twelve."
"A twelve?"
"That"s right," said Gous, then rattled off in a schoolboy"s voice, "Leg, toe, toe, toe, toe, toe, left arm, finger, finger, ear, eye, ear."
"A twelve," said Ramse. "Of course that includes a lot of digits, but when you add in two lopped limps, it"s impressive."
"He"s second in command," said Gous. "After Aline."
"I see," said Kline. "What"s the investigation about?"
"We don"t know," said Gous.
"Borchert will tell you," said Ramse.
"You don"t know?" asked Kline.
"I know a little. I should know more," said Ramse wistfully. "I"m an eight. There"s no reason to keep me in the dark. Gous is another story."
"I"m just a one," admitted Gous.
"He"s just a one," said Ramse, smiling. "At least for now."
"I"m a one too," said Kline.
"That"s right," said Gous to Ramse. "He"s a one but he"s going to find out."
"He"s an exception," said Ramse. "He"s the exception that proves the rule."
"Why?" asked Kline. They came to a small path cutting away from the road, paved with crushed white sh.e.l.ls. Ramse and Gous stepped onto it, Kline followed.
"Yes, why?" asked Gous.
"How the h.e.l.l should I know," asked Ramse. "I"m an eight. They don"t always tell me very much. Maybe because he"s a self-cauterizer."
"Listen," said Kline. "I"ll see Borchert and talk to him, but that"s it. I"m not interested in staying."
"Borchert can be very persuasive," said Ramse.
"Don"t insult Borchert," said Gous. "Be polite to him, listen to him, don"t talk back."
"He"s a twelve," said Ramse. "Plus his leg"s amputated at the hip. That"s commitment for you, eh?"
He stayed awake for the operation," said Gous.
"But he had anesthetic," said Ramse.
"Still," said Gous.
"What about cauterization?" asked Kline.
"The cauterization?" asked Gous. "Don"t know. Ramse, was he anesthetized for that too?"
"Don"t know," said Ramse. "Probably. In any case, he didn"t self-cauterize." "Almost n.o.body does," said Gous.
"Really n.o.body but you," said Ramse.
The path moved back into trees, descending into a sort of depression. Kline saw, affixed to an old oak, a security camera. Then the path took a sharp curve and started uphill again. It widened into a tree-lined avenue, at the end of which was what looked like an old manor house, or a boarding school, made of gray stone. Kline counted six sets of windows in rows three tall.
They came to the gate, Kline listening to the sh.e.l.ls crunching beneath his feet. A guard came out from behind a pillar of the house and stood on the opposite side of the gate, watching them with a single eye.
"What is wanted?" he asked, his hands folded.
"Cut it out," said Ramse. "This isn"t ceremonial. We"re here to see Borchert."
"Borchert?" said the guard. "What is wanted?"
"Cut it out," said Ramse. "This is Kline."
"Kline?" said the guard, unfolding his arms to reveal hands shorn of all but a thumb, a forefinger, and a middle finger. He took hold of the key and fitted it to the lock. "Why didn"t you say so?" the guard said. "Let him enter."
"Are all the guards missing an eye?" asked Kline.
"Yes," Gous said happily. "All of them."
"They made a pact," said Ramse, knocking on the door. "It"s a subsect. Whatever else they"re missing they cut out the eye once they"re initiated. Borchert started down that path," said Ramse. "He was a guard initiate, and then gave it up. What his connection to the guards is now isn"t quite clear, is mysterious. That"s why he"s second in command, not first."
"And the eye"s not all," said Gous.
"No?" said Kline.
"Let"s just say that a guard can hit all the high notes and none of the low ones."
"Well," said Ramse, "n.o.body knows about that for certain except the guards. And they don"t discuss it."
The door was opened by another guard who asked again What is wanted? This time Ramse brought his heels together and rattled off what to Kline seemed clearly a memorized, ritual response. Having been faithful in all things, we come to see he who is even more faithful than we.
"That is correct," said the guard. "And what are the three of you?"
"Two ones," said Gous. "And an eight."
"Which is the eight?"
"I am," said Ramse.