“Trader used to say a man with a long history was a walking corpse,” Ryan said.
“Trader used to say a lot of things, most of it useless, but damn, it was entertaining. Life with the Trader was many things, but it was never boring.”
Harry crooked a finger, and Ryan slid over closer. “I have something to tell you. Six degrees of separation is all that exists between any of us.”
“Huh?” Ryan asked dully.
Harry sighed. “In between launching your salvos of bullets, you should think about reading a book every now and then.”
“I have. I must’ve read The Night before Christmas fifty times,” Ryan protested in a voice that sounded remarkably childlike. The timbre of his words frightened him enough to make him fear taking a look down upon himself, fearing he might see the fleshy body of an eight-year-old kid with proper depth perception.
“Let me put it this wayit’s a small world after all, but we’re all connected in some form or fashion,” Harry said. “Not like spokes on a wheel, either. More like a patchwork quilt.”
“Okay.” Ryan coughed, suddenly impatient. He wasn’t sure where Harry was going with this latest crock of shit about wheels and quilts, and he didn’t care. Time to change the topic of discussion before he was forced to get to his feet, stagger over and strangle the talky bastard with his bare hands.
“How’s the vid collection coming along, Harry?” Ryan asked, recalling the stacks and stacks of old videotapes Harry had shown him during his time in the man’s lair beneath the streets of Newyork. Some of the vids were in protective plastic cases or tight cardboard boxes, but most were openpiles and piles of black plastic shells filled with spools of endless miles of recording tape.
“Coming along quad-triple fine!” the overweight man replied, excited to talk of his hobby. “I guess every man, woman and child must’ve owned a vid machine in the old days. More tapes floating around than a man would ever have time to watch. I can’t figure out the logic behind some of the shit people recorded and saved, but any tape is usually a gem. You want to know what I find the most?”
“Not really, Harry. I was just trying to make conversation,” Ryan retorted. “And you picked a lousy time for a visit.”
“All depends on the interpretation.”
“Yeah, right. Why did you pop up here anyway?”
Harry rapped a gloved fist on the top of his own head. “Why, I’m a cheesy fragment from your subconscious mind, Ryan, here to tell you to keep your possessions closeand your loved ones closer.”
Ryan exhaled noisily. “Fuck, Harry. I already do that.”
“Or so you think.”
“No thinking necessary. I don’t think. I do.”
Harry fell silent, looking around the fiery walls of the hexagonal chamber. “Looks like you’re in a bastard fix, Ryan my boy. Yeah, One-eye Cawdor’s not going to fight or trick his way out of this one. Hell, I don’t know why you’re acting so surprised. We both know you were expecting this to happen sooner or later.”
“What are you talking about, Santa?” Ryan had decided to give up on trying to maintain a semblance of a true conversationhe was saying whatever came into his mind now, flowing with the fever-dream logic being presented to him.
Harry beamed at Ryan, running his fingers through the snowy white beard the fat man was now sporting. “Come, now. In the darkest part of your heart you anticipated this happening. Now, there’s no more dread, ho-ho-ho.”
Ryan digested this latest piece of information. Harry had seemed to tap into a private dread, and from the looks of things, the evidence was clear. Was Santa Harry right? Did Ryan’s fear of ending up trapped in a gateway cause this? Ryan pondered the concept, his own hidden fears peeled away and put on display in such a destructive fashion before his own remaining eye.
Then he rejected such analysis. No way. Every reassembled atom of his being rejected such a notion.
“No way, Harry Claus. I’m not dead yet.”
“No, you’re not. Not yet. Soon, mebbe. Sooner than you think. But jolly jumping Jesus, boy, take off the patch and look around you, because everybody else is stone-cold dead in the marketplace, one hundred and ten percent chilled!”