furthering a varied trade in foods, drugs, armaments, icons, rare books, general contraband and murder. Money had always bored him, but his interests also enabled him to build up a fortune in the simplest, least tangible, most negotiable currency in the world – information.
Stiffening his back for the purpose, he sat up suddenly. He dragged his arms from behind him and deposited his hands in his lap. He brushed the dirt and flies off his coiled bowels and pressed the functional mass back into his body. He reached for the cummerbund that had been torn off him during his murder, and wrapped it tightly about his midriff, easing shut the wound, that had disembowelled him. His insides realigned themselves, itching and burning by turns. He felt ready to use his arms again and reached for the monkey.
At first, he had dealt only with a mountain of a colonel in the Turkish Secret Police, supplying him with interesting tit-bits about the many foreign nationals who passed through his club. Then, he had delicately approached, in turn, the local representatives of Germany, Russia and Great Britain. There would be yet another war eventually, and Turkey was in such an odd spot on the map. Squeezed between three troubled continents and theoretically neutral, it was naturally at the centre of all manner of legitimate and illegitimate merchant and refugee activities, and the site of diplomacy and espionage on a scale he had not seen since his dealings with the papacy in the 14th century. It had eased the tedium to see the nations of humankind scheme and plot against one another, and to be able to take a hand in the shaping of the War that would change everything again.
The monkey’s meagre meat and brief flare of dreamstuff helped, and he was able unsteadily to stand up. He smoothed his forehead and scalp over his skull, and tore away the dead tatters that clung to his cheekbones and neck. They had cut off his genitals and stamped them into the dirt. That was supposed to be a warning to his associates. It did not concern him much. Thorough his assailants might have been, but they had also shown a typically human lack of imagination in their treatment of him. After so many centuries of torture and violence, he would have thought that men would become practised in the artistry of feeding. But no, the race was still saddeningly small-minded.
He had been amused by the opportunity to juggle with the interests of so many nations and individuals, and had capriciously exploited the situation. Once he had denounced an innocent American tobacco trader as a dangerous enemy spy to the Nazis and the Soviets, and doubled his money by accepting two commissions to arrange his assassination. But someone or other had discovered one of his duplicities, or taken offence at one of his transactions, and had paid a gang of waterfront knifemen to drag him into this alley and ruin him.
Soon, he would be whole again. Then, his murderers would be his meat and drink. And he would find out who had employed them and feed off him. Then there would be the War, and wars were what he liked best of all. Europe would be a killing ground for a while, a banquet for the Kind. Then, he thought, he might go back to the United States. He had the feeling, listening to the torch songs of that nation on his Victrola, that America was about to become the most interesting country on the globe. The Old World was using itself up fast. There was life for the taking beyond the Atlantic, and a vitality which could feed him for decades.
In an upstairs window, a girl appeared. She was not beautiful, but she was not fat and disgusting either. She saw him as a stranger loitering in the dark alley below and routinely exposed her breasts to him.
He stepped into the light, and looked up at her. She did not scream. In her mind, she said she had seen worse.
‘That’s what you think,’ he said out loud in the wrong language, one she did not understand. Through exposed and bloody teeth, he
Stiffening his back for the purpose, he sat up suddenly. He dragged his arms from behind him and deposited his hands in his lap. He brushed the dirt and flies off his coiled bowels and pressed the functional mass back into his body. He reached for the cummerbund that had been torn off him during his murder, and wrapped it tightly about his midriff, easing shut the wound, that had disembowelled him. His insides realigned themselves, itching and burning by turns. He felt ready to use his arms again and reached for the monkey.
At first, he had dealt only with a mountain of a colonel in the Turkish Secret Police, supplying him with interesting tit-bits about the many foreign nationals who passed through his club. Then, he had delicately approached, in turn, the local representatives of Germany, Russia and Great Britain. There would be yet another war eventually, and Turkey was in such an odd spot on the map. Squeezed between three troubled continents and theoretically neutral, it was naturally at the centre of all manner of legitimate and illegitimate merchant and refugee activities, and the site of diplomacy and espionage on a scale he had not seen since his dealings with the papacy in the 14th century. It had eased the tedium to see the nations of humankind scheme and plot against one another, and to be able to take a hand in the shaping of the War that would change everything again.
The monkey’s meagre meat and brief flare of dreamstuff helped, and he was able unsteadily to stand up. He smoothed his forehead and scalp over his skull, and tore away the dead tatters that clung to his cheekbones and neck. They had cut off his genitals and stamped them into the dirt. That was supposed to be a warning to his associates. It did not concern him much. Thorough his assailants might have been, but they had also shown a typically human lack of imagination in their treatment of him. After so many centuries of torture and violence, he would have thought that men would become practised in the artistry of feeding. But no, the race was still saddeningly small-minded.
He had been amused by the opportunity to juggle with the interests of so many nations and individuals, and had capriciously exploited the situation. Once he had denounced an innocent American tobacco trader as a dangerous enemy spy to the Nazis and the Soviets, and doubled his money by accepting two commissions to arrange his assassination. But someone or other had discovered one of his duplicities, or taken offence at one of his transactions, and had paid a gang of waterfront knifemen to drag him into this alley and ruin him.
Soon, he would be whole again. Then, his murderers would be his meat and drink. And he would find out who had employed them and feed off him. Then there would be the War, and wars were what he liked best of all. Europe would be a killing ground for a while, a banquet for the Kind. Then, he thought, he might go back to the United States. He had the feeling, listening to the torch songs of that nation on his Victrola, that America was about to become the most interesting country on the globe. The Old World was using itself up fast. There was life for the taking beyond the Atlantic, and a vitality which could feed him for decades.
In an upstairs window, a girl appeared. She was not beautiful, but she was not fat and disgusting either. She saw him as a stranger loitering in the dark alley below and routinely exposed her breasts to him.
He stepped into the light, and looked up at her. She did not scream. In her mind, she said she had seen worse.
‘That’s what you think,’ he said out loud in the wrong language, one she did not understand. Through exposed and bloody teeth, he
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