“Texas,” Doc mused. “Funny. I have been through Houston, and it does not feel hot enough for Texas.”
The comment earned him two things: a snarled “Shut your mouth,” from the bearded man appointed to be his keeper and a whack to the back of the head from the butt of the rifle held by the second guard. While the blow wasn’t hard enough to send Doc crashing into unconsciousness, or even send him sprawling to his knees, it was ample and unexpected enough to shake his brain loose from the coherent mooring he’d reestablished and start him careening from topic to topic once more inside his damaged mind.
After the long walk down the side hall, Doc and his captors entered through a large double door into a great room, a high-ceilinged monstrosity. The room was empty, barren of any decoration or furniture. Industrial carpet of olive green had been lain upon the floor, muffling the sounds of footsteps. A second carpet, this one of royal red, stretched across the expanse like a lazy tongue that led to a mouth of equally red draperies, slightly parted. Soft, flickering light was escaping from the gap left in the massive curtains, which helped cover the worn condition of the carpets underfoot, royal red and olive green, equally ratty and dirty.
A figure behind the curtains beckoned. For a moment, Doc’s addled mind proposed the possibility he was but an actor, waiting to go on and deliver his latest performance. Trying to remember his lines, he stopped walking for a second, and struck a pose, one hand on a hip and the other one extended, palm up, just so.
Doc cleared his throat.
“You got a problem?” his keeper asked.
‘”All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players. They have then” exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages,”‘ Doc boomed.
The new figure stepped out from behind the curtains and took in the sight of Doc and the waiting guards. He smiled and it was phony and insincere, a cold-hearted smile belonging to a cold-hearted man. It was a smile with no joy, a cruel twisting of the lips, like a pasted-on applique. A dead smile.
“Greetings, friend. And who might you be?” Doc said brightly. “I hope I have not missed my cue.”
“My name is Strasser. Cort Strasser,” the man said, silky smooth. “And you haven’t missed a damned thing, old man. In fact, you’re just in time for the festivities.”
“Fancy that!” Doc said.
“Fancy that,” Strasser echoed.
Making an “after you” motion and holding out a hand to the gap in the curtains, Strasser stepped aside, the smile across his lower face frozen in place as he waited for Doc to move. As the older gent passed, squinting to see as he entered the dimly lit room beyond the curtains, Strasser cuffed him across the back of the head, causing Doc to stumble forward. He managed to break his fall with his hands, but still landed painfully on his knees, which seemed to have developed all-new aches and pains after his latest mat-trans chron jump.
“I’ll have none of that crazy babbling, old man, stuff about entrances and exits. Keep it up and the only exit you’ll be taking is the slow train West, get me? I’ve already heard enough of your wailing and crying. If you try and embarrass me in front of the baron, I’ll chill you on the spot, one slug right to the head, okay?” Strasser grated from behind.
“Take heart that I meant no embarrassment. The words, sir, the words I spoke came from the Bard. And William Shakespeare, for all of his faults, was far from crazy.”
“Do I look like I give a good long happy shit?” Strasser demanded, his face visibly angry even in the subdued lighting of the wide room.
“I must confess, no, you do not,” Doc answered truthfully.
“So you aren’t a total half-wit.”
Doc didn’t reply as he carefully looked around the room in which he knelt. The lighting was as bad as what passed for illumination outside in the great hall, but at the same time the room still seemed bright because of an abundance of mirrors-on the walls, mounted in freestanding racks, on the ceiling above. And in the mirrors were the reflections of lighted candles. Candelabra were placed on a series of small tables that Doc would have recognized as being old even during his boyhood, so this baron had to have an affection for antiques. The scent of incense hung in the air, thick and heavy, almost covering other, more undesirable smells of body odor and decay.