Darkman Read online

“Start timing, Yak.”

  Yakky snapped the stopwatch on, looking somewhat green. “Is that what I look like?”

  “Yeah, but only if you were skinned. Want to put it on?”

  “Not really. What about the hair?”

  “Please,” Peyton said, “only one miracle every few years. For now you have to be satisfied with a wig.”

  “Eyebrows?”

  “Shut up, Yak.”

  He shut up.

  Peyton trimmed a slice from the chin area, put it in a petri dish, and stuck it under the microscope. He checked it once, seeing what he knew he would see: cohesive cells pulsating with artificial life. Not a bad accomplishment; too bad the damn things went haywire every time. What was causing it?

  He spread the face on a steel table that already had thousands of faces and face parts on it. He wiped his hands on his lab coat. “Might as well kick back, Yak. There is absolutely nothing to do but wait.”

  And so they waited.

  Ninety-eight and a half minutes later Peyton was horsing with the toy drinking bird, watching it bob, bored to death. He took a quick peek through the microscope, stifling a yawn. His empty stomach growled at him, demanding pizza. As usual, the cells were just fine. In a few seconds they would be dead, and then he and Yak would go to Pizza Hut and check out the green peppers.

  The overhead light went out suddenly, leaving the room in darkness save for the dull glare from the computer. “Now what?” he muttered. “Must be a fuse.” He clicked the microscope’s light switch; the tiny bulb came alive instantly. Not a fuse, then. He looked up at the ceiling fixture, realizing two things at once: The computer was still on, so it couldn’t possibly be a fuse because this grand manor only had one; and the elderly bulb overhead was black and dirty-looking.

  “Have any new light bulbs?” Yakky asked.

  “Downstairs in a box, I think. Can you give me the time first?”

  Yakky brought the stopwatch close to his eyes. “Ninety-nine minutes, forty seconds.”

  “Okay. Put a new light in and we’ll abandon ship.” Out of habit he looked through the microscope one last time, again knowing exactly what he would see: fragmentation, death.

  The cells were busily pulsating, looking very healthy.

  “Check that time again, Yak. Something’s weird.”

  Yak checked it. “Ninety-nine—one hundred minutes.”

  “Baloney.” Peyton snagged the watch and dragged it over, towing Yakky along. “Hmm . . . one hundred minutes, sixteen seconds. I need a new stopwatch.” He pressed it to his ear. “Sounds normal. Piece of shit.”

  “Want me to chuck it out the window, Dr. Peyton?”

  “Nah, I’d rather smash it with a hammer.”

  “I could do that. Very gladly.”

  Peyton smiled and checked the tissue sample again.

  Pulsating.

  He checked his wristwatch. Hard to tell. “Are you sure you punched that on at the right time? You didn’t jump the gun, did you?”

  “Gun?”

  “Never mind. I saw you click it myself.” He looked at the stopwatch again. One-hundred minutes, thirty-two seconds. To the microscope: still pulsating. To the watch: one hundred minutes, forty-five seconds. To the microscope. Yakky was being dragged all over the place but took it like a man.

  “Holy cow,” Peyton whispered, suddenly too stunned to move. “The cells are stable. No fragmentation yet. Could it . . .”

  He pressed his eyes to the microscope.

  Alive. Alive and well.

  “I’ve done it,” he said, shaking with excitment. “Yak, old boy—we’ve done it! Take a gander for yourself!”

  Yakky bent over and took this strange thing called a gander. The cells were just fine.

  “A hundred and one minutes, Yak! I can’t believe it!”

  Yakky straightened. “But why now? What is different?”

  Peyton shrugged, then looked up at the dead light bulb. “Light,” he breathed, smiling. “It’s the goddamn light, Yak! The cells are photosensitive—have to be. In the dark they don’t fragment.” He hurriedly snapped off the microscope light. “I’ll check it every thirty seconds. Hell, maybe it’s just weak light that destroys the cells. Sunlight might be good for them. This will take some research, but man! Think of it! With just an old photograph we can give burn victims their undamaged faces back!”

  Yakky smiled, but it looked slightly off-kilter. “Does this mean we’re done? I have to look for another job?”

  “No, no. This is just the beginning. All we’ve got is a piece of the puzzle. There’s still the big question—how to keep the cells stable in normal light. Once we lick that, consider yourself unemployed. Call me in Tahiti sometime.”

  He turned the miniature light on, grinning, and peered into the microscope. The cells were slowing. “Baked them in the scope light too long,” he muttered, watching them die and fragment. “Time?”

  Yakky looked at the stopwatch. “One hundred and two.”

  “That’s three minutes better than ever before. I love it.” He pushed away from the microscope. “They’re all dead now. Let’s knock out the windows and see what sunlight does to them. There’s a crowbar or something downstairs. I’ll whip up a new batch while you demolish the boards. Mind if I use your face again? No, screw it. I’ll make a flat sheet.” He went to the computer and started tapping the keys, feeding new instructions to the Bio-Press, lost to the world. Yakky went downstairs and came back a few minutes later with a rusty tire iron.

  “Is this a crowbar?”

  Peyton looked up. “Sort of. Give me some light, would you?”

  Yakky started downstairs again. “Wait,” Peyton barked. “Not the package of bulbs. Give me real light, sunlight. And a breeze too. This place is broiling me alive.”

  Yakky dutifully began to smash the boards away from the windows. Nails squealed and wood splintered. The place began to smell like a lumberyard. Peyton didn’t notice; he had jammed himself into his private world again. When the sheet was ready, he had Yakky start the stopwatch, then placed a sliver under the microscope lens.

  It died ninety-nine minutes later.

  He tried it again, knowing it was useless; the burn victims would have to spend their lives in a closet. Yakky sat playing with the drinking bird, the only form of recreation available. Peyton put a fresh sliver under the microscope.

  It died ninety-nine minutes later.

  He told Yakky to board the windows up again, but the phone rang. Julie was calling from her cubbyhole office, and for Peyton and Yakky the world as they knew it ceased to exist.

  7

  Durant

  BY THE TIME the phone had clanged once, Robert G. Durant was at the top of the stairs. The dimness and the ruined step had almost conspired to trip him up, but he caught himself at the last moment and whispered down to his associates—five of them—to avoid the fifth step because there wasn’t one.

  Moving remarkably quietly for five small-time crooks and one big fish, they ascended the stairway and crammed themselves into the doorway, looking around with slitted, criminal eyes. Skip was there, one-legged Skip, along with Smiley, a borderline schizophrenic with a fondness for wooden legs with machine guns hidden inside. Rudy Martinez was there, he of the crooked nose and cauliflower ears, features caused by seven years as a boxer in his native Mexico. As he often sadly lamented, he could have been somebody, he could have been a contender.

  Pauly was there, along with his permanent indigestion, carrying a bottle of Maalox. His lips were white and chalky with the stuff, but he didn’t mind that much. It made him feel special.

  That left nervous Rick, slugging down Valium by the handful and chasing it with bourbon. He did not like crime at all, had no stomach for it, but his only talent was nonstop drinking and there weren’t many ads in the paper for that. As he sadly lamented, he could have been somebody, he could have been a bartender.

  Durant saw some Japanese dude trying to board the windows in this dump. Lousy Jap, he t
hought. He saw a tall man looking around, a telephone cord in his hand, obviously trying to find the phone. That would be Peyton Westlake. It would have made more sense to hijack his girlfriend, Julie Hastings, but she was safe in her office and Durant had no intention of making a scene. Here in this rat hole, though, far from the teeming masses, he could be as loud as he wanted.

  He turned and pointed to Martinez. “You handle the Jap,” he whispered as the phone rang for the second time. Martinez’s eyes registered acknowledgment above his mashed and crooked nose. He reached in a pocket and withdrew a small plastic bag, careful not to make it crackle and spoil the whole shebang.

  “Smiley,” Durant went on, “you cover our asses in case the dork has a gun or something. Skip, hand him your leg. The rest of you, let’s have some fun.”

  They slunk into the lab, quiet as snakes. The phone rang again. Peyton Westlake found it at last, lifted it up, and moved to snatch off the receiver.

  “Don’t bother,” Durant said loudly. Westlake flinched in surprise, nearly dropping the phone. That made Durant feel good. “Put it down, Doc. We have some business to discuss. Pauly, stop guzzling that chalk water and introduce us.”

  Pauly stepped forward, jamming the bottle in a back pocket. “Name’s Pauly. Hi.”

  He punched Peyton in the face, knocking him across a lab table. Glassware shattered on the floor. Peyton flipped over the table and landed hard on his back. Pauly hauled him upright and slammed him against a wall.

  Nervous Rick, still in the doorway, watched this with huge eyes, began feeding himself Valium.

  Durant put a cigar between his teeth and pulled out his trimmer. It glittered savagely on a bright ingot of sunlight shafting through a window. He raised it and expertly snipped a bit off the end, then licked the whole cigar before reversing it. “Havana,” he said, feeling tough because he was tough. “Castro’s grandma rolled it.”

  His men laughed, except Rick and Martinez. Rick was draining a bottle of Ten High whiskey; Martinez was stuffing the Jap’s head into a clear plastic bag, much to the Jap’s discomfort and despite his protests.

  Peyton had slumped to his knees after the wall banging. Durant made a motion, and Pauly grabbed a handful of his hair, jerking his head back.

  “No foolish heroics, Dr. Westlake,” Durant said. “Smiley has Skip’s leg pointed directly at your heart.”

  Peyton’s eyes, full of fright, shifted to Smiley, who was indeed smiling and indeed did have a leg in his hands. Skip was holding on to his arm for balance, his empty pant leg swinging.

  “Now,” Durant said, “we have come only for a single document. Tell us where to find the Bellasarious memorandum and we shall disappear like a nightmare before the breaking day.” He smiled, full of congratulations for himself at having phrased that so beautifully. “Well?” he asked after a bit. “Who has it?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Peyton croaked.

  Durant made another motion. Rick came in and attacked the lab’s sole filing cabinet, tossing papers over his shoulder, sluicing them across the floor. He looked at Durant and shrugged. He seemed immensely relieved, anxious to get out of there.

  “Time’s running out,” Durant murmured. “Pauly, entertain the good doctor.”

  Pauly grinned. He lifted Peyton and threw him through a rack of glass shelves that almost touched the ceiling. They broke and rained down in shards on Peyton’s back. Blood appeared in multiple pinpoints on the back of his white lab coat.

  Durant walked over to him. “This is very sad, Doc, but one less Jap in this world will not influence the price of eggs in China. Or Japan. You never can be sure, huh? Martinez!”

  Martinez hauled Yakky in front of Peyton. The plastic bag over his head was inflating and deflating as he tried to breathe. It was cinched around his neck with a huge rubber band. Martinez held his arms pinned behind his back.

  “If your houseboy appears to be in agony,” Durant said sweetly, “it is because he is. Where is the document?”

  “I don’t have any goddamn documents,” Peyton shouted as Pauly jerked him to his feet. “Yak’s only a lab assistant. For God’s sake, let him breathe!”

  Durant smiled. “Rick, old boy, be so kind as to ventilate the young slant-eyes. The good doctor ordered it.”

  Rick jerked, looking positively green, but his hand went inside his belt and he pulled out a small nickel-plated pistol. Peyton tried to surge forward, but Pauly gave him a vicious backhand that sent him reeling. Rick shot Yakky in the mouth. He died instantly. Martinez dropped him to the floor. Peyton seemed to be on the verge of fainting. Durant laughed.

  “Better than John Wayne,” he said, giving Rick a wink. “You’re coming along nicely.”

  Rick turned his head and threw up on the floor. When he was done, he fumbled with his prescription bottle, managing to drop it. It rolled to Durant, Rick staggering after it. Durant crushed it with one patent-leather shoe. Amber plastic crunched. “Nice touch,” he snarled at Rick, making him back away. He turned his face to Peyton. “We’re out of time, Doc. Give me the fucking paper I came here for!”

  “I do not know what in hell you are talking about,” Peyton said evenly while blood drooled down his chin and spattered on the floor.

  Durant sighed. “I have an appointment in less than fifteen minutes, and I do not expect to have to drag you along. Perhaps if we asked your lady friend? Julie?

  Peyton jerked. He shook his head. “If you touch her, I’ll—”

  “You’ll what?” Durant shouted. “Look around yourself, Doc. We don’t horse around. If we don’t find the memo here, we’ll find it at her place. Maybe even your place. I don’t have much time, and I’m not famous for being patient with raw assholes like you.”

  Peyton frowned, his eyes shifting back and forth. He nodded to himself. “Wait,” he said. “I have a piece of paper in my breast pocket. That’s as close as I can come to a document.”

  Durant stepped forward and ripped open Peyton’s lab coat. He slipped his fingers into the pocket of his shirt. The hand came out holding the trophy he had been seeking. He spread it open and grinned.

  “I like you a lot better now, Doc. I really enjoy mutual cooperation. Guys?”

  Smiley handed his leg gun to Rick. “My turn, boss.”

  “Bullshit,” Pauly snapped. “He’s mine.”

  Durant waved his hands. “We’re a team, men. You can both have him.”

  They lunged at Peyton. He looked quite surprised to be so popular. They jerked him backward, away from Yakky’s bleeding body, toward the ThinkTank-PinkTank, where electricity hummed and porcelain insulators stood naked and obvious. Smiley smiled, seeing them. He would have smiled at an enemy battle tank just as much. He and Pauly spun Westlake around and pulled his hands toward the insulators, where naked wire was coiled and exposed. Peyton struggled uselessly.

  “Ain’t this dangerous?” Pauly asked Smiley.

  “Only if you touch both sides at once.”

  “What are you, an electrician?”

  “Idiots!” Durant shrieked. “Shut up and torch him!”

  Smiley wrapped Peyton’s left hand over the exposed copper wires, then nodded to Pauly. Pauly held on to Peyton’s forearm and forced his hand around the insulator. A brief shower of yellow sparks shot across the room. Peyton, electrified and unable to let go, performed a fantastic shake, rattle, and roll, shrieking with pain. Smoke boiled off his captive hands. The skin popped and split, exposing white twigs of bone where the muscle was cooking and bending. He screamed and screamed and screamed.

  “God,” Durant muttered, plugging his ears. “I’ll bet that hurts!”

  Smiley tried to pull Peyton away. He was as good as welded there. Pauly punched him hard in the face, knocking him backward. His hands jerked free from the insulators and burst into flame, sending the stench of burned hair and cooked meat into the air. Rick gagged, standing at the doorway with an empty bottle in one hand and nothing at all in the other, where a prescription bo
ttle usually resided. He looked horrified because he was.

  Peyton fell on his face with his hands tucked underneath him, extinguishing the flames. Rick was oh so glad. The stink was enough to kill a buzzard, to his way of thinking. He turned to go, but . . .

  . . . but Durant wasn’t finished yet. He nodded once more to Smiley and Pauly, and they understood well enough what he meant. They lifted Peyton by the clothes and charged at the ThinkTank-PinkTank. At the last moment they applied the brakes and let Peyton dump headfirst into the fluid. Electricity flashed and popped, hurling sparks in random patterns.

  Smiley went into a squat to watch him. Inside the pink stuff, his head was turning back and forth while scream bubbles boiled out of his mouth. Smiley was aware that something was humming that hadn’t been humming before. It sounded like a jarful of wasps. He stood up and went to Durant.

  “Hear that?”

  “Sure. So what?”

  “What kind of mad scientist is this guy?”

  “Who cares? He played with me, so I’m playing with him. Gentleman’s rules. He knows what the scoop is.”

  Smiley went back to watching Peyton being drowned and fried at the same time. There was a huge blue flash, a bullet charge, and suddenly the pink stuff was boiling, boiling. A chunk of blackened skin floated to the top, and then another. Hair surfaced in a single dark blot, then was dissolved by the heat. Smiley decided that enough was enough. Rick was dry-heaving over in the corner. Smiley jerked Peyton out and let him crumple to the floor.

  “Chicken?” Durant asked casually.

  “Enough’s enough. He’s dead. Let’s go.”

  Durant shook his head. “Evidence, Smiley. When are you going to learn?” He went to the tank marked ACETYLENE and turned the knob. It began to hiss. He opened the other one, the one marked OXYGEN. Another hiss.

  Rick, done with his stomach, watched all this with growing alarm. “Boss,” he squeaked after a minute, “won’t those things blow us sky-high along with the doc? Won’t they?”

  Durant smiled, shaking his head. “Not to worry at all. We will be long gone before any explosion occurs.” He pulled his fancy electronic lighter out of a pocket, and moved the water dish from the toy bird, and put his lighter there instead. He positioned it, frowning with concentration. When his interior voice signaled bingo, he gave the bird a tiny flick with one finger. The bird began to bob in tiny little jerks. The acidic smell of the acetylene was getting thick. Durant got his cigar trimmer out and handed it to Martinez. “Get me one of the Jap’s fingers,” he said, and Martinez did. By the time he handed the trimmer back, everybody was coughing.