Brian Evenson - Last Days

Perhaps Borchert himself had a vested interest, had reasons to stop the smuggling from being investigated.

But even so, why declare Aline dead? Why suggest there is a murder to be investigated? Why not simply suggest something a little more benign?

And here he was, standing alone in front of Borchert, with Gous and Ramse abandoned at the gate, the one-armed, one-legged man looking grimly at him from his chair.

"I thought we had an agreement," Borchert was saying.

"What agreement?"

"I asked you not to speak about the case with those who didn't need to know. Instead, you've been spreading rumors."

"Look," said Kline. "I don't know what I'm doing here. What exactly am I investigating?"

"Aline's death."

"I don't believe Aline is dead."

"No," said Borchert. "You've made that quite clear."

"What about the smuggling?"

"The smuggling," said Borchert. "A cover story. Something we agreed to tell people like Ramse."

"And Andreissen?"

"We talked about that," said Borchert. "I give my solemn word that if you simply have one or two more amputations, Andreissen will change his story. Why didn't you speak to any of the others? Perhaps one of them would tell you the truth."

"You're lying."

Borchert sighed. "Well," he said. "I was hoping it wouldn't come to this, but you're a stubborn bastard and have your own particular way of conducting business. You'd be better off if you were willing to take some things on faith, but Thou woulds't doubt , as Jesus said, and for the doubting there's nothing but what you can touch." He turned his head, gestured with his chin to the counter behind. "There's a gun there," he said. "In the drawer. No bullets in it, but the guard outside Aline's door doesn't need to know that. If you need to go see for yourself, go see for yourself. I wouldn't advise it, but neither will I prevent you."

Kline took the pistol and left. He could see, as soon as he opened the door to the hall, the guard in front of what he had been told by Andreissen was Aline's door. Was it the door Borchert expected him to go to as well? he wondered. Or was he being told to visit the room where Borchert had led him before, the faked crime scene?

"Is this the door to Aline's room?" Kline asked the guard.

The guard did not reply. Kline realized the man's lone eye was directed downward, fixed on his hand, and then Kline remembered the gun. He lifted his hand, pointed the pistol at the man's head.

"Please open the door," he said.

The guard shook his head.

"I'll kill you," said Kline.

"Then kill me."

Kline hit the guard hard in the face with his stump, then hit him across his jaw with the butt of the pistol. The guard took two awkward steps, wavering into the door, and Kline struck him with the pistol butt again, just behind the ear. The man went down in a heap.

The door was unlocked. He opened it and went in, locking it behind him.

Inside, it was dark. He felt around on the wall to either side of the door for a switch, only found one after his eyes had adjusted enough to see it, low on the wall, at knee level.

The room was as simple as Borchert's. A counter and a small kitchen in the back of the room. A single chair, this one with a sort of net webbing draped over it. A bed, in this case, three feet long, flush to the floor, pushed against one wall.

In the bed, a mutilated head rode on the pillow, the rest of the body covered by a blanket. He knelt down beside it. The eyes had been dug out, the lids cut off as well. The ears had been shorn away to leave two whirls of slick pink flesh. The nose, too, was gone, leaving a dark gaping hole. The lips seemed to have been gnawed mostly away, perhaps by the teeth that now loomed through their gap.

As he watched, the flesh on the face shivered and the head turned slightly, the missing eyes seeming to bore into his own eyes. He broke the gaze and then, grabbing the blanket, tugged it off the body.

Underneath was only a torso, all limbs gone, nipples cut away, penis severed. He sat watching the chest rise and fall, air whistling between the teeth. There was something wrong with the way the body lay, he realized, and he pushed it over onto the side a little, enough to see that the buttocks had been shaved away.

The mouth said something urgently but he couldn't understand what because most of the tongue was gone. He let go of the body. He looked away, let himself slip from his knees to lie on the floor. Behind him, he could hear someone pounding at the door. He stayed there, staring up at the ceiling, listening to Aline babble, until they came and dragged him away.

"So," said Borchert, "now you've seen for yourself." He was standing using a cane, precariously grounded in his palm to support himself. Kline was in the chair now, Borchert's chair, having been brought there by the guards after they had dragged him by the feet out of Aline's room and down the stairs, his head bumping against each step.

"What's wrong with you?" asked Borchert. "You look feverish."

"Aline's alive," said Kline.

"Of course he's alive," said Borchert. "I must apologize for lying, Mr. Kline, but trust I had my reasons."

"Why?"

"Why, Mr. Kline?" Borchert turned, moved closer by hopping slightly. "You want to know?"

"Yes."

Borchert smiled. "Knowledge is the most valuable of commodities," he said. "Shall we trade? I'll trade you knowledge for a limb."

"What?"

"You heard me," said Borchert. "Knowledge for a limb. You choose the limb. Or even just a hand or foot. That should be enough."

"No," said Kline.

"That's you're problem," said Borchert. "You don't want to know badly enough."

"I want to know," said Kline.

"Truth or flesh," said Borchert. "Which is more important?"

Kline didn't answer.

"Or say just a digit," said Borchert. "A single finger or toe. What does a finger or toe matter? You've already lost eight digits. What difference would one more make?"

Kline stood up, made for the door. He could hear Borchert behind him, chuckling.

"The offer stands, Mr. Kline," he said. "Come back any time."

He lay in bed, thinking. With the light off he kept seeing Aline's mutilated face, the head riding up on the pillow, blankets tucked just below the chin. Eventually he got up and turned the light on.

His foot ached. It was still weeping blood and fluid where the toes had been, and the foot itself was oddly dark, seemed swollen. He put it on a pillow, kept it elevated, which seemed to help a little.

What was the truth? he wondered. How important was it to know? And once he knew, what then?

He looked at his stump. He could still, sometimes, feel the hand there. And, when Borchert had drugged him, he had been able to see it as well, half-present, like a ghost. He tried to will himself to see it again, could not.

Maybe there was someone who could give him something for his foot, he thought, an anti-inflammatory or perhaps something more, before the foot became too swollen, too painful, to walk on. He would take that, and then stay in bed, waiting for the toes to heal.

Why? he wondered, again seeing Aline's face despite the light still being on. Why had Borchert lied to him? What did he have to gain by pretending Aline was dead when he was actually alive?

He kept turning the question around in his head.

And when, at last, he came up with an answer, he realized he was in very great trouble indeed.

The guard at the gate didn't want to admit him when he arrived, but Kline told him he was coming for an amputation, that Borchert had invited him to return. The guard consulted his fellow behind the door and then waited with Kline at the gate in the dark while the latter guard went upstairs to consult Borchert.