Стивен Бойетт - Mortality Bridge

But Niko turns. And as he turns that horrible glimpse reverts to the casino and its enslaved patrons, not staring at him as he had presumed but going about their neverending business, eternal commerce of punishment and penitence.

Again he heads toward the exit and again he stops.

Beyond the carnival-lighted glass the Black Taxi is still parked against the curb. The Driver is nowhere in sight. And a plastic case in Niko’s pocket holds the key.

NIKO LEAVES THE casino without ceremony and pulls the keyholder from his pocket as he heads directly for the Black Taxi. He opens the keyholder with one hand and shakes the key out of the box. At the driver’s door he extends the key like a man making an offering to a blind man’s cup. His arm feels guided as the key finds the slot without jostle or fumble as if it had eyes. Niko turns the key and pulls the handle and opens the suicide door. Son of a bitch. His heart is yammering. He ducks into the car and through the flatpaned windshield sees stalking toward him the uniformed valet whose elbow he dislocated. Quickly but carefully Niko sets the mason jar on the leather bench seat. He starts to get out but stops suddenly. Don’t turn around. Don’t look back.

Quickly he turns and backs out of the car, straightening as the valet, swelling like a posing bodybuilder, extends an arm to shove him over. “Away from the car, chie—” Niko grabs the hand and turns it funny and a giant knucklepop cracks across the casino entryway and once again the valet’s elbow dislocates. Niko follows through and slams the blanching valet on the ground facefirst and yanks him onto his back and stomps his throat. The valet curls into a ball and tries to choke but can’t because no air can escape his crushed esophagus. Niko doubts he’ll choke to death because he’s probably already dead. If he ever was alive.

He steps around the writhing valet and slides behind the wheel of the Black Taxi. The mason jar tips toward him as he sits and Niko wedges it against his hip. He takes a deep breath and shuts the solid heavy door and elbows down the lock. Wary as he is of this car Niko feels protected now. Encased. But let’s not be lulled. Driving this car is sleeping with the enemy. Perhaps it senses who is driving it. Will it try to throw me?

Well you’re in the gate and you’ve got about ten seconds to take stock of this bronc before the buzzer sounds. You better cowboy up.

Smells of leather, lemon oil, age. A locking glove compartment. Birdseye maple instrument panels. Large round dials. A roman numeralled clock the size of his palm. xii. Midnight or noon? The speedometer goes to 120. The odometer reads 186282. The tripmeter shows a row of zeroes. Gas gauge full. No radio. Huge steering wheel. Small brake pedal, the size of the clutch. An absurd amount of legroom. The gearshift long and spindly. The passenger compartment stretches behind him like the rear of a limo. The hood sticks out a good eight feet. Its glossy black the ink of water at the bottom of the Marianas Trench. This thing is a fucking boat. Everywhere around him is metal. The car must weigh five thousand pounds. Casino lights flash and flow along the polished chassis. Something odd about that, what is it? And remembers. Above the ground the Franklin had reflected no light at all. Had been a shadow without a casting object. But here the black chassis is polished to a high gloss like a lacquered bento box.

No seatbelt. Guess that was part of the luxury package. The clutch feels like a weighted legpress. Terrific.

He looks up to adjust the rearview mirror—and jerks his head aside and bats the mirror askew.

Does a mirror count as looking back?

Table that one for now. At least there are no side mirrors to compound the issue.

Niko racks the shift lever and slides the key into the ignition. Once more his hand feels guided to the spot. Okay Houston all systems go.

Before he turns the key he looks through the slanted windshield at casino lights reflecting along the Franklin’s nightshade hood. The lights now melt toward the ground like heated wax, coalescing light cascading down the hood like thinning watercolors washing down to dim and fade and die. As it has risen like a beanstalk from this unhallowable ground so now the big casino collapses groaning back into the plain. Niko keep his gaze fixed straight ahead as the dimming structure growls and creaks and sputters and diminishes. Soon the plain is dark again. As if the casino were never there at all.

Unnerving silence follows the casino’s demise. Without the light to lend it shape the body of the Franklin is invisible now. In this lull that Niko senses will be very brief he grows aware of the key in the ignition, warm in his fingers like a living thing. He switches it on and nothing happens.

Where the casino was there now begins a growing rumble.

Niko glances around the instrument panel. Remember it’s an old car. There. Starter button. He presses it and the engine turns over but doesn’t catch. Now the heavy air is imminent with something straining to be born. Now he feels the rumble through the car. He pumps the gas and tries again. Again the engine doesn’t start. Briefly he considers getting out to push start the car. Yeah right.

The rumble strengthens. It sounds as if it’s somehow widening. Niko dares not look to see what’s going on but it sounds as if the ground itself is opening up. Don’t look don’t look don’t look.

A knob beside the steering column catches Niko’s eye. Choke. Don’t mind if I do. He pulls it and hits the starter button and is rewarded with a deep leonine purr barely audible beneath the minor earthquake rumble all around him.

Something shouts behind him and he glances at the rearview but thank god he’s knocked it slantwise. Something heavy lands on the rear of the car and Niko fumbles finding first gear and slips the clutch. The Black Taxi bucks and stalls. A leathery slap on the rear window now as Niko knocks the lever into neutral and jabs the starter button again. The engine purr resumes. The rear of the roof dents with a dull gong as Niko lets out the clutch. Still the Franklin doesn’t move.

Handbrake. Niko squeezes the brake lever and slams it down. The big car starts to roll. He doesn’t even feel or hear the gear engaging when he eases off the clutch. It’s so dark that only the motion of the speedometer needle reveals the car is moving. Behind him an awful bellow like a foghorn grips his heart. Niko gropes for the headlight knob and pulls it. Meager patches of dull red ochre plain flow toward him as the ’33 Franklin begins the drive reluctantly across the Lower Plain of Hell.

IT’S A WRESTLING match from the word go. With the casino vanished Niko has no reference point. No sun no moon no stars to steer by. No compass, no compass points. He is not north or south or east or west of anything.

He searches for second gear and finds it and forces the gearshift in. Goddamn it’s finicky. Half an inch to either side and it won’t go. He lets up on the stiff clutch and surges forward.

I need to turn right. I need to be at least ninety degrees from the direction the car was pointing when I boosted it.

Then it hits him. Holy Jesus Pez dispenser, I stole it. I boosted the Black Taxi. Oh that sallow son of a bitch will be so god damned mad. Oh yes. Niko laughs out loud and drums the steering wheel. I would pay to see his bony face when he comes back and finds it missing. But I won’t see it because I will be gone baby gone. Many miles away like the song says. Hell on wheels.

He glances at the silent glowing mason jar. Yes yes yes. I’m gonna do this thing. He pats the jar. We are going to do this thing Jem. We will bring you back into the living world and reunite you with your castoff flesh, and breathing in that living air we’ll live our span of years as man and wife. And whatever fate awaits my mortal soul I will have nonetheless escaped at last the nightmare of my history, the prison of myth. And you will have escaped, period.