Clive Barker: The Damnation Game

J.N. NESTROY, Hollenangst

After serving six years of his sentence at Wandsworth, Marty Strauss was used to waiting. He waited to wash and shave himself every morning; he waited to eat, he waited to defecate; he waited for freedom. So much waiting. It was all part of the punishment, of course; as was the interview he'd been summoned to this dreary afternoon. But while the waiting had come to seem easy, the interviews never had. He loathed the bureaucratic spotlight: the Parole File bulging with the Discipline Reports, the Home Circumstance Reports, the Psychiatric Evaluations; the way every few months you stood stripped in front of some uncivil servant while he told you what a foul thing you were. It hurt him so much he knew he'd never be healed of it; never forget the hot rooms filled with insinuation and dashed hopes. He'd dream them forever.

"Come in, Strauss."

The room hadn't changed since he'd last been here; only become staler. The man on the opposite side of the table hadn't changed either. His name was Somervale, and there were any number of prisoners in Wandsworth who nightly said prayers for his pulverization. Today he was not alone behind the plastic-topped table.

"Sit down, Strauss."

Marty glanced across at Somervale's associate. He was no prison officer. His suit was too tasteful, his fingernails too well-manicured. He looked to be in late middle-age, solidly built, and his nose was slightly crooked, as if it had once been broken and then imperfectly reset. Somervale offered the introduction:

"Strauss. This is Mr. Toy..."

"Hello," Marty said.

The tanned face returned his gaze; it was a look of frank appraisal.

"I'm pleased to meet you," Toy said.

His scrutiny was more than casual curiosity, though what-thought Marty-was there to see? A man with time on his hands, and on his face; a body grown sluggish with too much bad food and too little exercise; an ineptly trimmed mustache; a pair of eyes glazed with boredom. Marty knew every dull detail of his own appearance. He wasn't worth a second glance any longer. And yet the bright blue eyes stared on, apparently fascinated.

"I think we should get down to business," Toy said to Somervale. He put his hands palm down on the tabletop. "How much have you told Mr. Strauss?"

Mr. Strauss. The prefix was an almost forgotten courtesy.

"I've told him nothing," Somervale replied.

"Then we should begin at the beginning," Toy said. He leaned back in his chair, hands still on the table.

"As you like," said Somervale, clearly gearing himself up for a substantial speech. "Mr. Toy-" he began.

But he got no further before his guest broke in.

"If I may?" said Toy, "perhaps I can best summarize the situation."

"Whatever suits," said Somervale. He fumbled in his jacket pocket for a cigarette, barely masking his chagrin. Toy ignored him. The off-center face continued to look across at Marty.

"My employer-" Toy began "-is a man by the name of Joseph Whitehead. I don't know if that means anything to you?" He didn't wait for a reply, but went on. "If you haven't heard of him, you're doubtless familiar with the Whitehead Corporation, which he founded. It's one of the largest pharmaceutical empires in Europe-"

The name rang a faint bell in Marty's head, and it had some scandalous association. But it was tantalizingly vague, and he had no time to puzzle it through, because Toy was in full flight.

"-Although Mr. Whitehead is now in his late sixties, he still keeps control of the corporation. He's a self-made man, you understand, and he's dedicated his life to its creation. He chooses, however, not to be as visible as he once was-"

A front-page photograph suddenly developed in Strauss' head. A man with his hand up against the glare of a flashbulb; a private moment snatched by some lurking paparazzo for public consumption.

"-He shuns publicity almost completely, and since his wife's death he has little taste for the social arena-"

Sharing the unwelcome attention Strauss remembered a woman whose beauty astonished, even by the unflattering light. The wife of whom Toy spoke, perhaps.

"-Instead he chooses to mastermind his corporation out of the spotlight, concerning himself in his leisure hours with social issues. Among them, overcrowding in prisons, and the deterioration of the prison service generally."

The last remark was undoubtedly barbed, and found Somervale with deadly accuracy. He ground out his half-smoked cigarette in the tinfoil ashtray, throwing the other man a sour glance.

"When the time came to engage a new personal bodyguard-" Toy continued, "-it was Mr. Whitehead's decision to seek a suitable candidate amongst men coming up for parole rather than going through the usual agencies. "

He can't mean me, Strauss thought. The idea was too fine to tease himself with, and too ludicrous. And yet if that wasn't it, why was Toy here, why all the palaver?

"He's looking for a man who is nearing the end of his sentence. One who deserves, in both his and my own estimation, to have an opportunity to be reintroduced into society with a job behind him, and some self-esteem to go with it. Your case was drawn to my attention, Martin. I may call you Martin?"

"Usually it's Marty."

"Fine. Marty it is. Frankly, I don't want to raise your hopes. I'm interviewing several other candidates in addition to yourself, and of course at the end of the day I may find that none are suitable. At this juncture I simply want to ascertain whether you would be interested in such an option were it to be made available to you."

Marty began to smile. Not outwardly, but inside, where Somervale couldn't get at it.

"Do you understand what I'm asking?"

"Yes. I understand."

"Joe... Mr. Whitehead... needs somebody who will be completely devoted to his well-being; who would indeed be prepared to put his life at risk rather than have harm come to his employer. Now I realize that's a lot to ask."

Marty's brow furrowed. It was a lot, especially after the six-and-a-half year lesson in self-reliance he'd had at Wandsworth. Toy was swift to sense Marty's hesitation.

"That bothers you," he said.

Marty shrugged gently. "Yes and no. I mean, I've never been asked to do that before. I don't want to give you some shit about me being really keen to get killed for somebody, because I'm not. I'd be lying through my teeth if I said I was."

Toy's nods encouraged Marty to go on.

"That's it really," he said.

"Are you married?" Toy asked.

"Separated."

"May I ask; are there divorce proceedings in the offing?"

Marty grimaced. He loathed talking about this. It was his wound; his to tend and fret over. No fellow prisoner had ever wrung the story out of him, even in those three-in-the-morning confessionals that he'd endured with his previous cellmate, before Feaver, who never talked of anything but food and paper women, had arrived. But he would have to say something now. They surely had the details filed away somehow anyway. Toy probably knew more about what Charmaine was doing, and with whom, than he did.

"Charmaine and me..." He tried to summon words for this knot of feelings, but nothing emerged but a blunt statement. "I don't think there's much chance of us getting back together, if that's what you're after."

Toy sensed the raw edge in Marty's voice; so did Somervale. For the first time since Toy had entered the arena the officer began to show some interest in the exchange. He wants to watch me talk my way out of a job, Marty thought; he could see the anticipation written all over Somervale's face. Well, damn him, he wasn't going to have the satisfaction.

"It's not a problem-" Marty said flatly. "Or if it is, it's mine. I'm still getting used to the fact that she won't be there when I get out. That's all it is, really."