Free Valhalla by Newton Thornburg

“What’s the matter—couldn’t sleep?”
    Stone did not answer. Eddie sat down at the table. He got out a pack of cigarettes and shook loose a pair, giving one to Stone. Disconsolately he regarded the thinning pack.
    “Jesus, four more left. When they’re gone, I die.”
    Stone lit both cigarettes and dragged hungrily on his, grateful for the little man’s generosity. He said nothing, though. He was not about to forget the acrimony of a few hours before. But Eddie was.
    “Hey, I’m sorry about all that earlier. You were right to lean on us.”
    “I thought so.”
    “Yeah, but you got to understand—Jag just ain’t himself since the plane crash. He’s scared, you know? And who wouldn’t be? So he strikes out at everybody. He wants us to hurt like he does.”
    “But normally he was a pretty sweet guy, huh?”
    Eddie laughed. “No way. He’s always liked to throw his weight around—but with a sense of humor, you know? Like, girls used to give him motel keys and he’d give the keys away to other girls, tell them he was gonna meet them there.”
    “Funny.”
    “Well, maybe not too. I just mean he meant well. Like calling you Boy Scout. He’s always got a name for everyone. Me, I got a dozen of them, everything from Eddie Asskisser to Gophernose. It don’t bother me.”
    “Congratulations.”
    “I just mean, don’t let him get to you.”
    “I don’t intend to. I’m leaving in the morning, remember?”
    Frowning, Eddie thought about that. He took a drag on his cigarette and carefully tapped it out, putting the butt back in the pack. “About all that,” he said. “I mean what Eve told us—I understand, believe me. To just blow a man away—I don’t think I could do it either, not unless I was there, you know? I mean, threatened, like I was.”
    Stone said nothing. He wondered if the little man was being honest or if he was simply frightened at the prospect of carrying on alone with Jagger and Eve.
    “Yeah, a guy just wouldn’t know until the moment of truth,” he went on. “I mean, whether he’d do it or not.”
    “Eve seems to know.”
    Eddie laughed again. “Well, Eve, she’s tough. Smalltown Texas tough. With a couple years in Vegas on top of it, selling the old flesh. So, yeah, I guess maybe she could do it, probably without batting an eye.”
    Stone was trying hard not to show his sudden anger. “What do you mean, selling the flesh?”
    Eddie shrugged, as if he regretted that he could not tell a lie. “Selling as in a couple hundred bucks a night.”
    “You’re quite a friend, aren’t you.”
    “Well, ask her. She’ll tell you. When Jag found her, she was being kept by this greasy guinea torpedo. The guy had bet Jag on a match and lost big. Jag took Eve as payment—how about that, huh? Just like slavery. Only Eve could’ve walked, of course, except she dug Jag and decided to stay.”
    “One big happy family.”
    Eddie considered that. “Well, we used to be, I guess. And I think we will be again—when Jag gets his sight back.”
    “Good old Jag.” Stone put out his cigarette and got up. “We better sleep while we can.”
    He went back into the other room and got down on thefloor again, angling the upper part of his body onto the lumpy backpack. As he squirmed for a comfortable position, he looked over at Eve on the couch. Her mouth was slightly open and he could see her teeth, he could see her tongue. She had one arm crooked under her head, using it as a pillow, while the other hung to the floor, where her hand rested, limp and elegant. He wondered if he hated her as much as he wanted her.
    Disgusted with himself, he rolled over, facing the wall. Before closing his eyes, he checked his watch, an electric Bulova, and found that it had stopped at two o’clock, probably for good, its battery dead. And oddly, instead of disappointment he felt only a grim amusement. It struck him that the watch was a thoroughly fitting timepiece for a modern American, in his modern American