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He got up and walked to the wall. He could not walk through it, so he went around the inside
of the room.
“You can’t get away from it.”
“Mother, Jesus! Please!”
“ All right. Let’s talk about the business.”
“I couldn’t care less about the business right now.”
“Then what should we talk about? The lofty uses to which an old lady can put her last
moments?”
“You know, you’re really ghoulish. I think you’re enjoying this in some sick way.”
“What other way is there to enjoy it.”
“An adventure.”
“The biggest. A pity your father never had the chance to savor it.”
“I hardly think he’d have savored the feeling of being stamped to death in a hydraulic press.”
Then he thought about it, because that little smile was on her lips again. “Okay, he probably
would have. The two of you were so unreal, you’d have sat there and discussed it and analyzed the
pulp.”
“And you’re our son.”
He was, and he was. And he could not deny it, nor had he ever. He was hard and gentle and
wild just like them, and he remembered the days in the jungle beyond Brasilia, and the hunt in the
Cayman Trench, and the other days working in the mills alongside his father, and he knew when his
moment came he would savor death as she did.
“Tell me something. I’ve always wanted to know. Did Dad kill Tom Golden?”
“Use the needle and I’ll tell you.”
“I’m a Stack. I don’t bribe.”
“I‘m a Stack, and I know what a killing curiosity you’ve got. Use the needle and I’ll tell
you.”
He walked widdershins around the room. She watched him, eyes bright as the mill vats.
“You old bitch.”
“Shame, Nathan. You know you’re not the son of a bitch. Which is more than your sister can
say. Did I ever tell you she wasn’t your father’s child?”
“No, but I knew.”
“You’d have liked her father. He was Swedish. Your father liked him.”
“Is that why Dad broke both his arms?”
“Probably. But I never heard the Swede complain. One night in bed with me in those days
was worth a couple of broken arms. Use the needle.”
Finally, while the family was between the entree and the dessert, he filled the syringe and
injected her. Her eyes widened as the stuff smacked her heart, and just before she died she rallied all
her strength and said, “ A deal’s a deal. Your father didn’t kill Tom Golden, I did. You ‘re a hell of a
man, Nathan, and you fought us the way we wanted, and we both loved you more than you could
know. Except, dammit, you cunning s.o.b., you do know, don’t you?”
“I know,” he said, and she died; and he cried; and that was the extent of the poetry in it.
16
He knows we are coming.
They were climbing the northern face of the onyx mountain. Snake had coated Nathan
Stack’s feet with the thick glue and, though it was hardly a country walk, he was able to keep a
foothold and pull himself up. Now they had paused to rest on a spiral ledge, and Snake had spoken
for the first time of what waited for them where they were going.
