Know what I mean? But now, hell! Them sec men of his are startin’ to beat up on
the armless, earless and noseless. They’ll be puttin’ ’em up agin a wall next,
you mark my words.” He turned to Ole One-Eye. “They say they aim for the heart,
but with you I reckon it’ll be someplace else.” He cackled, raised his glass of
beer. “The perfect target. Here’s lead in yer eye, pal.”
Ryan said, uneasily, “Look…”
Ole One-Eye made a dismissive gesture with his right hand, drank with his left.
He said quietly, “Shut it, Chev,” then looked up at Ryan. “Don’t mind him.
Wind’s in the wrong direction. His legs’ve been giving him shit for days.”
Chewy drank more beer, stared down at what was not there and had not been there
for some years. He said, his voice suddenly a hoarse whisper, “Nukeblasted
right.”
Ole One-Eye smiled gently, gazing up at Ryan. His eye was white irised, pinkish
around the edges.
“Speaking as one one-eye to another,” he said softly, “I’d say ya better figure
out fast which way ya gonna jump, boy. All hell gonna break out soon, and that’s
a realer feelin’ than when young Chev here gets aches in his hocks. Ya gotta
choose, boy. Choose damned soon.”
Ryan stared down at the guttering flames reflected from the candles in the pools
of spilled beer on the tabletop, aware that the buzz of conversation in the bar,
muted and desultory as it had been, had suddenly ceased altogether. Even
Rintoul, a mouthy kid at the best of times, though a good shot and loyal, had
shut up. He could see Ole One-Eye’s face, upside down, hideously distorted, in
the liquid, could even see that single eye fixed on his. All at once stories
he’d often heard on his travels slid into his mind, stories of mutants with the
“blazing” eye, the eye that, blasted you with a look, the eye that killed.
Couldn’t be true, of course. Foolish talk. Yet why not? There were sensers,
weren’t there? Sensers who sniffed out danger, danger that was to come, danger
that was just around the corner, short-term, within the hour. And there were
those who had an even rarer and more terrifying power; the doomseers: precogs
who had sharply defined visions of the future, what was to happen in the longer
term. So why not the Eye? Why not a look that could burn your mind out.
He shook his head, looked up suddenly at the reality rather than the strange
mirror image. Ole One-Eye’s single eye shifted up, too, to follow him. Ryan
drank what remained in his glass.
“You’re probably right,” he muttered.
The other chuckled quietly. “That’s m’boy,” he said. “One thing about you, Ryan,
you’re dependable. Known for it.”
Ryan rubbed at his face, at the stubble growing on his chin. Weirdly, he felt
that he’d just made an important decision, a vital decision, although he was not
aware that his conscious mind had done so, and the reply he’d just given had
been little more than noncommittal.
He said, “You old bastard, I think you’ve been trying to hypnotize me.”
This time Old One-Eye’s chuckle became a wheeze, full of genuine amusement.
“I don’t have the Devil’s Eye, son, just one good optic that’s seen me through a
mess of years but it’s as straight as yours.”
“Yeah. Well. Good luck.”
Ryan turned on his heel and made for the bar again. He glanced to his right as
the door to the place banged open, but it was not Samantha the Panther. He saw a
man whose clothes seemed too big for him, as though he’d shrunk in a shower of
rad rain, been not quite eaten up by the acids. He face was gaunt, hollow eyed.
His skin was burned nearly black and looked to be so thin that you could poke
your pinky through. He shoved the door closed again, his whole body trembling.
He seemed to be in a state of near-terminal flap.
Charlie, behind the bar, glared at him.
“Kurt! What the hell you doing out?”
The man said hoarsely, “I had to get out, Charlie. Up in the roof I was going