Barker, Clive - Fifth Dominion 1

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THE FIFTH DOMINION- I
By Clive Barker
IT WAS THE PIVOTAL TEACHING of Pluthero Quexos, the most celebrated dramatist of the
Second Dominion, that in any fiction, no matter how ambitious its scope or profound its theme,
there was only ever room for three players. Between warring kings, a peacemaker; between
adoring spouses, a seducer or a child. Between twins, the spirit of the womb. Between lovers,
Death. Greater numbers might drift through the drama, of course-thousands in fact-but they could
only ever be phantoms, agents, or, on rare occasions, reflections of the three real and self-willed
beings who stood at the center. And even this essential trio would not remain intact; or so he
taught. It would steadily diminish as the story unfolded, three becoming two, two becoming one,
until the stage was left deserted.
Needless to say, this dogma did not go unchallenged. The writers of fables and comedies were
particularly vociferous in their scorn, reminding the worthy Quexos that they invariably ended
their own tales with a marriage and a feast. He was unrepentant. He dubbed them cheats and told
them they were swindling their audiences out of what he called the last great procession, when,
after the wedding songs had been sung and the dances danced, the characters took their
melancholy way off into darkness, following each other into oblivion.
It was a hard philosophy, but he claimed it was both immutable and universal, as true in the Fifth
Dominion, called Earth, as it was in the Second. And more significantly, as certain in life as it
was in art.
Being a man of contained emotion, Charlie Estabrook had little patience with the theater. It was,
in his bluntly stated opinion, a waste of breath: indulgence, flummery, lies. But had some student
recited Quexos' First Law of Drama to him this cold November night he would have nodded
grimly and said: Ail true, all true. It was his experience precisely. Just as Quexos Law required,
his story had begun with a trio: himself, John Furie Zacharias, and, between them, Judith. That
arrangement hadn't lasted very long. Within a few weeks of setting eyes on Judith he had
managed to supersede Zacharias in her affections, and the three had dwindled to a blissful two.
He and Judith had married and lived happily for five years, until, for reasons he still didn't
understand, their joy had foundered, and the two had become one.
He was that one, of course, and the night found him sitting in the back of a purring car being
driven around the frosty streets of London in search of somebody to help him finish the story.
Not, perhaps, in a fashion Quexos would have approved of-the stage would not be left entirely
empty- but one which would salve Estabrook's hurt.
He wasn't alone in his search. He had the company of one half-trusted soul tonight: his driver,
guide, and procurer, the ambiguous Mr. Chant. But despite Chant's shows of empathy, he was
still just another servant, content to attend upon his master as long as he was promptly paid. He
didn't understand the profundity of Estabrook's pain; he was too chilly, too remote. Nor, for all
the length of his family history, could Estabrook turn to his lineage for comfort. Although he
could trace his ancestors back to the reign of James the First, he had not been able to find a single
man on that tree of immoralities-even to the bloodiest root-who had caused, either by his hand or
hiring, what he, Estabrook, was out this midnight to contrive: the murder of his wife.
When he thought of her (when didn't he?) his mouth was dry arid his palms were wet; he sighed;
he shook. She was in his mind's eye now, like a fugitive from some more perfect place. Her skin
was flawless and always cool, always pale; her body was long, like her hair, like her fingers, like
her laughter; and her eyes, oh, her eyes, had every season of leaf in them: the twin greens of
spring and high summer, the golds of autumn, and, in her rages, black midwinter rot.
He was, by contrast, a plain man: well scrubbed but plain. He'd made his fortune selling baths,
bidets and toilets, which lent him little by way of mystique. So, when he'd first laid eyes on
Judith- she'd been sitting behind a desk at his accountant's office, her beauty all the more
luminous for its drab setting-his first thought was: I want this woman; his second: She won't want
me. There was, however, an instinct in him when it came to Judith that he'd never experienced
with any other woman. Quite simply, he felt she belonged to him, and that if he turned his wit to
it, he could win her.
His courtship had begun the day they'd met, with the first of many small tokens of affection
delivered to her desk. But he sooned learned that such bribes and blandishments would not help
his case. She politely thanked him but told him they weren't welcome. He dutifully ceased to send
presents and, instead, began a systematic investigation of her circumstances. There was precious
little to learn. She lived simply, her small circle vaguely bohemian. But among that circle he
discovered a man whose claim upon her preceded his own, and to whom she was apparently
devoted. That man was John Furie Zacharias, known universally as Gentle, and he had a
reputation as a lover that would have driven Estabrook from the field had that strange certainty
not been upon him. He decided to be patient and await his moment. It would come.
Meanwhile he watched his beloved from afar, conspiring to encounter her accidentally now and
again, and researching his antagonist's history. Again, there was little to learn. Zacharias was a
minor painter, when he wasn't living off his mistresses, and reputedly a dissolute. Of this
Estabrook had perfect proof when, by chance, he met the fellow. Gentle was as handsome as his
legends suggested, but looked, Charlie thought, like a man just risen from a fever. There was
something raw about him-his body sweated to its essence, his face betraying a hunger behind its
symmetry- that lent him a bedeviled look. Half a week after that encounter, Charlie had heard
that his beloved had parted from the man with great grief and was in need of tender care. He'd
been quick to supply it, and she'd come into the comfort of his devotion with an ease that
suggested his dreams of possession had been well founded.
His memories of that triumph had, of course, been soured by her departure, and now it was he
who wore the hungry, yearning look he'd first seen on Furie's face. It suited him less well than it
had Zacharias. His was not a head made for haunting. At fifty-six, he looked sixty or more, his
features as solid as Gentle's were spare, as pragmatic as Gentle's were rarefied. His only
concession to vanity was the delicately curled mustache beneath his patrician nose, which
concealed an upper lip he'd thought dubiously ripe in his youth, leaving the lower to jut in lieu of
a chin.
Now, as he rode through the darkened streets, he caught sight of that face in the window and
perused it ruefully. What a mockery he was! He blushed to think of how shamelessly he'd
paraded himself when he'd had Judith on his arm; how he'd joked that she loved him for his
cleanliness, and for his taste in bidets. The same people who'd listened to those jokes were
laughing in earnest now, were calling him ridiculous. It was unbearable. The only way he knew
to heal the pain of his humiliation was to punish her for the crime of leaving him.
He rubbed the heel of his hand against the window and peered out. "Where are we?" he asked
Chant. "South of the river, sir." "Yes, but where?" "Streatham."
Though he'd driven through this area many times-he had a warehouse in the neighborhood-he
recognized none of it. The city had never looked more foreign or more unlovely. "What sex is
London, do you suppose?" he mused. "I hadn't ever thought," Chant said. "It was a woman once,"
Estabrook went on. "One calls a city she, yes? But it doesn't seem very feminine any more.'
"She'll be a lady again in spring," Chant replied.
"I don't think a few crocuses in Hyde Park are going to make much difference," Estabrook said.
"The charm's gone out of it." He sighed. "How far now?" "Maybe another mile." "Are you sure
your man's going to be there?" "Of course."
"You've done this a lot, have you? Been a go-between, I mean. What did you call it... a
facilitator?"
"Oh, yes," Chant said. "It's in my blood." That blood was not entirely English. Chant's skin and
syntax carried traces of the immigrant. But Estabrook had grown to trust him a little, even so.
"Aren't you curious about all of this?" he asked the man.
"It's not my business, sir. You're paying for the service, and I provide it. If you wanted to tell me
your reasons-" "As it happens, I don't."
"I understand. So it would be useless for me to be curious, yes?"
That was neat enough, Estabrook thought. Not to want what couldn't be had no doubt took the
sting from things. He might need to learn the trick of that before he got too much older; before he
wanted time he couldn't have. Not that he demanded much in the way of satisfactions. He'd not
been sexually insistent with Judith, for instance. Indeed, he'd taken as much pleasure in the
simple sight of her as he'd taken in the act of love. The sight of her had pierced him, making her
the enterer, had she but known it, and him the entered. Perhaps she had known, on reflection.
Perhaps she'd fled from his passivity, from his ease beneath the spike of her beauty. If so, he
would undo her revulsion with tonight's business. Here, in the hiring of the assassin, he would
prove himself. And, dying, she would realize her error. The thought pleased him. He allowed
himself a little smile, which vanished from his face when he felt the car slowing and glimpsed,
through the misted window, the place the facilitator had brought him to.
A wall of corrugated iron lay before them, its length daubed with graffiti. Beyond it, visible
through gaps where the iron had been torn into ragged wings and beaten back, was a junkyard in
which trailers were parked. This was apparently their destination.
"Are you out of your mind?" he said, leaning forward to take hold of Chant's shoulder. "We're not
safe here."
"I promised you the best assassin in England, Mr. Esta-brook, and he's here. Trust me, he's here."
Estabrook growled in fury and frustration. He'd expected a clandestine rendezvous-curtained
windows, locked doors-not a gypsy encampment. This was altogether too public and too
dangerous. Would it not be the perfect irony to be murdered in the middle of an assignation with
an assassin?
He leaned back against the creaking leather of his seat and said, "You've let me down."
"I promise you this man is a most extraordinary individual," Chant said. "Nobody in Europe
comes remotely close. I've worked with him before." "Would you care to name the victims?"
Chant looked around at his employer and, in faintly admonishing tones, said, "I haven't presumed
upon your privacy, Mr. Estabrook. Please don't presume upon mine." Estabrook gave a chastened
grunt.
"Would you prefer we go back to Chelsea?" Chant went on. "I can find somebody else for you.
Not as good, perhaps, but in more congenial surroundings."
Chant's sarcasm wasn't lost on Estabrook, nor could he resist the recognition that this was not a
game he should have entered if he'd hoped to stay lily-white. "No, no," he said. "We're here, and I
may as well see him. What's his name?" "I only know him as Pie," Chant said. "Pie? Pie what?"
"Just Pie." Chant got out of the car and opened Estabrook's door.
Icy air swirled in, bearing a few flakes of sleet. Winter was eager this year. Pulling his
coat collar up around his nape and plunging his hands into the minty depths of his pockets,
Estabrook followed his guide through the nearest gap in the corrugated wall. The wind carried the
tang of burning timber from an almost spent bonfire set among the trailers: that, and the smell of
rancid fat.
"Keep close," Chant advised, "walk briskly, and don't show too much interest. These are very
private people."
"What's your man doing here?" Estabrook demanded to know. "Is he on the run?"
"You said you wanted somebody who couldn't be traced. 'Invisible' was the word you used. Pie's
that man. He's on no files of any kind. Not the police, not the Social Security. He's not even
registered as born." "I find that unlikely." "I specialize in the unlikely," Chant replied.
Until this exchange the violent turn in Chant's eye had never unsettled Estabrook, but it did now,
preventing him as it did from meeting the other man's gaze directly. This tale he was telling was
surely a lie. Who these days got to adulthood without appearing on a file somewhere? But the
thought of meeting a man who even believed himself undocumented intrigued Estabrook. He
nodded Chant on, and together they headed over the ill-lit and squalid ground.
There was debris dumped every side: the skeletal hulks of rusted vehicles; heaps of rotted
household refuse, the stench of which the cold could not subdue; innumerable dead bonfires. The
presence of trespassers had attracted some attention. A dog with more breeds in its blood than
hairs on its back foamed and yapped at them from the limit of its rope; the curtains of several
trailers were drawn back by shadowy witnesses; two girls in early adolescence, both with hair so
long and blond they looked to have been baptized in gold (unlikely beauty, in such a place) rose
from beside the fire, one running as if to alert guards, the other watching the newcomers with a
smile somewhere between the seraphic and the cretinous.
"Don't stare," Chant reminded him as he hurried on, but Estabrook couldn't help himself.
An albino with white dreadlocks had appeared from one of the trailers with the blond girl in tow.
Seeing the strangers he let out a shout and headed towards them.
Two more doors now opened, and others emerged from their trailers, but Estabrook had no
chance to either see who they were or whether they were armed because Chant again said, "Just
walk, don't look. We're heading for the caravan with the sun painted on it. See it?" "I see it."
There were twenty yards still to cover. Dreadlocks was delivering a stream of orders now, most
of them incoherent but surely intended to stop them in their tracks. Estabrook glanced across at
Chant, who had his gaze fixed on their destination and his teeth clenched. The sound of footsteps
grew louder behind them. A blow on the head or a knife in the ribs couldn't be far off. "We're not
going to make it," Estabrook said.
Within ten yards of the trailer-the albino at their shoulders-the door ahead opened, and a woman
in a dressing gown, with a baby in her arms, peered out. She was small and looked so frail it was
a wonder she could hold the child, who began bawling as soon as the cold found it. The ache of
its complaint drove their pursuers to action. Dreadlocks took hold of Estabrook's shoulder and
stopped him dead. Chant-wretched coward that he was-didn't slow his pace by a beat but strode
on towards the trailer as Estabrook was swung around to face the albino. This was his perfect
nightmare, to be facing scabby, pockmarked men like these, who had nothing to lose if they
gutted him on the spot. While Dreadlocks held him hard, another man-gold incisors glinting-
stepped in and pulled open Estabrook's coat, then reached in to empty his pockets with the speed
of an illusionist. This was not simply professionalism. They wanted their business done before
they were stopped.
As the pickpocket's hand pulled out his victim's wallet, a voice came from the trailer behind
Estabrook: "Let the Mister go. He's real."
Whatever the latter meant, the order was instantly obeyed, but by that time the thief had whipped
Estabrook's wallet into his own pocket and had stepped back, hands raised to show them empty.
Nor, despite the fact that the speaker-presumably Pie-was extending his protection to his guest,
did it seem circumspect to try and reclaim the wallet. Estabrook retreated from the thieves, lighter
in step and cash but glad to be doing so at all.
Turning, he saw Chant at the trailer door, which was open. The woman, the baby, and the speaker
had already gone back inside. 'They didn't hurt you, did they?" Chant said.
Estabrook glanced back over his shoulder at the thugs, who had gone to the fire, presumably to
divide the loot by its light. "No," he said. "But you'd better go and check the car, or they'll have it
stripped." "First I'd like to introduce you-"
"Just check the car," Estabrook said, taking some satisfaction in the thought of sending Chant
back across the no-man's-land between here and the perimeter. "I can introduce myself." "As you
like."
Chant went off, and Estabrook climbed the steps into the trailer. A scent and a sound met him,
both sweet. Oranges had been peeled, and their dew was in the air. So was a lullaby, played on a
guitar. The player, a black man, sat in the farthest corner, in a shadowy place beside a sleeping
child. The babe lay to his other side, gurgling softly in a simple cot, its fat arms raised as if to
pluck the music from the air with its tiny hands. The woman was at a table at the other end of the
vehicle, tidying away the orange peel. The whole interior was marked by the same fastidiousness
she was applying to this task, every surface neat and polished. "You must be Pie," Estabrook
said.
"Please close the door," the guitar player said. Estabrook did so. "And sit down. Theresa?
Something for the gentleman. You must be cold."
The china cup of brandy set before him was like nectar. He downed it in two throatfuls, and
Theresa instantly re-
plenished it. He drank again with the same speed, only to ; have his cup furnished with a
further draft. By the time Pie had played both the children to sleep and rose to come and join his
guest at the table, the liquor had brought a pleasant buzz to Estabrook's head.
In his life Estabrook had known only two other black men by name. One was the manager of a
tiling manufacturer in Swindon, the other a colleague of his brother's: neither of them men he'd
wished to know better. He was of an age and class that still swilled the dregs of colonialism at
two in the morning, and the fact this man had black blood in him (and, he guessed, much else
besides) counted as another mark against Chant's judgment. And yet-perhaps it was the brandy-he
found the fellow opposite him intriguing. Pie didn't have the face of an assassin. It wasn't
dispassionate, but distressingly vulnerable; even (though Estabrook would never have breathed
this aloud) beautiful. Cheeks high, lips full, eyes heavily lidded. His hair, mingled black and
blond, fell in Italianate profusion, knot- \ ted ringlets to his shoulders. He looked older than
Estabrook would have expected, given the age of his children. Perhaps only thirty, but wearied by
some excess or other, the burnished sepia of his skin barely concealing a sickly iridescence, as
though there were a mercurial taint in his cells. It made him difficult to fix, especially for eyes
awash with brandy, the merest motion of his head breaking subtle ; waves against his bones, their
spume draining back into his skin trailing colors Estabrook had never seen in flesh before.
Theresa left them to their business and retired to sit beside the cot. In part out of deference to the
sleepers and in part from his own unease at saying aloud what was on his mind, Estabrook spoke
in whispers. "Did Chant tell you why I'm here?"
"Of course," said Pie. "You want somebody murdered." He pulled a pack of cigarettes from the
breast pocket of his denim shirt and offered one to Estabrook, who declined with a shake of his
head. "That is why you're here, isn't it?"
"Yes," Estabrook replied. "Only-"
"You're looking at me and thinking I'm not the one to do it," Pie prompted. He put a cigarette to
his lips. "Be honest." "You're not exactly as I imagined," Estabrook replied.
"So, this is good," Pie said, applying a light to the cigarette. "If I had been what you'd imagined,
I'd look like an assassin, and you'd say I was too obvious." "Maybe."
"If you don't want to hire me, that's fine. I'm sure Chant can find you somebody else. If you do
want to hire me, then you'd better tell me what you need."
Estabrook watched the smoke drift up over the assassin's gray eyes, and before he could prevent
himself he was telling his story, the rules he'd drawn for this exchange forgotten. Instead of
questioning the man closely, concealing his own biography so that the other would have as little
hold on him as possible, he spilled the tragedy in every unflattering detail. Several times he
almost stopped himself, but it felt so good to be unburdened that he let his tongue defy his better
judgment. Not once did the other man interrupt the litany, and it was only when a rapping on the
door, announcing Chant's return, interrupted the flow that Estabrook remembered there was
anyone else alive in the world tonight besides himself and his confessor. And by that time the tale
was told.
Pie opened the door but didn't let Chant in. "We'll wander over to the car when we've finished,"
he told the driver. "We won't be long." Then he closed the door again and returned to the table.
"Something more to drink?" he asked.
Estabrook declined, but accepted a cigarette as they talked on, Pie requesting details of Judith's
whereabouts and movements, Estabrook supplying the answers in a monotone. Finally, the issue
of payment. Ten thousand pounds, to be paid in two halves, the first upon agreement of the
contract, the second after its completion. "Chant has the money," Estabrook said.
"Shall we walk, then?" Pie said.
Before they left the trailer, Estabrook looked into the cot. "You have beautiful children," he said
when they were out in the cold.
"They're not mine," Pie replied. "Their father died a year ago this Christmas." "Tragic,"
Estabrook said.
"It was quick," Pie said, glancing across at Estabrook and confirming in his glance the suspicion
that he was the orphan maker. "Are you quite certain you want this woman dead?" Pie said.
"Doubt's bad in a business like this. If there's any part of you that hesitates-"
"There's none," Estabrook said. "I came here to find a man to kill my wife. You're that man."
"You still love her, don't you?" Pie said, once they were out and walking.
"Of course I love her," Estabrook said. "That's why I want her dead."
"There's no Resurrection, Mr. Estabrook. Not for you, at least." "It's not me who's dying," he
said.
"I think it is," came the reply. They were at the fire, now untended. "A man kills the thing he
loves, and he must die a little himself. That's plain, yes?"
"If I die, I die," was Estabrook's response. "As long as she goes first. I'd like it done as quickly as
possible."
"You said she's in New York. Do you want me to follow her there?" "Are you familiar with the
city?" "Yes."
"Then do it there and do it soon. I'll have Chant supply extra funds to cover the flight. And that's
that. We shan't see each other again."
Chant was waiting at the perimeter and fished the envelope containing the payment from his
inside pocket. Pie accepted it without question or thanks, then shook Estabrook's hand and left
the trespassers to return to the safety of their car. As he settled into the comfort of the leather seat,
Estabrook realized the palm he'd pressed against Pie's was trembling. He knitted its fingers with
those of his other hand, and there they remained, white-knuckled, for the length of the journey
home.
Do THIS FOR THE WOMEN OF THE WORLD, read the note John Furie Zacharias held. Slit
your lying throat.
Beside the note, lying on the bare boards, Vanessa and her cohorts (she had two brothers; it was
probably they who'd come with her to empty the house) had left a neat pile of broken glass, in
case he was sufficiently moved by her entreaty to end his life there and then. He stared at the note
in something of a stupor, reading it over and over, looking-vainly, of course-for some small
consolation in it. Beneath the tick and scrawl that made her name, the paper was lightly wrinkled.
Had tears fallen there while she'd written her goodbye, he wondered? Small comfort if they had,
and a smaller likelihood still. Vanessa was not one for crying. Nor could he imagine a woman
with the least ambiguity of feeling so comprehensively stripping him of possessions. True,
neither the mews house nor any stick of furniture in it had been his by law, but they had chosen
many of the items together-she relying upon his artist's eye, he upon her money to purchase
whatever his gaze admired. Now it was all gone, to the last Persian rug and Deco lamp. The home
they'd made together, and enjoyed for a year and two months, was stripped bare. And so indeed
was he: to the nerve, to the bone. He had nothing.
It wasn't calamitous. Vanessa hadn't been the first woman to indulge his taste in handmade shirts
and silk waistcoats, nor would she be the last. But she was the first in recent memory-for Gentle
the past had a way of evaporating after about ten years-who had conspired to remove everything
from him in the space of half a day. His error was plain enough. He'd woken that morning, lying
beside Vanessa with a hard-on she'd wanted him to pleasure her with, and had stupidly refused
her, knowing he had a liaison with Marline that afternoon. How she'd discovered where he was
unloading his balls was academic. She had, and that was that. He'd stepped out of the house at
noon, believing the woman he'd left was devoted to him, and come home five hours later to find
the house as it was now. He could be sentimental at the strangest times. As now, for instance,
wandering through the empty rooms, collecting up the belongings she had felt obliged to leave
for him: his address book, the clothes he'd bought with his own money as opposed to hers, his
spare spectacles, his cigarettes. He hadn't loved Vanessa, but he had enjoyed the fourteen months
they'd spent together here. She'd left a few more pieces of trash on the dining room floor,
reminders of that time: a cluster of keys they'd never found doors to fit, instruction documents for
a blender he'd burned out making midnight margaritas, a plastic bottle of massage oil. All in all, a
pitiful collection, but he wasn't so self-deceiving as to believe their relationship had been much
more than a sum of those parts. The question was-now that it was over-where was he to go and
what was he to do? Martine was a middle-aged married woman, her husband a banker who spent
three days of every week in Luxembourg, leaving her time to philander. She professed love for
Gentle at intervals, but not with sufficient consistency to make him think he could prize her from
her husband, even if he wanted to, which he was by no means certain he did. He'd known her
eight months-met her, in fact, at a dinner party hosted by Vanessa's elder brother, William-and
they had only argued once, but it had been a telling exchange. She'd accused him of always
looking at other women; looking, looking, as though for the next conquest. Perhaps because he
didn't care for her too much, he'd replied honestly and told her she was right. He was stupid for
her sex. Sickened in their absence, blissful in their company: love's fool. She'd replied that while
his obsession might be healthier than her husband's-which was money and its manipulation-his
behavior was still neurotic. Why this endless hunt? she'd asked him. He'd answered with some
folderol about seeking the ideal woman, but he'd known the truth even as he was spinning her this
tosh, and it was a bitter thing. Too bitter, in fact, to be put on his tongue. In essence, it came
down to this: he felt meaningless, empty, almost invisible unless one or more of her sex were
doting on him. Yes, he knew his face was finely made, his forehead broad, his gaze haunting, his
lips sculpted so that even a sneer looked fetching on them, but he needed a living mirror to tell
him so. More, he lived in hope that one such mirror would find something behind his looks only
another pair of eyes could see: some undiscovered self that would free him from being Gentle. As
always when he felt deserted, he went to see Chester Klein, patron of the arts by diverse hands, a
man who claimed to have been excised by fretful lawyers from more biographies than any other
man since Byron. He lived in Notting Hill Gate, in a house he'd bought cheaply in the late fifties,
which he now seldom left, touched as he was by agoraphobia or, as he preferred it, "a perfectly
rational fear of anyone I can't blackmail."
From this small dukedom he managed to prosper, employed as he was in a business which
required a few choice contacts, a nose for the changing taste of his market, and an ability to
conceal his pleasure at his achievements. In short, he dealt in fakes, and it was this latter quality
he was most deficient in. There were those among his small circle of intimates who said it would
be his undoing, but they or their predecessors had been prophesying the same for three decades,
and Klein had outprospered every one of them. The luminaries he'd entertained over the decades-
the defecting dancers and minor spies, the addicted debutantes, the rock stars with messianic
leanings, the bishops who made idols of barrow boys-they'd all had their moments of glory, then
fallen. But Klein went on to tell the tale. And when, on occasion, his name did creep into a
scandal sheet or a confessional biography, he was invariably painted as the patron saint of lost
souls. It wasn't only the knowledge that, being such a soul, Gentle would be welcomed at the
Klein residence, that took him there. He'd never known a time when Klein didn't need money for
some gambit or other, and that meant he needed painters. There was more than comfort to be
found in the house at Ladbroke Grove; there was employment. It had been eleven months since
he'd seen or spoken to Chester, but he was greeted as effusively as ever and ushered in.
"Quickly! Quickly!" Klein said. "Gloriana's in heat again!" He managed to slam the door before
the obese Gloriana, one of his five cats, escaped in search of a mate. "Too slow, sweetie!" he told
her. She yowled at him in complaint. "I keep her fat so she's slow," he said. "And I don't feel so
piggy myself."
He patted a paunch that had swelled considerably since Gentle had last seen him and was testing
the seams of his shirt, which, like him, was florid and had seen better years. He still wore his hair
in a ponytail, complete with ribbon, and wore an ankh on a chain around his neck, but beneath the
veneer of a harmless flower child gone to seed he was as acquisitive as a bowerbird. Even the
vestibule in which they embraced was overflowing with collectibles: a wooden dog, plastic roses
in psychedelic profusion, sugar skulls on plates.
"My God, you're cold," he said to Gentle. "And you look wretched. Who's been beating you
about the head?" "Nobody." "You're bruised." "I'm tired, that's all."
Gentle took off his heavy coat and laid it on the chair by the door, knowing when he returned it
would be warm and covered with cat hairs. Klein was already in the living room, pouring wine.
Always red.
"Don't mind the television," he said. "I never turn it off these days. The trick is not to turn up the
sound. It's much more entertaining mute."
This was a new habit, and a distracting one. Gentle accepted the wine and sat down in the corner
of the ill-sprung couch, where it was easiest to ignore the demands of the screen. Even there, he
was tempted.
"So now, my Bastard Boy," Klein said, "to what disaster do I owe the honor?"
"It's not really a disaster. I've just had a bad time. I wanted some cheery company." "Give them
up. Gentle," Klein said. "Give what up?"
"You know what. The fair sex. Give them up. I have. It's such a relief. All those desperate
seductions. All that time wasted meditating on death to keep yourself from coming too soon. I tell
you, it's like a burden gone from my shoulders." "How old are you?"
"Age has got fuck-all to do with it. I gave up women because they were breaking my heart."
"What heart's that?"
摘要：

THEFIFTHDOMINION-IByCliveBarkerITWASTHEPIVOTALTEACHINGofPlutheroQuexos,themostcelebrateddramatistoftheSecondDominion,thatinanyfiction,nomatterhowambitiousitsscopeorprofounditstheme,therewasonlyeverroomforthreeplayers.Betweenwarringkings,apeacemaker;betweenadoringspouses,aseducerorachild.Betweentwins...

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