Omniverse: Book I of the Omniverse Chronicles

BOOK I OF THE OMNIVERSE CHRONICLES

A Tale of Dark Fantasy

By Liam Parker

***

Published by:

Liam Parker at Smashwords

Copyright (c) 2014 by Liam Parker

****

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

Smashwords Edition Licence Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

****

The dream is the small hidden door in the deepest and most intimate sanctum of the soul, which opens into that primeval cosmic night that was soul long before there was a conscious ego and will be soul far beyond what a conscious ego could ever reach.

—Carl Gustav Jung

Maybe the wildest dreams are but the needful preludes of the truth.

—Alfred Lord Tennyson

The Universe is not only stranger than we imagine; it is stranger than we can imagine.

—J.B.S. Haldane

Honor the gods and Buddhas, but do rely on them.

—Miyamoto Musashi

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?

—W. B. Yeats

PROLOGUE

A vastness to shatter Einstein’s mind . . .

The Sublime, The Absolute, The Eternal looked down upon a cyclopean chessboard that stretched beyond the farthest reaches of time and space; beyond even Its own transcendent Self. Brahma smiled, and a billion radiant galaxies blazed into vibrant life.

The Adversary, The Antagonist, The Arch Foe gazed down at the same board in its own fashion. Shiva-Kali smiled as well, and a billion warm and living worlds flickered and died, with only short-lived screams that echoed through the Cosmos to mark their passing.

The Absolute gazed down at the countless chessmen that stood in serried ranks on Its side of the board, all awaiting Its call to dance their steps in the intricate and infinite pavane that was Chaturanga, the Great Game; kings, suzerains, marshals, chancellors, constables, queens, countesses, courtesans, bishops, Boyars, Bursegs, beggars, bezants, knights, cataphracts, rooks, Ronin, elephants, viziers, reivers, slinks, succubi, mages, chirrugeons, gorgons, knaves, proctors, harlequins, margraves, mystics, serjeants, inquisitors, sumners, dragomans, guides, pawns, proles, fays, minstrels, wardens, eremites, berdaches, bowmen, chimeras, gryphons, Stentors, fools, Amazons, Saracens, Lombards, Devis, Merids, revenants, sicarii, Titans, Typhons, Wyrms both great and small, and host upon host upon host, and multitude upon multitude of yet more and more pieces in their endless array, an immense kaleidoscope of colors and shapes and sizes that strained the very fabric of the Universes that strove to contain them.

And there were other, less corporeal game pieces which would be in play on the board, but have no place on it.

Glittering motes that were galaxies drifted past the Absolute’s fourfold brow as It pondered Its opening move. At last, smiles wreathed all four of the Sublime’s faces, and Brahma advanced a Paladin. A most unwilling Paladin, but one that had served It well countless times before.

And would again and again through endless cycles of death and rebirth until the last syllable of Time Itself was but a faint and fading echo . . .

Shiva-Kali frowned at Its opponent’s bold and unexpected move. Its bloodshot eyes grew wide and Its light years-long tongue dripped oceans of blood. All four of Shiva-Kali’s blue-black hands knotted into fists, and It hissed like the Serpent hatched from the Cosmic Egg at the instant When All Began.

The Paladin stood upon the Board, armed cap a pie in gleaming plate, and gazed around him. He waited, and what he waited for was not long in coming.

Shiva-Kali placed Its own champion, a Ritter, on the board with a vast night-black hand. It wore pitted armor blacker than hate, and it glared at the Paladin with burning eyes. For a moment, a blood-red caul wreathed its shaven pate, while its ancient enemy’s head was crowned with blue-white flame. Paladin and Ritter raised the hilts of their swords to their lips in a brief salute. They lowered their blades and waited: their wary eyes locked on each other.

Another Cycle of Chaturanga, the Great Game, had begun; and, as always, countless worlds were the hazard.

PART ONE

CHAPTER ONE

Night , San Francisco, autumn, 1973 . . .

A Calliope was playing—and a leering clown with a butcher knife was stalking him.

The man caught in the harsh glare of the spotlight inched across the center ring. He could neither walk nor run—nor could he defend himself. His hands and feet were trussed with coil upon coil of coarse rope, and he had lost all feeling in them.

A tiny red car roared into the tent and raced around the center ring three times before skidding to a stop in a cloud of sawdust. A dozen more costumed and painted clowns spilled out of the doors and windows; all bone-white faces, bulbous red noses, gaping blood-red mouths, and mad, staring eyes. Some were midgets, clad like the others in baggy pants, frayed shirts, garishly patterned suspenders, polka-dotted bow ties, shrunken checked coats, battered top hats, dented derbies, flowered bonnets, striped stockings, and yard-long, high-top brogans. They waved and blew kisses to the cheering crowd. The clowns tumbled and whirled in the blinding beam of the spotlights while the calliope roared out a welcome. Then they turned, fell to their knees, and kowtowed to Bozo.

The star clown hung his painted head shyly. The white greasepaint and the wild orange wings of his hair glowed in the burning gaze of the floodlights. He lifted his head and smiled with his huge red slash of a mouth. Bozo reached into his billowing polka dot trousers and pulled out an antique brass car horn. He squeezed the bulb and twirled as he honked it at the delighted audience.

The bound man in the sawdust watched numbly as the clowns capered and grinned and blew kisses to him. Some waggled mocking fingers and jeered, while others held their sides and shook with silent laughter. Some licked their glistening lips and rubbed their stomachs.

Bozo suddenly loomed over his helpless prey. He tipped an imaginary hat and smirked. His crazed eyes glittered, and his shark’s teeth gleamed behind the crimson smear of his lips. He patted the doomed man’s head, and then clapped his hands with glee. Bozo turned and strutted around the center of the ring on his huge feet, saluting the cheering crowd with his glittering blade like a victorious gladiator on the blood-soaked sands of the Coliseum.

The spectators stamped and clapped and howled. Blood! Blood! Blood! Meat! Meat! Meat! They roared. The calliope thundered in time with the chant, and then launched into Lady of Spain.

Bozo pointed a finger at his hogtied victim, looked up at the audience, and then clutched a white-gloved hand to his breast. The crowd squealed and squirmed and shivered with delight.

"Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!" The crowd shrieked. The man sprawled in the reeking sawdust shuddered at the wet gleam of their cannibal teeth.

Bozo smiled and then waved to the other clowns. Gloved hands vanished into too-small coats and loose trousers and drew out skinning knives, hatchets, bone saws, meat cleavers, scalpels, and straight razors. They tumbled and pranced and skipped and strutted toward their naked quarry. The man looked up and saw a laughing Bozo raise his blade high over his head. He screamed as the glittering point plunged toward his face, and the other clowns swarmed over him—a crazed tide of hungry eyes and glittering steel.

The thundering of the calliope and the baying of the mob drowned out their screaming victim.

***

Jack Thornton bit his tongue and his mouth filled with blood. He screamed again, and the terrible sound wrenched him out of nightmare and into shuddering awareness.

He shot bolt upright in his bed; shook and gasped as he clawed away the sweaty sheets. His ears were filled with the pounding of his racing heart. Jack groaned, and his shoulders sagged as he stared numbly into the dark silence of his bedroom. He sat for long minutes and trembled with the horror that still clawed at his reeling brain.

Oh my God, not again! Not another nightmare! I can’t take this night after night!

Angry sounds shattered the stillness. His head snapped up and terror flared again. Jack forced himself to listen. The sounds came again—louder this time. A faint, snarling voice and a dull, vengeful pounding rose from the dark floor. Thornton sighed in relief. Nothing had slithered out of the nightmare to claim him. It was only his downstairs neighbor, Vogel, the fat pink Austrian, complaining about the scream that had torn him from righteous slumber.

Jack waited in the dark until the guttural snarls faded away. Below him, the grumbling Austrian finally allowed himself to be coaxed back to bed by his equally pink and even fatter wife.

Thornton switched on a lamp, swung his legs over the side of the bed, and carefully got to his feet. He took a deep breath, squared his shoulders, and stumbled to the bathroom, favoring a left knee stippled and scarred by shrapnel half a world away and a lifetime ago.

Jack groped for the light switch and the fluorescent tube over the sink flickered and blinked into glowing life. He tried to ignore the death’s head in the mirror as he spun the cold water tap and waited for the sink to fill. Jack plunged his head into the icy water. The shock of it made him gasp, but it washed away the last foul dregs of The Dream. Fully awake, he studied the gaunt, pale face in the mirror. His thin lips twisted as he surveyed the watery blood that streaked his crooked white teeth.

Christ! I look like death warmed over!

Thornton bent and scooped cold water from the sink with his callused hands. He rubbed it over the hard planes of his face, washing away the last of the greasy fear sweat that The Dreams brought with them. He took a towel from the rack and rubbed his lean face and his short black hair dry. Jack draped the towel around his corded neck, and then pulled on a frayed and faded blue bathrobe marked with the caduceus of the U.S. Navy’s medical department. He knotted the belt and looked back into the glass.

Better, but that’s not saying a whole hell of a lot . . .

Jack’s dark blue eyes were still sunken and red, but at least the skin of his face was no longer the chalk white of bleached bone. Two spots of color burned on his high cheekbones. Thornton lifted a scarred right hand to his eyes, but quickly dropped it when he saw it tremble. He gazed again at the ashen mask in the mirror and shook his head.

Thornton dragged himself into the kitchen to get a badly needed drink. He found a jelly glass and filled it with Jack Daniel’s. Jack carried it into his living room and collapsed on the Navajo blanket that covered his Salvation Army couch. He pulled a Marlboro from a half-empty pack on the wooden cable reel that did duty as a coffee table, and then lit it with a battered Zippo lighter adorned with a Marine Corps emblem.

Jack smoked and drank for a while, letting the whiskey calm him. He crushed out his cigarette and sat, rolling his empty glass between his palms. Finally, he forced himself to confront The Dreams and the stark terror they spawned. Thornton slipped into a state of numb, whiskey-induced reflection, and tried to make sense of the horror that his nights had become.

He knew that he was neither weak nor fearful. If he had been either, he would not have survived seventeen months in Vietnam—the place that the Chinese with their seven thousand years of Wisdom called The Land of the People of the Black Heart.

Thornton had met North Vietnamese regulars and Viet Cong guerillas in battle and had destroyed them. He knew how to fight armed men—but he did not know how to fight The Dreams.

Maybe it’s time to get some help? Forget it! I can’t afford a real psychiatrist, and I’m sure as hell not going to go see some alcoholic V.A. shrink!

Jack hauled himself to his feet and ventured into the kitchen for more whiskey. He returned to the couch, put his feet up on the cable spool, and then tried to remember when The Dreams first came to savage his sleep.

In the beginning, he had given little thought to them. Everyone—including Jack Thornton—had nightmares, and no one ever died of a bad dream. It don’t mean nothin’, as his men had so often said in the language of the Walking Dead: what did not kill you did not signify, what did not kill you only made you stronger.

But now The Dreams came almost every night. Tonight they had torn screams out of him once again. Thornton drank more whiskey and wondered if he was finally going crazy; dinky dau, as the doomed young Marines in his platoon had styled madness.

Maybe there is something to this Post Traumatic Stress thing after all . . . There’s got to be a reason for this Twilight Zone bullshit . . . But what?

No answer came from the silent room. He gulped the rest of his whiskey and shook like a wet dog as it blazed a flaming path down to his stomach. Thornton pulled another cigarette from the pack and lit it.

I knew a couple of guys who cracked. One of them was a captain who made it back to The World in one piece. But then one day he went out to his garage with a .45 and a bottle of Johnny Walker Blue . . . He sat in his shiny new Porsche 911 and drank until the bottle was empty . . . And then he put the barrel of the .45 in his mouth and pulled the trigger . . .

Is that where I’m headed too? A bottle of whiskey with a .45 chaser? We saw the same god-awful things, and they were enough to send him over the edge . . . But maybe there was something else that drove him to it . . . Like the same kind of crazy Dreams I’m having maybe?

I saw other things in Vietnam as well—weird things that made me wonder if I was losing it even then . . . I remember wondering if the war hadn’t—had somehow torn a gaping hole in the fabric of the universe . . . Like that one morning . . . It’s a good thing the Gunny was there and saw him too . . . And that particular thought calls for another drink—a lot of other drinks!

Jack up-ended his glass and stood up. He swayed, and then cautiously retraced his steps to the kitchen. He topped up his glass with more of Mister Jack Daniel’s sovereign remedy for the pain of being human, and then limped back to the couch and flopped on the Navajo blanket. He thought about having another cigarette, but could not remember where he had left the pack.

Thornton leaned back and took a long drink. His face was pleasantly numb and his belly filled with warmth. He grinned foolishly and wondered why Mister Daniel’s birthday wasn’t a national holiday.

There is not, to the best of my knowledge and belief, any Easter Bunny. Old Santa is just a Fig Newton of somebody’s cozy little Victorian imagination. You can wear out the carpet praying to the Big Maybe—and all you get is The Big Silence—and that’s if you’re lucky! What was it that Tim Hardin said? ‘Maybe there is no devil—maybe it’s just God when he’s drunk.’

Thornton decided that that sentiment called for another drink.

But old Jack delivers! He’s always good for what ails you! Thornton solemnly studied the whiskey in his glass and frowned.

I am drinking way, way too much these days . . . Or maybe I’m not drinking enough?

Jack shrugged and started to raise the glass to his lips but stopped—even Jack Daniels could not help him escape the bitter truth. The Dreams were fucking up his life. He remembered the last marriage-killing fight with Caroline.

He saw her again, all angry blue eyes and flying blonde hair. Pretty face twisted and ugly with rage, flinging words like knives:

I can’t deal with your negative shit anymore, Jack! I hate my life with you! Your fucking screaming is going to make me as crazy as you are if I don’t get out of here! I should have walked out on you when you came back from Vietnam—when you couldn’t sleep without a gun under your pillow—a fucking gun, for Christ’s sake!

You’re sick, Jack! Sick! But you won’t get help! You just pull that macho shit on me, and tell me not to worry! Well, I did worry—but not anymore! I’m sick and fucking tired of your goddamned nightmares! I’m leaving, Jack! Today! Right now! I’m moving back to Daddy’s place! And don’t ever call me, you sick bastard, because I never want to hear your fucking voice again!

Caroline had finally run out of breath and words. Jack had cocked an eyebrow at her as she stood flushed and panting.

Why do I get the feeling that you’re trying to tell me that we’re not an ‘us’ anymore?

Caroline’s bright blonde mane swirled as she spun on her long legs and stormed out of the apartment. She had slammed the door behind her hard enough to rattle the windows. Thornton had sat in the echoing silence for a moment. Then he had gotten up and walked to the window just in time to see a smiling Caroline dash to a double-parked silver Mercedes. He heard her laugh as she leaned through the window to kiss the driver.

The man behind the wheel was not her father.

The papers came a week later. Thornton signed them without bothering to read a single word.

Nor was his ex-wife the only woman who had run from him because of The Dreams. Jack remembered a long-legged brunette named Julie. She had jumped out of his bed when a nightmare took him. He had opened his eyes to find the sheets soaked with sweat and his terrified bedmate snatching up her scattered clothes. She had fled naked from his apartment with a muttered Jesus! and her clothing clutched in her arms.

Thornton raised his glass and threw back his whiskey.

I do believe that I need another drink!

Jack carefully topped up his glass again, and then tottered to the couch. He drank, shook his head, drank again, and slopped whiskey on his robe. He was numb all over, and his head whirled like the merry-go-round out at the Zoo.

He who makes a beast of himself loses the pain of being a man, or something like that!

Thornton set his half-empty glass on the cable reel with the exaggerated care of the profoundly drunk, then leaned back on the couch and closed his eyes. He took a deep breath, held it, and then let it out very slowly. Soon his breathing grew deep and regular as alcoholic serenity gave way to fitful sleep.

He dreamed again.

***

Jack woke in the pearly light of dawn. He opened his gritty eyes, winced, and then screwed them shut and shuddered.

A fading wisp of dream stuff shimmered behind his eyelids. For a fleeting moment—for the span of a single heartbeat, he saw—

Eyes . . .

Huge purple eyes; eyes of haunting alien beauty, eyes brimming with warmth and wonder and yearning and compassion—eyes that seemed to look into the very marrow of his soul. His eyelids snapped up the mesmerizing vision vanished like a broken promise.

Thornton closed his eyes and sat still for a moment, hoping the image would somehow return. But it did not, no more than his lost innocence ever would. He wearily rubbed the back of his neck, and then clasped his callused hands in his lap. He sighed and shook his aching head.

Was that real? he whispered. Then he shook his head and snarled, "No! It was just another goddamn dream! It had to be! Nobody has eyes like that! Last night it was the psycho circus and now it’s purple eyes—purple! What ‘s the hell’s next? Pink elephants?" He groaned and buried his face in his hands.

I have got to get my shit together! Thornton announced to the silent room. He stood up—and immediately regretted it. His head threatened to split open, and his stomach churned. He did not want to think what his breath smelled like.

Jack’s stomach heaved and a rush of acid burned his throat. He clapped a hand over his mouth, lurched to the bathroom, and got his pounding head over the toilet just in time.

Aspirin and cold water helped Jack Thornton deal with his first hangover in many years. He sat at his kitchen table and drank black coffee in the growing light, remembering happy, boozy liberties spent in Okinawan bars with other hard charging young lieutenants from the 9th Marines. In those days he could drink and chase women all night and still beat the bush all the next day. It had been a good time to be young and carefree and far from home.

But that life had ended in March of 1965, when his battalion landed at Da Nang, Republic of Viet Fucking Nam. Now, eight years later, most of the men who had gone into that terrible place with him were either dead or maimed, and the first battalion of the 9th Marines was known as the Walking Dead. The name was a grim tribute to the many, many bloody battles that it had fought.

Thornton poured himself more coffee and turned on the radio. A cloying voice rolled out of the speaker, pleading with a woman to tie a yellow ribbon ‘round the old oak tree. Thornton grimaced and spun the dial. He froze when he heard the soulful, brassy voices of Martha and the Vandellas:

Nowhere to run to, baby,

Nowhere to hide!

Got nowhere to run to, baby,

Nowhere to hide!

Hanoi Hannah, Vietnam’s Tokyo Rose, had played that same song to taunt the men of his battalion. It brought back too many bitter memories for Jack. He twisted the dial until he found a station playing Stevie Wonder’s Superstition.

Much better!

Thornton drank coffee until the DJ cut to a mournful redneck ballad called The Night the Lights Went out in Georgia. He decided to pass on the hillbilly lament and get the paper instead. Jack put his cup down and strode to the front door, trying to ignore the breathy singer and her plaint of Southern injustice.

He unlocked his front door and stepped out into the hallway. It was empty, as it always was at this hour of the morning. Thornton seldom saw his neighbors, and when he did, they ignored each other. Thornton picked up the paper and stepped back into his bachelor apartment.

Jack skimmed the front page of The Chronicle as he walked back to the kitchen. As usual, there was nothing in the paper but misery, blood, death, scandal, and corruption. Judge John Sirica was still holding Nixon’s feet to the fire. Israel and the Arabs were getting ready for another of their endless wars. The new and democratically elected president of Chile had committed suicide with the aid of his loyal army. Oil prices were skyrocketing, and the stock market was dropping faster than a runaway elevator. A serial killer who called himself Zodiac was murdering people and taunting the police . . . Just another day in this grim year of Our Lord 1973.

Thornton tossed everything but the green tinted sports section into the trash. He could not even spend a few cheerful minutes with Herb Caen, The Chronicle’s high priest of three-dot journalism—his signature separation of items in his column by rows of asterisks. Sadly, Caen’s column did not appear on Saturdays.

Jack glanced at his watch, finished his coffee, and rinsed his cup in the sink. He was halfway to the bathroom when the phone rang. With a muttered damn! He paused to turn the radio down, cutting off somebody named Dr. John in mid-grunt.

Thornton, he answered.

Jack? The teasing voice in his ear belonged to a clerk in the law office where Thornton worked—and not just any clerk. Thornton had a sudden vision of shining blue-black hair and long, slim legs.

Hi Karen, how are you this morning? Thornton squared his shoulders and ran his hand over his own close-cropped black hair.

"I don’t know if anyone let you in on the big secret, Mister Thornton,; but the Tai-Pan, our beloved Mister Traub himself, is going to come by the office this morning, to see who’s here and who isn’t—"

‘Giving back to the office,’ Thornton sighed as he reached for his cigarettes. Thanks Karen, I didn’t get the word. I appreciate the heads up.

"I snuck into his office and peeked at his calendar. The Tai-Pan has a ten o’clock tee time."

Thornton grinned. Tai-Pan was the Chinese term for the head pimp in a whorehouse. Traub had never caught on. He thought Tai-Pan meant Supreme Leader, an honorific for a demigod cast in the heroic mold of James Clavell’s larger-than-life Dirk Struan.

That’s our Artie, always taking time to spread a little sunshine among the troops before he goes to launch his savage assault on Old Man Par.

Karen Fong giggled. It sounded like the tinkling of bells to Jack’s lonely ears.

Jack looked at his watch, It’s ten to eight. I’ll be there in forty-five minutes. Thanks again, Karen. I owe you big time.

"You better believe it, Mis-ter Thornton. Dinner, my choice—your treat! Oops! Gotta run! Later!" She hung up.

His smile soured into a frown as Jack hung up the phone. He inhaled half of his Marlboro, coughed, and crushed it out in the ashtray.

Leave it to Artie Traub to pull a stunt like this! That man could fuck up a wet dream! No training for me this morning—again! I’ll have to call Sensei Winston and make my apologies . . .

Jack reminded himself again why he had taken the position at Traub, Lumpkin, and Weems: money. He still had to repay the student loans that he had been forced to take out when his G.I. Bill benefits could not be stretched to cover his law school tuition.

Thornton considered Traub while he trudged to the bathroom and ran the shower: a beefy, balding, cigar chewing New Yorker with a vile temper who hinted at Mob connections and who enjoyed shitting on his employees. A proctologist’s dream—a perfect asshole—but the very same asshole who would be conducting his salary review in a week’s time.

Jack needed a raise—badly. Ergo, he could not give Traub any excuse not to give him one. So he would go to the office on this pleasant Saturday morning instead of to the Dojo.

Even the peacetime Marine Corps would be better than this! I could learn to put up with troop and stomp, and mess nights, and the rest of that Officer and a Gentleman crap. I could, if I busted my ass . . . Maybe . . .

Thornton frowned as he stepped into the shower. He would not bet the farm on getting a pay raise from Messrs. Traub, Lumpkin and Weems. The three partners bought themselves new Cadillacs or Jaguars every year and lived in places like Belvedere and Kent Woodlands. Mister Senior Partner Traub also had a young and very expensive blonde wife to maintain in the lavish style to which she had quickly become accustomed.

Nothing’s too good for our fearless leader and his blushing bride!

Associate attorney Jack Thornton was not one of Artie Traub’s favorite young lawyers. He had fallen from favor—such as it was—last Christmas. He had been laughing with Traub’s young wife at the office party, and Artie had erupted in a jealous rage.

I am not—I say again—not in the mood for your bullshit today, Artie—not after last night! Best you walk soft around me today, you little toad!

Twenty-five minutes later, showered, shaved and dressed, Jack rummaged through his dresser drawer for a tie tack. He swept aside half a dozen small leather cases that he never opened. Each bore the image of the medal that it held on its lid. One was a gold-framed purple heart suspended from a somber ribbon studded with gold stars. Another was a plain bronze cross that hung from a strip of dark blue cloth with a white stripe down the center. Another was Vietnamese, a more ornate cross on a green and red ribbon. He found what he was looking for and closed the drawer. He smiled for a moment at the picture of his niece and nephew on the dresser.

God, I miss them! They’re growing up so fast! I’d see more of them if my sister and I could spend five minutes in the same room without ripping into each other!

Thornton knotted his tie and shrugged into his blue blazer. He locked the door to his apartment, walked a block to the bus stop, and then smoked a cigarette while he waited. He scowled at the arrogant spike of the newly-erected Transamerica Pyramid towering over the San Francisco skyline.

Building that god-awful thing in this city is like parking a dump truck in a Ferrari dealership!

Thirty minutes later, the elevator doors hissed open, and he walked into the offices of Traub, Lumpkin and Weems, Attorneys at Law, Inc.

This ain’t hell, but you can sure see it from here, Thornton muttered. Cathy the receptionist—blond and wholesome as a cheerleader—was not at her desk, so Thornton had to forego his usual flirtation with her. He got himself a cup of the firm’s muddy coffee; and then walked to his cramped office, nodding and smiling at his co-workers. Jack hung up his jacket and lit another cigarette. He sat down and began sorting through the pile of paper in his in-basket.

Good morning, Mister Thornton. How are we today?

Jack looked up from his littered desk to see a smiling Karen Fong step lightly into his office. She wore a tan business suit and a yellow silk scarf with a butterfly pattern draped around her slender neck.

We are fine, Miss Fong. How are you? His white teeth flashed as he smiled back at her. And how are we getting along at Hastings College of the Law?

The beautiful Chinese girl lifted one slender hand from the stack of files she carried, and swept a wayward strand of raven hair behind a slim shoulder. Thornton glimpsed a delicate ear before the gleaming curtain of her hair swung forward again.

"I am well today, Mister Thornton, but I am also dreadfully bored, she sighed. I am finding the Law incredibly tedious and an awful waste of my talents! She sniffed. Perhaps I shall submit to the wishes of my honorable parents and enter into an arranged marriage with a nice Chinese boy—a dentist perhaps." She smiled, revealing small white teeth and dimples at the corners of her full lips.

Thornton nodded gravely. Heaven smiles upon the obedient child, Miss Fong. I am sure that you will be far happier as a dutiful and submissive wife than as a harried member of the legal profession. He held up a finger. Did not Confucius himself say, ‘Silence gives the proper grace to women?’

Karen grinned triumphantly and shook her head, setting gleaming blue-black hair into graceful motion. Sorry, Mister Thornton! Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! Confucius did not say that! It was Sophocles!

Thornton leaned back in his chair and spread his hands in defeat. ‘The Superior Man is distressed by his want of ability.’

Karen Fong beamed. "Score one for you, Mister Thornton. The Sage did say that."

Confucius? What the fuck is this Confucius bullshit? What the fuck you two doin’ in theah?

Thornton closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

Shit. Traub.

He opened his eyes and looked at the suddenly stone-faced young Chinese woman. Thank you, Miss Fong. We will continue this discussion at another time. That will be all for the moment.

You’re welcome, Mister Thornton, She whispered as she lowered her eyes.

He nodded. Karen Fong turned and bowed her head at the squat figure that stood scowling in the doorway. Mister Traub, she murmured, and then hurried out of Thornton’s office, two patches of scarlet flaming on her high cheekbones.

Artie Traub stared after her for a long moment, licked his rubbery lips, and then stalked into Thornton’s office like a pit bull. He had a cigar wedged in his mouth and carried a 9-iron in one meaty hand.

Thornton slowly rose to his feet, Mister Traub.

I said, what the fuck were you two doin’ in heah?’

Just having a word with Miss Fong . . . sir

The firm’s senior partner aimed the ragged wet stub of his Cohiba Robusto cigar at the younger man with his free hand. "You ain’t heah to shoot the shit with the fuckin’ clerks, Thornton! You’re heah to fuckin’ work! You wanna talk to that chink cooze, you do it on your own fuckin’ time—not mine! You unner-stand what it is I’m sayin’ heah?" He aimed the cigar in his paw at Thornton like a pistol. A ropy vein pulsed on the side of his head as he glared at the younger man with his cold shark’s eyes.

Thornton, pale and grimly silent, met his pop-eyed stare. He saw that Traub was dressed for the golf course; plaid shirt, red cashmere sweater with logo, and yellow pants—even a golf club.

He looks like Quasimodo wrapped up in a Spanish flag!

None of Traub’s clothes could disguise the lumpen bulk of his thickset body. Coarse black hair covered the backs of his stubby-fingered hands and sprouted from the collar of his shirt. It was cool in the office, but Traub’s balding head was pebbled with sweat. The few lank black hairs that he had left on his head and his bushy sideburns had an oily sheen.

Traub returned his well-chewed Robusto to the corner of his mouth and clamped its ragged end between his large yellow teeth. He leaned his golf club against Thornton’s desk, took an engraved gold lighter from his pants pocket, and puffed his cigar back to glowing life. He scowled at the taller, leaner, younger man through a thick cloud of gray smoke.

Jack’s lean face was a cold mask as he waited for the bane of his existence to speak.

I wonder what the clients would say if they ever saw the real Artie Traub?

A diamond ring sparkled on Traub’s finger as he raised the cigar in his right hand and pointed the gnawed end at Thornton. Ya know, Thornton, I got a real problem wit’ your attitude. Bits of wet tobacco flew from his mouth as he spoke.

Thornton cocked an eyebrow. My attitude, Mister Traub? How so?

Traub turned his head and spat a shard of tobacco on the carpet. "Shit like what was just goin’ on in heah—bullshittin’ with that chink twat when ya shoulda been workin’ your files. You’re always doin’ shit like that—fuckin’ off. This office gives you a job, pays you a salary, an’ in return we gotta right to get some work outa you." Traub savored the spark of anger in Jack’s eyes. He looked at the younger man with an Al Capone smirk on his chubby face.

I got you right where I fuckin’want you, pretty boy! You think I don’t know that you been fucking around with my wife? You’re gonna pay, asshole! Big time!

A muscle jumped in Jack’s cheek. He slowly folded his arms and glared at Traub. Always fucking off? Take a look at my billing sheets if you think I’m always fucking off.

Traub shook his head and waved his damp cigar. "Yeah, you are, Thornton—and don’t you fuckin’ inta-rup me! Traub rolled on. This heah is a law office. It ain’t your fuckin’ Marine Corps, where ya got paid for just sittin’ on your ass all day. Heah ya gotta turn out the product, Mister big shot war hero!"

Thornton suddenly realized that he was being shafted—big time. He slowly shook his head.

Real clever, Artie—real, real clever! I’ve got to hand it to you. You have Karen call me and tell me to get my young butt down to the orifice. Then you send her in here to play Madame Butterfly—knowing that I’ll fall for it. Then you just happen by. You waddle in and catch us socializing—for which you are now reaming me a new asshole—me and me alone. After which you will head out for a leisurely eighteen holes. I can see you sitting in the clubhouse, Artie—big glass of Scotch in one hand and a cigar in the other—bragging to your golfing buddies how you kicked the war hero’s ass! Sorry, but that isn’t the way that this is going to play out!

Fuck it!

Thornton leaned forward and rested his scarred knuckles on his desk.

Sitting on my ass? War hero? Thornton growled. Bullshit!

‘The fuck’d you say to me?

I said, ‘bullshit!’ Thornton jabbed an angry finger at Traub. That war hero crap is way out of line coming from you, Artie. An Army Reserve office pogue who spent a real tough six months in 1951 hiding behind a typewriter at Fort Dix—shitting his pants every time somebody said the word ‘Korea!’ Scorn dripped from his words like acid. So why don’t you just forget the war hero crap and get back to whatever point you were trying to make about my attitude. Thornton crossed his arms again and fixed Traub with an icy stare.

Please take a swing at me, Artie! Please, just one! Pretty please, you fat maggot!

Traub’s fat face went crimson. His jaw dropped as he gaped at Thornton. You don’t fuckin’ talk ta me like that, Thornton! I’m your fuckin’ boss! he howled.

Thornton sneered and shook his head. He stood very still, but let his arms drop to his sides as Traub ranted on, spraying spit and tobacco crumbs—blind to the dangerous light in the younger man’s cold blue eyes. Thornton suddenly slammed the desktop with the flat of his hand. The whipcrack of sound shocked Traub into silence.

Knock off the bullshit, Artie, right now, Thornton snapped in his best officer’s voice. He swept around the desk and stood directly in front of the short flabby man, almost touching him, getting right in his face like an irate Drill Instructor.

Traub stumbled back a step and gaped at Thornton. He opened his mouth, but no words came out. Thornton’s hard blue eyes bored into his own.

Mister Traub, sir, a small, strained voice from the doorway interrupted the standoff.

Yeah, Karen, what the fuck is it? Traub did not dare take his eyes off Thornton.

"You, you’ve got a call, sir. Your wife—she says it’s very important."

Yeah? Tell her I’ll be right theah, sweetheart. ‘Soon’s I get through with Mister Thornton heah, he growled as he retreated to the door. Thornton watched with grim amusement as Traub puffed himself back up; once again the senior partner, the Tai-Pan. Artie’s cigar had gone out again.

He stared at Thornton, his puffy eyes bright with hate. "I wouldn’t be countin’ on gettin’ no raise I was you, Thornton. In fact, I’d be thinkin’ real hard about lookin’ for a new job I was you. You gotta real shitty fuckin’ attitude, an’ I don’t need that aroun’ heah."

Jack grinned. "Then you’ll be happy to know that my resume is current, Artie."

It’s Mister Traub to you, Thornton!

Thornton just looked at him. Traub held his gaze for a moment, then turned and swaggered out of Thornton’s office, his head high, but his shoulders tight. The rolls of fat on the back of his neck burned crimson. Thornton let him get almost to the doorway.

Artie!

Traub jumped. He turned and glowered at Thornton.

Don’t forget your 9-iron, Thornton said as he held out the club to him. Traub snatched it out of his hand and stormed out of the office.

Jack leaned back against his desk, crossed his arms and smiled, savoring the angry sound of Traub’s retreating steps. He sighed and shook his head. Traub would not fire him—not with the amount of work that the office had. But he could most definitely forget about a raise. Jack shrugged. It was