Spares - Michael Marshall Smith [4]
There hadn’t been many people on the streets, thankfully. You don’t go to the Portal to promenade, particularly not at night—it would be less trouble to stay in your apartment and mug yourself in the comfort of your own home. Howie Amos once ran a service which did just that; you called him up, said you were thinking of going out into the Portal, and he’d send someone to rough you up within half an hour or you got a dollar off. It was surprisingly popular.
I corralled the spares into a tight group and herded them down the streets in front of me, sticking close to the walls and out of the light, trusting Suej and David to help me keep the others in line. I’d explained why we had to come here, and why it could be a problem for me. They all did what they were told, and I hurried us along for about a mile until we were outside Mal’s building.
I paused outside and looked back the way we’d come. The roads in the Portal are very straight, running out from New Richmond in the center like a giant spider’s web. You can stand in the middle of one and see as far as the rain will let you. Yellow streetlights lined the way, throwing pools of light that were rich and sickly, like cream ten minutes before it goes sour. Beyond the limits of my vision was the edge of the Portal, and beyond that, the road which led out into the dark Virginia countryside. A long way down that road were the Blue Ridge Mountains we’d come from, matter-of-fact geology covered with a hell of a lot of trees. For the first time it struck me how much the roads in the Portal looked like tunnels, and that was when I began to accept that the last five years really had happened to me.
I shouldered the outer door open and led the spares into the hallway, which was an inch deep in chill water. Loud music was thumping from somewhere up above. I told the spares to stay still and to hide if anyone came, then I vaulted up the wooden staircase that spiraled up into the darkness. When I got to the 3rd floor I took a deep breath, shook some of the water out of my hair, then knocked on Mal’s door.
Mal did a double take which would have done a cheap comedian proud, and then he just stood there, mouth hanging open, hand still holding the door. He was wearing a pair of battered cutoffs which showed off the scars on his legs, and a ragged T-shirt that hugged his new paunch and looked like about five people had lived and died in it without showing it any water other than rain. He was backlit by a bare bulb, and from somewhere deep in the bowels of his apartment came the smell of cooking—noodles, almost certainly. In all the time I’d known Mal I don’t think I’d ever seen him voluntarily eat anything else.
Finally he got it together, blinked and tried to smile.
“Jack,” he croaked, eerie calm coming about level with utter stupefaction. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
“Social visit. Old times.”
“Yeah, right. The Pope’s due later too.” He closed his eyes tightly for a moment, and pinched himself on the bridge of the nose. “You in trouble?”
“Yep.” I grinned, trying to keep myself from hopping from foot to foot. Tension, of about seven different kinds. I nodded toward the gloom of the apartment. “What’s cooking?”
“Noodles,” he said, eyeing me warily. “You want some?”
“Depends how much you’ve got. I’m not alone.”
“How many guests are we talking?”
I took a deep breath. “Including me, seven,” I said. Mal’s eyes opened wide and he shook his head—not in negation, just bewilderment. I tried to make it easier on him. “Well, six and a half, I guess.”
“That’s a lot of noodles.”
“Too many?”
“Not necessarily,” he said. “I buy in bulk.” He turned back toward his apartment for a moment, biting his lip, considering. I noticed he wasn’t wearing his shoulder holster and wondered whether that meant he was out of the Life, or just less paranoid