Chapter 2
Eric devoted the day to putting things in order on Uxbridge Street. He and Emma lived in a true showcase apartment three flights up in one of Amberville’s older, blue, historically registered buildings. Actually it was indefensible that Eric had settled down in his childhood Amberville. He ought to have done as his creative friends had and bought something less ostentatious—but equally expensive—in one of the multicultural neighborhoods in north Tourquai. Or, even better, remodeled a loft in Yok. That would have been in accord with his image: a rebel in the business world with a mysterious past.
From his fifteenth to his nineteenth year Eric Bear lived at Casino Monokowski, one of the illegal establishments in Amberville which had its counterparts in the other districts. He slept where there was room, in a bed or under a table, on a couch or on a toilet; he wasn’t sensitive in that respect. Most often the drugs made him pleasantly closed off; he could have fallen asleep on top of one of the roulette tables as well. He kept his possessions in a plastic bag in a cupboard in the employee dressing room. His best friend, Sam Gazelle, carried the key to the cupboard in his vest pocket. Eric used the cupboard so seldom that betweentimes he forgot what was in it.
During that period Eric was living on Nicholas Dove’s terms. Of this he was constantly reminded. The jobs he got were of varying degrees of difficulty. The assignments never came from Dove personally, but nonetheless there was no mistaking who was making the decisions. It might be a matter of running errands—carrying sealed envelopes that contained bundles of currency, or small packages with drugs (wrapped in so much thick, beige tape that sharp scissors or knives were required to get them open) from one corner of the casino to the other. But it might just as well be a matter of helping Sam lure money from johns in the corridor or breaking his back for an entire day as a busboy, if there were many who called in sick. Sometimes he did the more unpleasant things, such as working in the john-rooms or acting as a lookout while the gorillas did their job.
In exchange he got almost unlimited credit at the gaming tables.
In exchange he got food and shelter.
The young Eric Bear didn’t complain.
But with each new marker he bought at the casino’s bank and for every white pill he rinsed down with alcohol in one of the bars, he took yet another step toward the woeful end for which he seemed predestined. If it hadn’t been for Emma Rabbit, the red pickup would have picked up Eric Bear before his twentieth birthday.
The first time he saw her she was standing in front of a window that looked out over the sea. In her smile was a challenge he couldn’t resist. She was dressed in white. It was as though the image of Emma Rabbit was composed by an advertising designer. It was as though he’d discovered her.
It is said that love conquers all.
It does.
Starting that day, and every day since, Eric Bear had loved Emma with pain, trust, passion, and self-annihilating restlessness that he couldn’t control. When she was successful, his happiness felt no limits. When things went against her, his helplessness was painful.
She didn’t like that.
She quarreled with him and accused him of taking over her feelings. She said that he was smothering her, that he was erasing the boundaries between their lives. She said that wasn’t the way you showed love.
If he’d had an opportunity, he would gladly have loved her in some other way. But where Emma was concerned, reason was out of the running. He reacted like a little cub, instinctively and without reflection. It had always been that way, and so it would remain.
While Eric Bear was cleaning away the traces of what had happened and thinking up reasonable explanations for why the hallway and dining room furniture were missing (to gain time he thought about saying that he had loaned out the hall furniture for a photography shoot and that the dining room furniture had been sent off for refinishing), he realized he had no alternative.
He was compelled to try to find out if there was a Death List, and if such was the case, to remove Dove’s name.
He didn’t know how much time he had, but he suspected that time was short. He would not succeed on his own.
Once again on this April day in the life of the middle-aged bear his thoughts returned to the bohemian existence of his youth. None of the comfortable project managers, TV commercial directors, or spoiled marketing executives with whom he hobnobbed nowadays would be able to help him with the mission Nicholas Dove had given him. He would be forced to call together the old gang.