"But I WANT to kill him!" Burny screeches.
"Hee iz alreddy dud, dud, dud. Chack Zawyuh's hardt iz go-ung do break. Chack Zawyuh vill nod know whud he iz do-ung. Vee go now du Muxtun'z and oho vee kull Chibbuh, yuzz? You vahhnd kull Chibbuh I ding, yuzz?"
Burny snickers. "Yeah. I vahhnd to kill Chipper. I vahhnd to slice that ass**le into little pieces and chew on his bones. And if his snippy bitch is there, I want to cut off her head and suck her juicy little tongue down my throat."
To Henry Leyden, this conversation sounds like insanity, demonic possession, or both. Blood continues to stream out of his back and from the ends of his mutilated fingers, and he is powerless to stop the flow. The smell of all the blood beneath and around him makes him feel nauseated, but nausea is the least of his problems. A light-headed sense of drift, of pleasing numbness — that is his real problem, and his best weapon against it is his own pain. He must remain conscious. Somehow, he must leave a message for Jack.
"Zo vee go now, Burn-Burn, and vee hahhv ah blesh-ah vid Chibbuh, yuzz? End denn . . . oho end denn, denn, denn vee go do de beeyoodiful bee-yoodiful Blagg Huzz, my Burn-Burn, end in Blagg Huzz vee mayyg reddy for de Grimsunn Ging!"
"I want to meet the Crimson King," Burny says. A rope of drool sags from his mouth, and for an instant his eyes gleam in the darkness. "I'm gonna give the Marshall brat to the Crimson King, and the Crimson King is gonna love me, because all I'm gonna eat is like one little ass cheek, one little hand, something like that."
"Hee vill lahhv you fuhr my zake, Burn-Burn, fuhr de Ging lahhvs mee bezzd, mee, mee, mee, Mizz-durr Munn-shunn! End venn de Ging roolz sooprumm, fogzes down fogzhulls veep and veep, dey gryy, gryy, gryy dere lid-dul hardz utt, on-cuzz you end mee, mee, mee, vee vull eed end eed end eed, eed, eed undill de vurrldz on all zydes are nudding bahd embdy bee-nudd shillz!"
"Empty peanut shells." Burny chuckles, and noisily retracts another rope of slobber. "That's a hell of a lot of eatin'."
Any second now, Henry thinks, horrible old Burn-Burn is going to fork over a substantial down payment on the Brooklyn Bridge.
"Gumm."
"I'm coming," says Burnside. "First I want to leave a message."
There is a silence.
The next thing Henry hears is a curious whooshing sound and the joined smack-smacks of sodden footwear parting from a sticky floor. The door to the closet beneath the stairs bangs open; the studio door bangs shut. A smell of ozone comes and goes. They have gone; Henry does not know how it happened, but he feels certain that he is alone. Who cares how it happened? Henry has more important matters to think about. "Murr impurdund vurk," he says aloud. "That guy's a German like I'm a speckled hen."
He crawls out from beneath the long table and uses its surface to lever himself up on his feet. When he straightens his back, his mind wobbles and goes gray, and he grasps a lampstand to stay upright. "Don't pass out," he says. "Passing out is not allowed, nope."
Henry can walk, he is sure of it. He's been walking most of his life, after all. Come to that, he can drive a car, too; driving is even easier than walking, only no one ever had the cojones to let him demonstrate his talents behind the wheel. Hell, if Ray Charles could drive — and he could, he can, Ray Charles is probably spinning into a left turn off the highway at this moment — why not Henry Leyden? Well, Henry does not happen to have an automobile available to him right now, so Henry is going to have to settle for taking a brisk walk. Well, as brisk as possible anyhow.
And where is Henry going on this delightful stroll through the blood-soaked living room? "Why," he answers himself, "the answer is obvious. I am going to my studio. I feel like taking a stroll into my lovely little studio."
His mind slides into gray once more, and gray is to be avoided. We have an antidote for the gray feeling, don't we? Yes, we do: the antidote is a good sharp taste of pain. Henry slaps his good hand against the stumps of his severed fingers — whoo boy, yes indeed, whole arm sort of went up in flames there. Flaming arm, that will work. Sparks shooting white hot from burning fingers will get us to the studio.
Let those tears flow. Dead folks don't cry.
"The smell of blood is like laughter," Henry says. "Who said that? Somebody. It's in a book. ‘The smell of blood was like laughter.' Great line. Now put one foot in front of the other."