HAVING EATEN TOO MUCH CHINESE TAKEOUT, having refreshed his knowledge of the more obscure corners of Palazzo Rospo, having fed the leftovers to the garbage disposal, Corky Laputa prepared a second martini and returned upstairs to the guest bedroom at the back of the house, where Stinky Cheese Man lay in a state of such emaciation that even ravenously hungry vultures would have considered him to be slim pickings and would have declined to sit deathwatch.
Corky called him Stinky Cheese Man because after many weeks abed, unbathed, he had acquired a stench reminiscent of many things objectionable, including certain particularly strong cheeses.
A long time had passed since Stinky had produced any solid waste. Odors associated with the bowel had therefore ceased to be an issue.
Upon first taking the man captive, Corky had catheterized him, with the consequence that urine-soaked bedclothes had never been a problem. The catheter line served a one-gallon glass collection jug beside the bed, which was currently only a quarter full.
The sour, biting stink resulted largely from weeks of repeated fear sweats left to dry without attention, and from natural skin oils [296] accumulated so long that they had turned rancid. Sponge baths were not among the services that Corky provided.
Upon entering the bedroom, he put aside his martini and picked up a can of pine-scented disinfectant from the nightstand.
Stinky closed his eyes because he knew what was coming.
Corky pulled the sheet and blanket to the bottom of the bed and liberally sprayed his skeletal captive from head to foot. This was a quick and effective method of reducing the malodor to an acceptable level for the duration of their nightly chat.
Beside the bed stood a bar stool with a comfortably padded seat and back. Corky settled upon this perch.
A tall plant stand, crafted from oak and serving as a table, stood beside the stool. After taking a sip of his martini, Corky put it down on the plant stand.
He studied Stinky for a while, saying nothing.
Of course, Stinky didn’t speak because he had learned the hard way that it was not his place to initiate conversations.
Furthermore, his once robust voice had deteriorated until it was weaker than that of any terminal tuberculosis patient, marked by an eerie rasp and rattle: a voice like wind-driven sand scouring across ancient stone, like the brittle whispery click of scuttling scarabs. The sound of his voice scared Stinky these days, and speaking had become painful; evening by evening he said less.
In the early days, to prevent him from crying out loud enough to make the neighbors curious, his mouth had been taped shut. Tape was no longer necessary, for he could not project a worrisome volume of sound.
Initially, although maintained in a state of semiparalysis with drugs, Stinky had been chained to the bed. With the severe withering of his body, with the total collapse of his physical strength, the chains had become superfluous.
In Corky’s absence, the captive’s glucose drip always included drugs to keep him docile, as insurance against an unlikely escape.
[297] Evenings, he was allowed a clear mind. For their sessions.
Now his fright-stricken eyes alternately avoided Corky and were drawn to him by magnetic dread. He lay in terror of what was to come.
Corky had never struck this man, had never employed physical torture. He never would.
With words and words alone he had broken his captive’s heart, had shattered his hope, had crushed his sense of self-worth. With words he would break his mind, as well, if in fact Stinky was not already insane.
Stinky’s real name was Maxwell Dalton. He had been a professor of English at the same university where Corky still enjoyed tenure.
Corky taught literature from a deconstructionist perspective, instilling in students the belief that language can never describe reality because words only refer to other words, not to anything real. He taught them that whether a piece of writing is a novel or a law, each person is the sole arbiter of what that writing says and what it means, that all truth is relative, that all moral principles are fraudulent interpretations of religious and philosophical texts that actually have no meaning other than what each person wants them to mean. These were deliciously destructive ideas, and Corky took great pride in his work as a teacher.
Professor Maxwell Dalton was a traditionalist. He believed in language, meaning, purpose, and principle.
For decades, Corky’s like-minded colleagues had controlled the English Department. In the past few years, Dalton had attempted to mount a revolt ag............