Art of the Deal

Cyril Hurlbutt woke up to the sound of water as it lapped against a shore.

It took him a few moments to register what could be wrong with that. A pleasant sound, one which had always soothed him to sleep — ever since a small child. So, what, pray tell, bothered him so? Cyril frowned, one foot in the land of dreams, the other hovering above grounded reality. Eyes still scrunched shut, lower lip curled down like the pout of a toddler. The cogs of his brain — rusted and old, but still quite functional, thank you very much — struggled to turn. At last, it came to him.

It couldn’t be right because they wouldn’t summer in his beach house for another two months. The night before, they’d fallen asleep — after making sweet, brief love — in his penthouse suite. In the city.

And, now that Cyril gave it much thought at all, the absence of the body next to him became clear. His wife. His fourth wife, to be exact. Kaytee-Angel Leonard. Her actual name. A double-barrelled first name. Not as classy as her parents had hoped. Less than a quarter of his age and about as sharp as a tennis ball. A real blonde, too. She needed no dyes. That had been one of Cyril’s prerequisites in a new wife. The previous three had been brunettes, and look how those marriages worked out. Something in the pigment of their hair turned them crazy, Cyril guessed.

His empty arms groped for her, but he swiped nothing but air. Cold air. The hairs on the backs of his arms prickled. “Kaytee?” The name came out as a mumble. “Angel?” Cyril forced his eyes open and tried to sit up. Instead of softness beneath — genuine stingray, not cheap — he felt something hard. And rocky. It bit into the tender flesh of his palms.

Halfway up — in a pop of joints and a click of bones — Cyril froze. Like Dracula, as he emerged from the crypt. His eyes widened. His breath gasped out of his lips in a trail of vapour. Somewhere inside his chest, beneath a hearty layer of fat and flab, something juddered.

No four-poster bed. No king size mattress. No giant duvet, filled with eagle feathers and sown by the very brightest Middle East orphans. No sleek, minimalistic furniture. No gentle, romantic purple lights — soft enough for sleep, bright enough for navigation. No polar bear rug. No black and white art pieces on the walls. No walls, for that matter.

Overhead, the roof of a cavern reached up into shadow. Sharp-toothed stalactites dangled above. They seemed to wobble like half-melted icicles. Open space on every side. This place, this chamber, stretched on with no end. And not too far away, down a slight slope — movement. Orange glows. Glints in the dimness. Lights reflected in the water.

Cyril squinted. He’d left his glasses on his bedside table back in his penthouse suite. Something occupied a space in the river. It bobbed and swayed there. A boat? And in front, motionless, a black silhouette stood. Cyril grinned — rescue would soon be at hand.

A building collapse, of some sort. Yes. That explained it. Whoever had built the condo — Mexicans, Cyril guessed — had done so on the cheap. The idiots had constructed it over an abscess in the ground. And, over time, the support had weakened. At last, unable to hold up the complex any longer, the whole thing had given way and spilled its guts beneath. He, Cyril Hurlbutt, had escaped with his life. Thank God. No idea where the rest of them had landed, but bully for him. A shame, true, but no real loss. He had insurance, he had his other homes. And there could always be wife number five — Kaytee-Angel had gotten a bit too old for him, anyway.

He waved to the figure, but the figure did not wave back. Too surprised to see a survivor. Cyril could picture the headlines now. MULTIPLE FATALITIES AS BUILDING COLLAPSES, BRAVE BILLIONAIRE THE SOLE SURVIVOR. A song in his heart, and nothing but his satin PJs to cover his modesty, he stumbled to his feet.

Loose scree and rocks covered the cavern floor. No doubt he’d shred his poor soles as he made his way down. He waved again at the figure. “Hello!” Cyril’s voice echoed through the chamber. “You there! Yes, you! Come here! I have no moccassins to protect my feet. Carry me.”

No movement. No response.

“I said you there! I need your assistance!”

The water plinked and plonked. The figure did not budge.

Cyril frowned. He put his hands on his hips. “Do you know who I am?” he demanded. “I’m Cyril Hurlbutt. The Cyril Hurlbutt. Heir to the Hurlbutt fortune and empire! And I’m asking—” He shook his head, started again. “Demanding that you help me! You can’t very well expect me to walk down to you barefoot, can you?”

The silence suggested that the stranger did expect such an injustice.

Cyril took a tentative step. He grumbled. Not too bad, though. He took another and another. He could manage. With his can-do spirit and his keen eye. After all, he’d succeeded in business with nothing but the shirt on his back and the 20 million from his father. “I’ll have some choice words for your manager, when I see him,” he said under his breath. “You’ll be out of a job by the end of the day, and homeless by the end of the month.” He chuckled to himself. “Yes, we’ll see. If I have my way, and I always do.”

As he got closer, he realised he’d guessed right about the boat. But not any old boat. But a Venetian gondola. Cyril’s first wave of impression gave way to doubt. What kind of rescue operation were they conducting? He needed a speed boat. An orange one. A life vest, a medical check-up. Fluids, bandages. Not a romantic trip.

“Now, what’s the meaning of this?” He gestured to the boat. “Just what exactly are you trying to pu—”

Cyril’s words died in his mouth.

He saw the figure.

For the first time, he saw him.

Illuminated by aflame torches, placed at intervals throughout the cavern.

A man, yes. Grey stubble dotted the chin and cheeks. That much offered him relief. A man could handle the job of disaster search and rescue. Some things needed the firm grasp of a male — no fraught emotions of a woman. Good to see. None of that pansy PC rubbish.

But everything else churned his stomach.

A grey anorak — smothered with brown stains — hung down to the man’s shins. He’d pulled the hood up and over his head so that it now obscured half of his face. Cyril could not make out the man’s eyes, only the tip of his nose and his thin lips. Curled into a slight smile. Black goloshes rose to his knees, wet and slimy. In his hand — more of a claw — he clutched an oar. Splintered and cracked. Grey, mottled skin. The nails, unkempt, hooked around the shaft — long and sharp and yellow.

For this time since waking, Cyril asked the real question. “Who are you?”

The smile widened, to reveal pointed, grey-black teeth. “The ferryman.” He extended his other hand, and Cyril recoiled. The man’s smile dropped. “Obolus.”

“What?”

“Obolus.”

“I-I don’t—”

The man sighed. “Danake.”

“Are these words you’re saying?”

“Danake.”

“I really don’t—” Realisation struck. “Money? You want money? For a rescue operation?” He snorted. “You Mexicans are all the same.” Cyril shook his head and rummaged around in his pockets, pulled out his billfold. He almost asked how much, then caught himself. Lesson one in deals and bargaining. Always be the one to set the price. He pulled a ten free and slipped it into the man’s hand, and suppressed a shudder when their skins came into contact. So cold, so dry, so hoarse. “There,” he smiled. “That ought to do it, hm?”

The ferryman scrunched the note up without so much as a glance and pocketed it. “Climb aboard.”

Cyril eyed the gondola. It looked as though it had existed back when his grandfather — Cyril the first — walked the Earth. “Just where, exactly, are we going?”

“Climb aboard.” The ferryman pushed past him and strode into the water. It splashed up over his feet, ran down his encrusted boots. With more grace than Cyril had given him credit for, he hopped up into the gondola.

Cyril looked down at his bare feet, then at the black liquid, and then at the ferryman. He ignored the fact that the man had shoved him — a kindness, in his opinion.“You expect me climb up there myself? This is inexcusable! This is monstrous! This is—”

“Climb aboard.”

Cyril gritted his teeth and bent down. He rolled the bottoms of his pyjamas up, as best he could, to avoid the water. “When we get back, you are so dead. I’ll have your head on a god damn platter.” When he got back up again, he saw that the ferryman watched him. With a smirk. Cyril muttered to himself about people from south of the border.

And took a step into the tar-black waters.

He gasped as the brine stole his breath. “Jesus Christ!” He splashed his way towards the boat. It seemed further away than when the ferryman had boarded. The water sloshed up and soaked his PJs — the attempt to keep them dry now in vain. Cyril reached up with the gimme-gimme hands of a child. “Help me up, man!”

But the ferryman did not.

Cyril hooked his hands over the lip of the gondola and hauled himself up with all his strength. The boat rocked, but the ferryman remained upright. Like those roly-poly toys. Cyril’s upper arms strained, his heart hammered, his head throbbed. His bare feet kicked at the water, scrambled for a hold. He felt unable to breathe as he struggled. Darkness encroached on his vision, the black corners softened.

And then he tumbled in. A mess of damp cloth, rank sweat, winded gasps, and animal grunts. He thudded to the floor of the boat, with much less dignity than he’d intended. He lay there, splinters against his back. The water from his bottoms drip-drip-dripped to the wood.

“Oh, oh my God!”

The man in the anorak watched him a moment longer.

“I should take back my money for that.”

The ferryman chuckled, turned, and helmed the gondola. “No refunds.”

A quiet plink told him that the oar had entered the water.

Cyril scuttled to the bench and eased himself onto it. He watched as the man steered the boat out into the waters. Soon, the shoreline vanished into the murk, and all became a featureless blur. Only the yellow-orange flames marked their path, placed at indiscriminate points. It seemed as though they hung from no walls, but hovered in place.

“Just where are we going?”

No answer.

Cyril cleared his throat. “I said, where are we going?”

No reply. The ferryman continued to steer the boat through the ink. His oar dipped into the waters with an almost relaxed motion. As if he had all the time in the world. As if there couldn’t be anything to rush for.

Cyril slammed his fist against the side of the boat. The ferryman paid it no mind, despite the way the gondola rocked afterwards. “Don’t you know it’s rude to ignore people who are talking to you? Especially your betters! Answer me, damn it. What kind of paramedic are you? You haven’t even checked me over! For all you know, I’m about to bleed out. I could die!”

“That seems unlikely, Cyril.” A pause.“You’re already dead.”

“Don’t talk rubbish!”

Down went the oar, up came the oar.

Cyril guffawed and flapped at him. “No, that can’t be right.” He turned his hands over, pinched the flesh. “I’m still here, aren’t I? Definitely not dreaming. Plus. I’m too rich to die.”

The ferryman said nothing. Continued to row, in silence.

“I-I even paid for the latest rejuvenating treatments!” He nodded to the man in the anorak. “State of the art, they were.” He whistled. “Not cheap, you know.” His nose wrinkled. “Not that you people would know anything about that.”

An imperceptible move of the ferryman’s head. “Yes. I know. A young-blood transfusion, wasn’t it?” His bloodless lips curled. “How decidedly vampiric. He should like that very much.”

“He?” Cyril’s brow furrowed. Would God like that? He had no idea. It didn’t seem like the sort of thing the divine would approve of. As if on cue, a sulphuric whiff of eggs stung his nose, made him wince with distaste. “Oh. Oh, God, what is—” What is that? But Cyril already knew. Not Him. The other Him. The one you hoped to never see.

As if having read his thoughts, the man in the anorak nodded. “Yes. Him.”

Panic flooded his senses, the smell of blood in his nose. A wave of heat shuddered through his out-of-shape flesh. “Is—” He licked his lips. “Is this for the exotic bird that died out for my factories? That good-for-nothing creature would have become extinct anyway! That was a prime spot of rainforest.”

Plink, plonk.

“Or was it that oil spill my company was responsible for? I-I tell you, that could have happened to anybody! It was just bad luck, that’s all! If you take me, you should take everyone else involved in fossil fuels!”

Splish, splash.

“Or is it those sweatshops I setup in east Asia? Or the tax evasion and fraud I committed? The greenhouse emissions? The underpaid workers, the wage theft? Tell me, damn you! Tell me!”

Ahead, a hole blacker than black loomed out of the gloom. The gaped maw of a snake.

Cyril clenched his jaw. He could get out of this, he knew. Everybody had their price, you had only to figure out how much. And what currency. For some people, cash and shiny objects did the trick. For others, you had to dip your toes into more insidious waters. But he didn’t mind — whatever helped to hammer out the deal.

“What do you want? Money?” Cyril nodded, spittle flew. “I’ve lots of it! More than you can dream of. It brings great happiness. Women, girls, boys, whatever you like — you can buy them all when you have this much! More than 98 per cent of the rest of the world. Riches you wouldn’t believe.” He snapped his fingers. “You can have it. A quarter? A half? Three quarters? A third? Name your price, damn you!”

“I think you’ll find,” said the ferryman, “that it’s not me who is damned.”

The open mouth of the tunnel yawned. Utter blackness loomed within, no more torches or candles down there. Cyril’s heart stumbled over itself. The blood in his veins turned to ice.

He lurched to his feet, unsteady and bilious. He strode forward and smacked a firm hand on the ferryman’s shoulder, hard. A ripple of nausea told him he shouldn’t have done that. That he shouldn’t touch this thing disguised as a man, not now, not ever. But — what the hell — in for a penny, in for a pound. Cyril yelled as loud as he could go.

“What do you want?”

The ferryman turned to face him, smile wider than ever, the teeth longer than ever. “Your soul.” The two syllables thudded down like the stone of a tomb.

Cyril took one stumbled step backwards, tripped, and landed on his ass. He didn’t even feel it. His roar became a whimper, the tears now flowed. “Will you just tell me, please, where we’re going?”

With one gnarled grey hand, the man in anorak reached up and slid his hood down.

Cyril tried to suppress a scream.

Tried and failed.

He understood, at last, that some things you cannot bargain for. No matter how hard you try.

The man had no eyes. Only ragged jelly in the holes. The scratch marks around the gaping wounds indicated he’d clawed them out himself. He grinned, wide and toothy. A string of saliva stretched out. In the beads of his spit, the last lights of the underworld glinted and winked out. “Oh, we’re going somewhere new.” The ferryman sucked on his lips, puckered them inwards into his wet mouth. “Mm-hm. Somewhere not even I’ve been before. You see…”

The darkness of the cave swallowed them.

“There’s a special place in Hell for you.”

Silence, except for the distant sound of water as it lapped against the shore.