The Naming of the Beasts

Nicky gave me a stony look. ‘Actually, what it means is that I’m just prolonging the inevitable. Which is probably what I was doing anyway, with or without the Ice-Maker. This just brought it home to me. Yeah, I can stay in the deep freeze the whole time, last another six months, maybe a year. Then take my chances when I hit the wall.

‘Or alternatively I can try coming at the problem from a different angle. Like I said, I’ve been thinking about it. The way I look at it, life is like matter and energy: it can’t be destroyed, it can only be transformed. So my working plan right now is that I’m going to see this body out and then maybe rethink my options.’

That proposition stopped me in my tracks. Nicky hadn’t got to be the longest-lived zombie in the known world by taking unnecessary risks; he’d done it by clinging stubbornly to what he had and what he knew, and advancing into the void one tentative, begrudged step at a time. This sort of thinking was way out of character for him.

‘What options, exactly?’ I demanded.

Nicky fiddled with the zip fastener on one of the bags, his expression turning a little shifty. ‘I’ve been out,’ he said.

‘Out?’ I echoed, but I already knew what he meant.

‘Out of the flesh. I tried it a few times right after I died, and got nowhere. Now . . . it isn’t even hard. I decide to do it, and it’s done. Suddenly I’m looking at the back of my own head or more usually looking down from on top like my body’s an actor in a show and the real me is up in the dress circle, watching. I guess it’s a skill you just pick up as you go along.’

Or else, I thought, this was another piece of evidence that the world’s coefficients were shifting, tumbling us all - whether we liked it or not - out of our comfort zones into the infinite.

‘So yeah,’ Nicky summarised. ‘I know the ejector seat’s working, after all. That makes me feel a little bit more relaxed about letting the bodywork get all messed up. I’m gonna survive, Castor. Whatever the Hell happens to this meat. Knowing that changes the way you look at things.’

I didn’t answer because I couldn’t think of anything to say that wouldn’t sound either banal or apocalyptic. We carried the dismantled stall over to the van. Such was Nicky’s precision that it only took two trips. ‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘Okay, I got some stuff for you. You want it here or back at the movie house?’

Neither alternative seemed all that attractive. The night was a curdled bowl, but the Gaumont would be as frigid as a tomb. I went for the bird-in-the-hand option. ‘I’ll take it now,’ I said, ‘unless you need help unpacking at the other end.’

‘It can stay in the van. Okay, you asked me whether Ditko had any living relatives. The answer is one, and counting.’

He fished in the pocket of his jacket and handed me a folded sheet of paper. I took it and opened it up, but the light from the street lamps wasn’t good enough to read Nicky’s crabbed handwriting.

‘A brother,’ he summarised. ‘Name of Jovan.’

Tell my father . . . and Jovan . . . tell them I’m sorry. Do that for me. Please.

‘So where is he?’ I asked.

‘In FYROM.’

‘In what?’

‘The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. It’s a place. In Europe. You’ve just got the address there, no phone number or email. That’s all she wrote. Apart from Rafael, this is the last Ditko in the known universe. And if you want to talk to him, I suggest you move fast.’

‘Why’s that, Nicky?’

He flicked a corner of the paper with his thumbnail. ‘Because the address is death row, Irdrizovo Prison. He killed a guy, the cops caught him, and now he’s all out of appeals. Near as I can tell, the execution is going to be the day after tomorrow unless there’s a last-minute pardon.’

I carried on looking at him expectantly. He shrugged, deadpan. ‘What?’

‘It’s just a little barebones for you,’ I said. ‘It’s not that I’m not grateful. It just seems like . . . maybe . . . you left a stone unturned for once in your life.’

‘Yeah? Like what, for instance?’

‘Like “He killed a guy”?’

‘Well there’s more, but it’s ugly and would it help you to know? Irdrizovo is one fucking big oubliette. They’re not gonna let you see him. And they’re not gonna pardon him. That’s not the way the system works. But if you insist on wading in, there’s another name on there, and a telephone number. Jovan’s defence lawyer. Maybe you could get some questions to him somehow. Have to be fast, though.’

I slipped the paper into my pocket. ‘Thanks, Nicky. What else?’

Nicky feigned surprise. ‘That isn’t enough? Too bad. On the magic circle front, things are not going so well. The other one you sent me - you found it close to the first?’

‘Nowhere near,’ I said. ‘The first was at Pen’s place, the second was at Juliet’s.’