The Man Who Melted Read online

  Although they were still in a relatively safe area, Mantle was nervous. His whole being was focused on the remote possibility of finding Josiane; everything else was white noise. He was as haunted as the street arabs around him.

  “You can still turn around and go home,” Melzi said. “If the woman is a phony, I will know it.” Mantle did not respond, and Melzi shrugged.

  After they had worked their way through the crowds for several more blocks, Mantle asked, “How much farther?”

  “You'll see, we are almost there,” Melzi said. He carried his heat weapon openly now. Mantle kept his hands in his pockets; he always carried a pistol when he had to be on the streets.

  The Via Roma, along which they were still walking, became less crowded. When they crossed over into Spacca, they found the alleyways and narrow buildings almost empty. Everything was dirty; ahead were the burned buildings scourged by Screamers.

  A small, dangerous-looking crowd gathered behind Mantle and Melzi. Mantle took his pistol out of his pocket.

  “Not to worry yet,” Melzi said. “They're not Screamers. As long as they are behind us, we are relatively safe. They're nothing but avvoltoio.” He spat the word.

  “What?”

  “Stinking birds. Scavengers.”

  “Vultures,” Mantle said.

  “Yes, that's it,” Melzi said. “Now, if we engage a crowd up ahead, then we might be in trouble. But we are armed, and I would burn the lot of them. It would not be worth it for them to attack us. Some of them know me; they would not get anything of worth. You see”—Melzi extended his free arm and fluttered his fingers—“not even a ring. I have beautiful rings, that is my weakness. Especially diamonds, which are my birthstone. I wear one upon every finger, even the thumb.” He made a vulgar gesture. “I might feel naked, but I'm not worried yet. Would you like to see them? My rings?”

  “Yes, perhaps,” Mantle said, annoyed. The crowd following Mantle and Melzi was unnaturally quiet; it unnerved Mantle.

  “Maybe later,” Melzi said. “If we do not have the luck to find your little bird.”

  Mantle fantasized smashing the little man's face. God, how he hated them all. All the filth from the streets. But if he could find Josiane tonight, it would be worth all the Melzis in the world.

  “If the trash behind us were Screamers, then I would be worried,” Melzi said. “You never know with them. They walk about in their little groups, looking just like the filth behind us. Then all of a sudden they decide to scour the street and you're dead. They're like junkies; you can burn them, fill them up with bullets, but nothing seems to stop them. And you can't even find them again, they just disappear. They're like centipedes, all those legs and one head.” Melzi laughed at that, as if it were an original thought. Again he laughed, almost a titter. “I can smell them, you know. They smell different from elemosina or avvoltoio. Not like trash, just sick. You smell all right, of course. But there's a whiff, I don't know—”

  “Shut up,” Mantle snapped.

  “Oh, I am sorry if I have hurt your feelings. Certainly, I did not mean any disrespect. Will you forgive me?”

  They turned onto the Via Croce. A group of prostitutes, all hideously fat, sat on the steps of a palazzo and shouted, “Succhio, succhio,” as Mantle and Melzi passed. Melzi shouted obscenities back; he was more animated, nervous. There was much slave-marketeering hereabouts. Whores and old people, and especially children, were kidnapped and sold to those who would pay to hook-into their brains and taste their experiences, their lives. The black market catered to the rich. The dole was virtually nonexistent here; survival was the business of the day. Police and the other arms of government would not be found in these parts. This was free country.

  “Now we must be a little careful, because this neighborhood is not so good,” Melzi said. He made the gesture of being shackled by crossing his wrists. “Many slavers hereabouts; they look just like anybody. We would fetch a good price,” he said preening himself. “I can imagine that you would be delicious to hook-into.”

  Someone shouted; there was another scream. There was a fight ahead in the square of Gesu Nuovo. Men and women and children were brawling, it seemed, over small metal canisters of some sort—perhaps food or drugs. Mantle glanced behind him; only a few avvoltoio were following, but still they made him nervous.

  “We have a stroke of luck,” Melzi said. “The fight will draw the avvoltoio and we can attend to our business.”

  “How close are we?” Mantle asked, excited.

  “We are there, you see, that's it.” He pointed to a palazzo which actually looked whitewashed, a miracle in these parts.

  “Jesus.”

  “It is quite famous,” Melzi said. “Like the Crazy Horse near where you live.”

  “I don't think you can compare—”

  “What's the difference, except for the neighborhood? This palazzo is an attraction because of the neighborhood. Here you can find interesting pleasures; polizia do not make problems here.” Melzi looked at the women fighting in the square and made a clucking noise of disapproval as he watched a young woman being disemboweled in the quaint broken fountain. Mantle hesitated, but Melzi took him by the arm; the little man was deceptively strong. “We are here to find your little bird, that's all.”

  As they neared the palazzo, the streets became crowded once again. It was like stepping into another, albeit dangerous, country, into an international oasis amid the lowlife of the street. Mantle could see well-dressed, and well-guarded, men and women stepping quickly among the street arabs, hawkers, pimps, and other assorted street people. One dignitary was actually enclosed in a glassite litter that was shouldered by four uniformed men.

  A woman approached Melzi, and he burned a hole in her throat. Mantle lunged for Melzi's weapon, but Melzi deftly pulled it out of reach and continued to walk. Elemosina stepped over the dying woman as if she were a rock in the road.

  “Scum,” Mantle said, drawing away from Melzi. His flesh was crawling. “Murderer!”

  “Now calm yourself,” Melzi said, as if he were a bank clerk explaining why he couldn't accept a customer's credit. “That was just a precaution. She had evil thoughts in mind.”

  “Could you smell those, too?”

  “You are not in Cannes, Signore,” Melzi said. “And do not think you are safe here or now. Without me, it is doubtful whether you would ever get out of here alive, much less find your wife. Now do you forgive me? When last I asked, you ignored me.” Melzi was playing him, and Mantle knew it. But he was so close. All that really mattered was Josiane. “Well…?” Melzi asked.

  “I forgive you,” Mantle said, as if he were spitting up raw meat. Nemesius will pay for this, he thought.

  “Thank you,” Melzi said, not pressing it further.

  Mantle followed Melzi, who walked past the white palazzo. The building was high and imposing; it was formed in the style of a Florentine palace, complete with rich embossing, curved frontons, projecting cornices, and ringed columns, most of which were broken or cracked.

  “Where are you going?” Mantle asked, noticing that it was growing dark. They walked along a cobblestone close, which Mantle was afraid might also be a dead end. Could Melzi and Nemesius have set him up? Mantle felt a touch of panic. No, he told himself. He had dealt with Nemesius for too long.

  “This is the best way to get in,” Melzi said, “although I must admit, this alleyway does look dangerous.” He pounded on a heavy, inlaid door. The door opened, but not before Mantle glimpsed that the shadows under the broken klieg at the end of the alley were moving.

  “Meet Vittorio,” Melzi said to Mantle as they entered a large pantry filled with canisters of foodstuffs and, from the look of it, rats. Vittorio was swarthy and as short as Melzi. He had almost transparent green eyes; waxed, curly hair; a kinky, short-cropped beard; and he wore a stained serge suit. He was missing a front tooth. Yet he bore himself as if he were presiding over a parliament of rich and respected nubiluomo.

  “Buona ser
a.” Then Melzi slipped him a package and Vittorio nodded to Mantle, mumbled, “Mi scusi,” and walked off, presumably to hold court with the rats and kitchen cats.

  “Well, come on,” Melzi said. “He's going ahead to prepare her.”

  “Who is he?” Mantle asked.

  “He's the proprietor, a very famous man. Don't be fooled by his teeth, he has many affectations. He owns this place and many more. And as you can see, he watches over his interests. That's the secret of success, is it not?”

  Mantle followed Melzi out of the room and into a long, well-lit corridor. There was almost a hospital smell hereabouts, and Mantle shuddered, thinking of what might be going on behind closed doors. Josiane must be here, he told himself. He had to find her this time.

  “We're taking a shortcut,” Melzi said. “We're safer here than in the main rooms, which are, of course, much more interesting. But then that's the allure of a place such as this, is it not? I'm willing to bet you'd run into a pal in one of those rooms. You'd be surprised who risks the streets for a night at Vittorio's.”

  They took an elevator to the top story. Mantle was afraid of elevators; they symbolized his life, which he could not control. They were driven, it seemed, by unseen forces. Once inside the box, you had to trust the machine. And the machine didn't care if it worked or not.

  “You make it very hard for Nemesius, you know,” Melzi said. “He has nothing but a few hollies of your little bird.”

  “The records were burned.”

  “Yes, how lucky for you Americans. Most of you got a second chance. Wiped the slates clean, so to speak. What I wouldn't give for such an accident.”

  “Come on, Melzi.”

  “One last thing, Signore,” Melzi said. “You must remember that Vittorio is just a middleman, just like Nemesius. Just like me. It seems we've all become middlemen in these times.” Melzi smiled at that, obviously satisfied with his philosophizing. “And you must also remember that there are no guarantees.”

  “I'll know if it's her,” Mantle said.

  They stopped at the end of the hallway and Melzi rapped twice on a metal door, which Vittorio opened. “She's right in here.”

  The room was a cell. It smelled of urine, contained an open toilet, a wall sink, a discolored bidet, a filthy mattress on the metal floor, a computer console and a psyconductor with its cowls and mesh of wires, and a wooden folding chair. On the pallet lay Josiane, or a woman who looked exactly like her. She was naked and perspiring heavily. Mantle almost cried, for her face and small breasts were black and blue. Her hair was blonde and curly, although it was matted with dirt and clotted blood. She looked up at him, her limpid eyes as blue as his own; but she was looking through him, through the walls and the world, and back into the dark places of her mind.

  “Well,” Melzi said, sharing a glance with Vittorio, “that certainly looks like your little bird.”

  “Here are her papers,” Vittorio said to Mantle in an American accent, which was the current fashion; and then he passed Mantle a large envelope. But Mantle just held it; he was lost. His memory was jarred, and he slipped back to the first time, in the old house in Cayuga, when there were still spruce and fir covering the mountain. But he didn't care about trees then. He was fourteen and Josiane was eleven—but developed for her age—and she came into his room and they lay on the bed and talked and she jerked him off as she had done since she was eight or nine, and he rolled over on top of her, stared steadily into her face and entered her. Then stopped, as if tasting some kind of delicious, warm ice cream, and they just stared at each other, moving up and down, breath only slightly quickened. It was more a way of talking.

  Another memory came back to him: the face of a young woman in a crowd. The same face as the woman on the mattress.

  “Signore, come back to the world,” Vittorio said, and Melzi chuckled.

  Mantle shook his head as if he had slipped from one world to another and mumbled, “Josiane.” Then he rushed to the psyconductor, grabbed two cowls from the top of the console, and lunged toward her, intent on hooking into her thoughts; but Melzi caught him and pulled him away. “Are you that determined to burn your brain?” Melzi asked. “At least let me look at her first.”

  “We have many customers who wish to hook-into Screamers,” Vittorio said. “But they must pay first. It's a policy of the house.”

  Melzi squatted beside the woman and examined her with an instrument that projected a superimposed holographic image of Josiane over her face. After several minutes, he raised the magnification and disappeared the holographic image.

  “Whoever did this work was a real artist,” Melzi said. “Her face corresponds exactly to the hollie. But you see, right there?” He indicated a dry area just below her earlobe. “You see, the pores are open everywhere else but in that tiny spot.” He raised the magnification several more powers. “There you can see the faint thread of a suture. A recent job. He should have been just a little more careful and covered that up.”

  Mantle pushed Melzi out of the way and examined her himself. He felt anger and frustration burning through him, returning more violently than ever before. He began to shake. Once again he had tried to fool himself, this time with a burned-up Screamer, a grido, a crieuse—but she was not his wife!

  “I don't think you would wish to hook-into that woman,” Melzi said. “She is not—”

  “But you must admit, Signore,” Vittorio said, “she looks exactly like the hollies with which we were provided.” Then Vittorio said to Melzi, “She was supposed to have been completely checked out by the man who brought her to me.”

  Melzi only shrugged.

  “My contact is a reputable man; he will be very unhappy—”

  Then Mantle snapped completely—it was as if someone, or something, had suddenly taken him over. He punched Vittorio in the abdomen before Melzi could stop him. At once, the door to the hallway slammed open and one of Vittorio's men entered. The man was big and had the dead look of the street about him. As Mantle turned, the man struck him hard in the chest and pushed him savagely against the wall. Mantle overcame his nausea and tried to free himself, but Vittorio's man was too strong.

  Melzi watched, his mouth pursed as if he were amused. “You must forgive my client,” he said to Vittorio. “He's not right in the head. He—”

  “Now he will buy the girl,” Vittorio said, still gasping for breath. He kept smoothing down his suit.

  “Don't even argue,” Melzi said to Mantle. Melzi nodded to Vittorio; and Vittorio, in his turn, told his man to release Mantle. Mantle made the credit transaction by applying his hand to the glass face of the computer console.

  He had bought the woman.

  “You realize that this is simply a transfer of funds from one account to another,” Vittorio said, having recovered himself. “It cannot possibly be traced.”

  A matronly domestic entered the room with clothes for the woman and various messages for Vittorio.

  “Get her dressed and let's get out of here,” Mantle said impatiently.

  “I named her Victoria. She'll answer to that if she'll answer at all,” Vittorio said. He nodded curtly to Melzi and left the room. His man followed.

  Mantle felt his flesh crawl. He was sure that Vittorio had abused her. “Let's get out of here. Now!”

  “Let the girl finish dressing,” Melzi said. “I am in no rush to be on the streets. Just a few minutes ago you were going to hook-into her and now—”

  “Now,” Mantle repeated. And he held out his hand to Victoria, who grinned at him, just as Josiane used to do.

  The streets were empty—not a shadow moving, not a sound. It was dark, but the crooked, and usually deadly, intersecting streets were well lit, for anyone caught trying to break one of the kliegs would be torn limb from limb. The common folk had their own notions of law. However, enough lamps were broken to create a patchwork effect of white, black, and gray.

  They were almost out of Spacca. Victoria seemed suddenly alert, her head cocked, as if
listening to someone who was talking too low.

  “I don't like this,” Mantle said. His chest was aching, but he ignored it.

  “It is very bad,” Melzi agreed. “It's going to be a big one this time. I didn't expect anything like this to happen again so soon. I didn't think there were enough Screamers to do it. But you never know. All we can do is hurry. There's nothing to stop us, at least.”

  Mantle repressed an urge to slow down. He was curious, not really afraid. That, he knew, was dangerous. If Mantle was caught in a crowd of Screamers, he might not be able to resist becoming like them—very few could.

  “The girl is slowing us down,” Melzi said, grasping her arm and dragging her forward. “We don't have much time. The farther we are from Spacca, the safer.”

  “I don't see anything yet,” Mantle said.

  “Jesù, can't you feel it? Come on, hurry.”

  Mantle took her other arm. “Don't hurt her, Melzi,” Mantle said. “You're hurting her, let go of her arm.”

  “She may look like your wife, Signore, but she's still a grido. She feels nothing. She's not in this world. I can smell that.”

  Victoria suddenly started dragging her feet. She shook her head back and forth, her eyes closed, face placid, as if listening to music.

  “We can't drag her like this,” Melzi said. “Come on, little bird, wake up.” He slapped her back and forth on the face.

  “Leave her alone!” Mantle said, bracing her arms as she fell to her knees. Her head was cocked, and she began to smile.

  “I'm leaving, and so are you,” Melzi said. “I contracted to bring you home, and so I shall.” He pointed his heat weapon at Mantle. “Please forgive me, Signore, but if you do not come along, I will have to kill her. The smell of grido is so strong all around us that I can hardly breathe. We've no time to waste. Now leave her be.”

  Mantle felt something in the air, electricity, as if a powerful storm were about to break, only its potential energy seemed sentient. Suddenly Victoria began to scream. Long, cold streamers of sound. Melzi—who was sweating profusely and looking around in nervous, darting movements as if he were about to be attacked from every side—shot Victoria in the throat, just as he had shot the other woman. Mantle shouted, but it was too late. He was overcome with hatred and disgust and sorrow. For that instant, it was Josiane whom Melzi had shot.