X

Mortimer left Buffalo Bill snoring in the Emperor's Suite and smelling like Dial soap.

The Emperor's Suite had come with Dial soap and Pantene shampoo and a small tube of Aim toothpaste. The suite was normally one hundred Armageddon dollars a night. For Platinum members it was only sixty.

Mortimer trudged the ten blocks from the armory to his old neighborhood. He wanted to find his old house before nightfall. A few people passed him on the street. Nobody said hello, but nobody seemed terrified either.

Some houses looked perfectly normal. Others were clearly abandoned, and a few had been burned down to the foundation. But there was something else. Mortimer couldn't quite put his finger on it. He stood in the middle of the street, turned three hundred and sixty degrees trying to figure it out.

No cars. None driving, none parked in the driveways or along the streets. The gas might have gone stale, but where did the cars go?

He kept walking.

He turned onto his street, spotted his house about halfway down. It came into focus as he trudged closer. The windows were dark, but so were all the windows along the street. No power. His house looked dirty and unpainted. The shrubs grown long and wild. It hadn't been such a bad house, three bedrooms, two baths, a fireplace. Now the gutters hung loose at one end. He stood watching the house for ten minutes but didn't see or hear any signs of life.

He climbed the three steps to the front porch. The wood creaked under his boots. Someone had painted graffiti on the front door, a blue circle with a triangle of three dots inside. Some gang?

Concern for Anne suddenly welled up inside him. What had happened to her? Did she make it okay when the world went crazy?

He knocked on the door. It felt strange, even after all this time, to knock before he entered his own home. He pushed the door open and entered.

The living room was nearly barren, a sofa with stuffing oozing out of the cushions and a beanbag. He stood there trying to remember the good times with Anne, long nights in front of a cozy fire. Mortimer's eyes grew misty as the past formed a picture in his mind.

The old screaming woman with the frying pan in her hand broke the spell.

"Whoa!" Mortimer flinched, backed away.

She was wild eyed, gray hair exploding in all directions. She rushed at Mortimer, the frying pan swinging savagely. Mortimer threw up his arms, tried to duck away. A glancing blow on the tip of his elbow shot hot pain up his arm.

"Lady, please. Jesus!" Mortimer attempted flight, tripped backward over the beanbag.

The old lady loomed over him, mouth a feral, toothless grimace, ragged dress billowing around her like the tattered cape of some obsolete superhero. "My house. The place was empty, so I puts my mark on the door. Them's the rules." She lifted the pan over her head for a killer blow.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry." He reached into his pocket, came out with a handful of coins and tossed them at the old woman's feet. "Here, take them."

She stepped back, blinked at the glittering coins on the floor. "Are those...?" She knelt, picked one up and held it in the light. "It is. Armageddon dollars!" She scooped them into her trembling hands. "Thank you. Oh, my God. Thank you."

Her head came up suddenly and she met Mortimer's gaze, one eye half-milky with cataracts. "Wait a minute. I know what this is about."

"It's not about anything." Mortimer struggled to his feet. "I'm sorry I barged in."

"A strapping young buck like you. I know what you want from a woman."

"Oh, shit." He backed away, headed for the door.

The old woman ripped open the front of her dress, buttons flying. "Take me, you randy bastard. I'm bought and paid for." Her breasts flopped into the open like deflated hot-water bottles.

Mortimer screamed and dashed for the door, made it outside and kept running.

"You goddamn pussy," she called after him. "Come back here and deliver the sausage!"

XI

Back in the Emperor's Suite, Mortimer found Bill's vodka bottle. Empty. He sniffed, and the fumes scorched the inside of his nose. "Hell."

Bill walked in from the other room, tucking in his shirt. He looked alert and no longer smelled like a campfire after his shower. "Sorry, all gone."

"I need a drink."

"Sounds good. Let me get my boots on."

Mortimer squinted at the empty vodka bottle. "You can handle it?"

"I never get sick," Bill said. "Or hung over."

"Come on, then."

They went downstairs. Things had changed with evening. Half the scruffy men along the far wall now pedaled stationary bikes while the other half sat on them and leaned on the handlebars. All huffed breath. Sweaty. Christmas tree lights zigzagged the ceiling of the hall. It looked like a dystopia-themed high school prom. Music leaked tinnily from unseen stereo speakers.

"That sounds familiar," Mortimer said. "What is that?"

"It's Tony Orlando," Bill said. "'Knock Three Times.'"

Mortimer shook his head. "Jesus."

"No, Tony Orlando."

A bell went off, like a doorbell chime. The resting guys on the stationary bicycles started pedaling, and the half who'd been pedaling rested. The Christmas tree lights dimmed momentarily during the changeover, Tony Orlando's voice stretching into slow motion, then picking up speed again.

Talk about a shitty day job, thought Mortimer.

A man appeared in front of them wearing the worst tuxedo in history, neon orange with a ruffled shirt. He sported a handlebar moustache, and his slicked-down hair was meticulously parted in the middle. It looked like he'd escaped from a psycho ward's barbershop quartet.

"Gentlemen?"

"I want to get a drink," Mortimer said.

He sniffed. "We're switching over to our dinner shift. You'll have to wait."

Bill stuck a finger in his face. "Who the hell are you?"

"I am Emile, the maître d', and I'm sorry, but-"

"Show him the card." Bill elbowed Mortimer.

Mortimer produced the Platinum card. "This?"

Emile's eyes widened; the ends of his moustache twitched. "Sir!"

The maître d' turned abruptly, snapped his fingers. Burly men appeared from nowhere. They frantically prepared a table down near the stage, white tablecloth, a candle. Emile ushered them to the table. There was much bowing and hand wringing.

"I humbly and abjectly apologize most profusely," Emile said. "I didn't recognize you, Mr. Tate."

"Forget it."

"Of course, of course. You are obviously a most generous and forgiving-"

"He told you to forget it, friend," Bill said. "Now rustle us up a bottle before I stomp your foppish ass."

Emile's smile strained at the edges. "Yes. Certainly."

"Bring us some vodka and some clean glasses."

Emile left, bowing and muttering under his breath.

"You don't have to be so hard on the help," Mortimer said.

"Hey, you're an important guy now. You can't let these peons piss on your boots."

Mortimer blew out a ragged sigh. "I need that drink."

Bill leaned forward on the table, lowered his voice. "You okay?"

"I went to my house."

Bill nodded. "Let me guess. Your wife wasn't there."

"No."

"It happens."

"A toothless old lady wanted me to fuck her."

"You need a drink."

"Yes."

Emile the neon maître d' returned with a bottle of vodka and two mismatched glasses. He poured as he bowed. He was obsequious as hell. "The waitresses have yet to come on duty, but it is my delight to bring your bottle myself so you don't have to wait."

Mortimer tossed back the vodka. It burned his throat. He tried to thank the maître d' but erupted into a coughing fit instead.

"Mort says thanks, now fuck off," Bill told Emile.

Emile left the bottle on the table, rolled his eyes as he walked away.

"This tastes like kerosene," Mortimer said.

"Don't be ridiculous. Did you ever drink kerosene before?"

Mortimer admitted he hadn't.

"Then don't talk crazy." Bill tilted the bottle, filled up Mortimer's glass again.

They both drank, winced, filled their glasses again.

"I don't know where my wife is," Mortimer said. "If she's even alive."

Bill nodded, slurped booze. "It's tough to keep track of kinfolk in the new world."

Kinfolk. Bill's cowboy act got cornier the more he drank. Mortimer didn't mind. He liked Bill. He liked drinking with someone again. If he let his eyes glaze over and listened to the music and forgot how toxic the vodka was, Mortimer could almost believe he was enjoying happy hour after work with coworkers from the insurance company, that he'd go home a little drunk, make love to his wife. Anne. Where was she?

He grabbed the bottle. Shook it. Empty. "Damn."

Bill snapped his fingers. "Another bottle, you greasy bastard!"

Emile returned. A frown had replaced his strained smile. He wasn't even pretending anymore. "What?"

Bill returned the frown. "Keep a civil tongue, you...you..."

"Varmint," Mortimer suggested.

"Yeah! You motherfucking varmint asshole."

"What do you want?" demanded Emile. His moustache had drooped. The maître d's haughty air had been completely defeated by the Platinum card. All he could do was endure.

"Booze!"

Emile slunk away, and Mortimer watched him go. He couldn't summon any pity for the man. Mortimer was too wrapped up in his own thoughts, too enamored by the fuzzy Christmas tree lights, too light-headed from the vodka. What would he do now? How long could he sit here drinking poison before he was forced to determine what happened next? Mortimer Tate had not considered what his life would be at the bottom of the mountain.

Emile paused to talk to a skinny, dark-eyed man leaning in the doorway. Mortimer thought him familiar. Emile nodded at the newcomer, pointed toward Mortimer's table. Had Buffalo Bill's rude behavior caused trouble? Where the hell was that bottle? Mortimer still thought the skinny man looked somewhat familiar.

"Your wife might not even be alive," Bill said.

Mortimer flinched at the statement. "What?"

"I remember getting lost in the food riots back then. It was rough. I found my way home, found my dad in the living room, blood all over the place. Somebody had smashed his head in with a pipe or something. The house had been ransacked. I waited and waited by his body for my mom to come home, you know? I never did find out what happened. Never." Bill's eyes were focused someplace far away, years into the past. "I thought later, you know, what if she'd come home and found Dad dead? What if she'd just left and saved herself and didn't wait for me? I always thought-" Bill's voice caught; he shook his head, cleared his throat. "Where's that fucking bottle?"

Emile came back just in time, filled their glasses from the new bottle. Bill drank quickly, eyes down, face clouded with dark memories.

Mortimer could see Bill didn't want to talk about it, but Mortimer couldn't help himself. He peppered the cowboy with questions. How many had died? Was anything being done? What was this world they now lived in? Did people still vote? Was there still an America? The answers were all the same. Everything had changed.

Emile bent to speak softly into Mortimer's ear. "Professor Coffey wonders if he could join you for a drink."

Mortimer lifted an eyebrow. "Who?"

"The owner, sir."

"Uh...okay."

The name, the face. So damn familiar.

The lanky man came over and sat in between Bill and Mortimer. "Hello, Mort. I thought it was you."

Recognition snapped into focus. "Pete Coffey!"

Bill raised an eyebrow.

"This is Pete Coffey," Mortimer said. "We were on the baseball team in high school together."

Bill nodded. "How do."

"Last I heard you were an English professor at Georgetown."

Coffey shrugged. "I taught classics. Georgetown is radioactive rubble now. I was home for my mother's funeral, or I'd have bought it with the rest of my department."

"I'm sorry to hear it," Mortimer said. "Your mother, I mean."

"It's okay."

"You're the owner of this place?"

A smile flickered across the professor's face. "Half owner. Joey Armageddon owns half of all the places. Some local guy-in this case, me-owns the other half."

"Where's the government?" Mortimer blurted.

"Once in a while we get something on the short-wave," Coffey said. "Some air force general in Colorado Springs claims to represent the government. Then other times we hear about some low-level cabinet secretary holed up in Omaha saying she's constitutionally in charge." A shrug. "It doesn't really matter."

"Doesn't matter?" Mortimer poured vodka, shook his head. "I can't believe it."

"You're drinking that?" Coffey asked.

"It's-hic-good," Bill said.

"No, it's not," Coffey said. "It's a shortcut to the Hershey squirts. Like washing out your bowels with battery acid." He waved at Emile, and the maître d' was at Coffey's elbow in an instant. "Bring the Bombay from the safe in my office. And the lime juice. Silas knows the combination."

Bill gaped. "You got limes? Where'd you get limes?"

"Nobody has limes," Coffey said. "We got six little cans of lime juice in trade last month, and I've hoarded them for myself. The Bombay too."

"I miss oranges." Bill sounded wistful. "Any citrus."

"Nothing comes up from Florida," Coffey said. "Not for a year now."

Emile arrived with a half-full bottle of Bombay Sapphire, a can of lime juice and a bucket of ice cubes. Coffey mixed the drinks, poured the gin like he was handling nitroglycerin, careful not to spill a drop. He made sure not to pour Bill or Mortimer any more than he poured for himself. At last, they drank.

Contented sighs. All three men closed their eyes, let the booze ease down.

"Damn, that's a hell of a lot better than the vodka, all right," Bill said. "I don't feel like I'm going to die at all."

They sat quietly. The gin demanded respect, so they sipped, didn't talk. Mortimer glanced around; more patrons had crowded into Joey Armageddon's. The song playing now was "Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead" by Warren Zevon. Above the stage, men lowered what looked like shark cages on steel cables. The Christmas tree lights began to blink. Mortimer noticed something else. Something important.

Women.

Scantily clad women moving among the tables, taking drink orders. Some wore tank tops with the hems tied into a knot above the navel. Others wore bikini tops or lace bras. Tight cutoff jeans seemed to be standard.

Mortimer Tate had not had a woman in nine years. Something stirred in his pants, fluttered in his gut. He gawked openly.

Coffey told his story. He'd survived the worst times, helped hold the town together. It was a small town, people knew one another. They'd banded together, fended off marauders from without, despair from within. Coffey was mayor now. More important, he was half-owner of the Spring City Joey Armageddon's. He might as well have been royalty.

"Anne," Mortimer said. "Is she...do you know what happened to her?"

Coffey nodded slowly. "Of course. I'd forgotten. Naturally you'd want to know. Sorry, Mort. I really am."

Oh, no. Mortimer's heart froze. She's dead. How? What happened?

"I'm truly sorry," Coffey said again. "But I had to sell her."

"No, no, no. It can't be true. It can't..." Mortimer blinked. "Did you say...sell her?"

"Hey, it wasn't my idea," Coffey said. "Believe me, I wanted to keep her. The customers loved her. She could really shake her ass in the cage."

It was reflex. Mortimer shot out of his chair, knocked it over behind him. His fists came up. This son of a bitch was talking about his wife.

Mortimer froze when he felt the cold metal under his right ear. He turned slightly, saw the big man with the shotgun pushed up against him. Where did he come from? He felt something else sticking hard into his ribs on the left side. He unclenched his fists and held his hands up. "No problem here."

"Let's have a seat, sir. Nice and calm." It was Emile, who held a small silver revolver against Mortimer's ribs. "There's a good gentleman."

Mortimer eased down, and somebody slid his chair underneath him.

Emile looked at his boss, raised an eyebrow.

"I think we're okay here," Coffey said. "Mort, you'll behave, right?"

Mortimer nodded, his teeth clenched. The gunmen withdrew. Bill eased his grip on one of the six-shooters. Mortimer noticed Coffey's fist on the table next to his drink. It clutched a little nickel derringer. The saloon owner slowly tucked the pistol back into his belt.

"That was insensitive," Coffey admitted. "I forgot you don't know how things work now."

Mortimer glared outrage. "Selling women as sex slaves? Is that how it is?"

"Don't think of it that way. It's like when the Red Sox trade an outfielder to the Yankees. The new location needed an experienced girl. Anne was happy, Mort. It was a promotion."

"Where did she go?"

"I don't know."

"You're a liar."

Coffey frowned, sighed. "I'm going to try to understand how you feel. I'm going to overlook that you're rude."

"Kiss my ass."

Coffey sighed and stood. "Things have changed, Mort. Adjust." The Christmas lights went wacky, and the music cranked a notch. "Looks like the show's about to start," Coffey said. "You boys enjoy. I have to make the rounds. Check with you later."

The shark cages lowered from the ceiling, and the music boomed. "Raspberry Beret." There were women in the shark cages. Dancing women.

Naked women.

They thrashed and shook and tossed their hair, an hourglass blonde with big tits in the close cage. Across the stage in the other cage a willowy, athletic redhead undulated and twisted. Joey Armageddon's had filled with hooting, drunken men. It had become hot, a musty, boozy smell filling the place, mixing with musk and tobacco smoke. Mortimer's head swam. Sensory overload. He fumed, but naked women demanded his attention. He reached for his glass of gin, found it empty. The Bombay had disappeared, replaced by another bottle of the lethal vodka.

Mortimer drank. The world blurred.

He heard Bill shouting at him; his voice seemed so far away. Mortimer squinted, looked at the cowboy. One of the waitresses had found her way into Bill's lap. "What?"

"I said loan me some of them Armageddon dollars," Bill shouted.

Mortimer went into his pockets, came out with a handful of coins and shoved them across the table. He reached for the vodka bottle, couldn't quite grab it. His depth perception was in the toilet.

Mortimer felt himself floating, felt he was leaving his body, drifting amid the swirling colors of the Christmas tree lights. He could not make his eyes focus, could not hear specific sounds, the noise and music and conversation all boiling into a single, messy soup. But on some level his brain was working, reaching a new plateau of knowing and understanding and determination. He knew what he would do. He was having an epiphany, a spiritual awakening.

He glanced again at Bill, made his eyes focus. Bill had the waitress's top down, one erect nipple in his mouth. The waitress's hand reached below the table into Bill's lap, pumped.

To hell with spiritual awakening, Mortimer thought. I want a hand job.