There.
All better.
I went back to my room, set the pistol down on the nightstand, and lay on top of the covers. I felt cool with the sweat drying on me, but not cool enough yet to get under the covers. I remembered other nights like this, on the run up to my break down. I’d wake at four in the morning listening for voices that seemed right on the edge of my hearing; I’d be afraid for no reason, wander my apartment, searching each room, gun in hand, looking for someone I felt certain was hiding there, watching me, mocking me.
The slow, steady accretion of madness.
I had to avoid stress, Dr. Marks said.
What the hell did he know? My work was supposed to be stressful. The truth was that I felt the most engaged, alive, vibrant…happy, when I was working with the Cell. It wasn’t stressful to do my job, run my operations, do what I was so good at it. And Marks knew that…
But what was I doing now? I didn’t know. But it felt right. I liked having all these people in my space. Like a family. Like I was a father, tip toeing into my children’s room to watch them breathe, late at night, knowing they were safe and secure with me.
How could this be more stressful than my work? How could loving people be harder than killing them? That’s what it was. I thought I knew what love was. I thought I’d had it with my ex-wife. But this was something else. The mutual feelings of respect, admiration, friendship with the others in my Cell, that was a kind of love. What I had with this band that had grown round me was another kind. Different, but the same.
I looked at my pistol on the nightstand. The two dots on the rear sight glowed like green eyes in the dark. I picked up the pistol and press checked the chamber for the reassuring sight of the fat brass case gleaming there, then reengaged the safety and set the weapon down again.
I lay back and folded my hands behind my head. I wondered what Rake would make of all this. He was a problem for me now; I was sure he’d seen exactly what I did and who I was. One of the military psychics I’d worked with, a grim no-nonsense man who’d been a Delta shooter before he was selected for psychic training, told me that nothing was hidden from a viewer once he got on the signal line. A good viewer could go forward and backward in time, see the target from different times and places, get a clear picture and full understanding of what the target was. Rake knew me for what I was. How would I explain that to the Operational Security Officer for the Cells? Maybe I wouldn’t have to. Maybe that’s what Rake was talking about. Maybe all this was meant to be and it would work out the way it would work out.
I didn’t know. I was tired of thinking about it.
I lay there for a long time. The thin light of dawn trickled through my window. I was almost five thirty. Finally, I fell asleep.
CHAPTER NINE
i.
It was ten o’clock in the morning when I opened my eyes. The smell of fried bacon and fresh brewed coffee was thick in the air. My mouth watered. I rolled out of bed and pulled on sweat pants and a tattered sweat shirt and went into the kitchen. Ryan and Marcos sat at the table with plates set in front of them. Sarah stood at the stove, dressed in a long shirt that covered her to mid-thigh, and turned bacon in a spattering pan.
“Good morning!” she said. “How do you like your eggs?”
“This is service,” I said. “Scrambled is fine.”
She set a platter of bacon down on the table and then beat eggs in a glass bowl I didn’t know I had.
Marcos poured coffee from my battered steel Thermos bottle into a big mug for me. “Hola, hermano.”
I sniffed the mug. “Where’d you get the coffee?”
“I went across the street and bought some beans and had them grind them for us,” Ryan said. “I know you like the coffee at the Diner.”
“You’re a resourceful young man, Ryan Cleary,” I said. After I spooned in enough sugar and cream, it was just the way I liked it.
Sarah set a plate with fluffy scrambled eggs and five strips of bacon down in front of me. “There you go.”
“Thank you, Sarah,” I said.
I was struck with a pang by how young she was. Ryan’s eyes followed her everywhere, and they shared little smiles when they thought no one was looking. I felt like a voyeur. Marcos was immersed in the paper. The headline was about a gang related shooting on the North side.
“What’s up with the shooting?” I said.
“My man Spenser in the middle, again,” Marcos said. He folded over the front page and handed it to me. There was a quarter page photo of Joe Spenser, flanked by Gang Unit officers, standing over a defiant black man stretched across the hood of a police cruiser. “Crips and Somalis are into it.”
“Somalis again? You can’t get rid of them,” I said.
“Motherfuckers got no quit in them,” Marcos said. “Crips finding that out the hard way.”
Ryan looked up from his plate. “Were you two in the Army together?”
“No,” Marcos said. “We’re post-military friends.”
“But you were both in the Army?”
Marcos gave me a sidelong glance. “Yep.”
“I think sometimes about going in the Army,” Ryan said.
I nodded at Sarah. “Hard life for an Army wife.” She blushed and looked down.
“I guess it would be,” Ryan said thoughtfully.
Marcos leaned back in his chair, his mug held in both hands. “So what’s the plan, big man?”
I was struck again by how strange this all was. The strangest thing of all was how familiar it felt.
“I’m going to go by and check out her old address,” I said. “See what I can see, talk to her neighbors. She was there only a few months ago, so there should be somebody who remembers her. She might still be in the neighborhood.”
“Not far from Elena’s place,” Marcos said.
“Yeah.” I spoke to Ryan and Sarah. “I don’t suppose you two want to go back with Elena?”
Sarah spoke first. “We’ll go if you want us to, Frank. We don’t want to impose.”
“You’re not imposing,” I said. “The truth is, I feel better having you here with Marcos. You two have been seen on the street with me. You’re probably safer here than with Elena.”
“We want to be part of it,” Ryan said. “Whatever happens. We want to help. We owe you that.”
“You don’t owe me anything.”
“No, sir, we do,” Ryan said. “You helped us when you didn’t have to. If it wasn’t for you and Marcos, we’d be out there on the street. So we owe you…big time.”
“You two got any leads on work?” Marcos said.
“No,” Ryan said. “We’re saving our time for Frank.”
“When we get through this, I can get you a job as a courier,” Marcos said. “Decent jing, enough to get you a cheap place somewhere. Sarah, she could waitress, make all the tips a pretty girl can get.”
“I’d like that,” Sarah said.
“Are you two old enough to work?” I said.
“I’m seventeen and Sarah’s sixteen,” Ryan said. “We can work, as long as there’s no alcohol being served…”
“Sweet suffering Jesus,” I said.
“We’re not children,” Sarah said.
“I know,” I said. “We’ll talk about work once we’re through all this. You two can stay here as long as you need to. Till we get you on your feet.”
“Thanks, Frank,” Ryan said. Sarah smiled and turned back to the stove.
“You want me to ride along?” Marcos said.
“You need to rest up, and I want you here with these two. I’ll take point.”
“Who’s going to carry your slack and watch your back, point man?” Marcos said.
“Maybe I should ask Rake,” I said.
“That’s a good idea,” Marcos said. “I could call him…”
“No need, not right now,” I said. “I’m just going to drive over there, nose around a little, see what I can see.”
“People probably working, dude. Might not be
home,” Marcos said.
“In that neighborhood they’re probably still sleeping after a long night out selling crack. I’ll check it out. If I have to, I’ll go back after six tonight to see what the straight people have to say.”
“You’re the boss.”
ii.
I took the long way to Luella’s last address. I drove around Lake Harriet and Calhoun and then cut east on 36th Street. I wanted to take my time and get my mind right after the unsettling night before. The knife I wore clipped in the waistband of my Levis was my totem for proper mindset. I’d carried that knife all over the world. It was like an old friend: always there when I needed it, unobtrusive and familiar, ready to hand. Just touching it took my mind to the right place.
Once I was in the neighborhood, I drove slowly down the right block looking for the address. It was a run down four-plex, a common structure in this part of town, two apartments up stairs, two down stairs, the building split into two halves by the stairwell. There was a spot open just down the street, so I pulled the Camry to the curb, shut off the engine and sat for awhile to take measure of the street.
There’s a rhythm to every street, a flow of pedestrians coming and going, cars driving by, kids going to school. It’s different at different times of the day. The key to being safe in your environment is watch for the subtle cues, the things that are out of place. It was early afternoon. There was no one walking the street, no one out on the front stoops watching people go by, nobody but me sitting in their car, no mail trucks, no delivery vans. All that would happen later in the day.
Just a quiet street.
An alley ran behind the buildings, parallel to the street. That’s where the trash cans would be, immobile cars and other junk. While I was only three blocks from Elena’s, the plexes here didn’t show any care or upkeep. They were rundown, peeling paint, with doors hanging loose on rusty hinges, locks pried out. Burglar bars covered windows and doors. Not a nice neighborhood.
I sat and watched for ten minutes. Four doors down the street from Luella’s address, a woman came out and stood on her porch for a minute, checked her mailbox, then went back inside.
Nothing else.
I got out of the car and keyed the alarm and electronic lock. The mailboxes inside the four-plex entryway were old, battered and rusty, with peeling strips of paper scrawled with occupant names. Second floor, left side, the mailbox said Pound/Laughlin. The Pound was crossed off in ink from a pen nearly empty. I went up the stairs, stepping carefully to avoid the creaky middles, placing my feet on the outer edge of each stair. Second floor left side was Apartment 3. The tarnished brass 3 hung at an angle, the bottom brass pin holding it in place had fallen out. I paused and listened. There was the indistinct buzz of voices from back in the apartment. At least someone was home.
I knocked.
The voices fell silent. There was the pad of bare feet on a wooden floor behind the door.
“Who is it?” A woman’s voice.
“My name is Frank Lovelady. I’d like to ask you about Luella.”
“Just a minute,” she said. There was a long pause as she went away and then came back. She fumbled with the lock. The door opened a crack and a girl, no more than eighteen, dressed in a tattered rayon kimono, peeked out.
“You’re Frank Lovelady?” she said. “Come in.”
I came through the door and she swung it shut behind me, locking it. I took a step further into the front room and there was Armando the Cuban, Leroy Thompson, a big bandage on his head, and a huge man whose face was as pasty white as a cut potato.
Armando grinned. “It’s my favorite bitch!”
They closed on me.
In a street fight, there’s a sequence. There’s a warm up, the exchange of words, the assessment, the posturing. And then there’s the exchange of blows. In combat, the world I lived in, there’s no warm up. That’s a waste of time. You go from no to go in nothing flat, focused on taking out your opponent in the fastest and most efficient way possible. There are no rules. These guys, they wanted to enjoy the warm up, see the fear on my face, watch me turn and fumble with the door before they took me and beat me.
Wasn’t going to happen that way.
I set the rhythm.
I flicked my left hand out at Potato Face’s eyes while I drew my Military Police with my right hand. Potato Face cried out in pain when my nails cut at his eyes. He stumbled back, and I followed up with my right hand, the closed knife clenched in my hand, the knurled ends protruding from both sides of my fist, a hard blow against the big man’s temple. It sounded like a steel rod stabbed into a melon. His skin split red as he fell to his knees.
Scratch him for now.
“Little bitch wants to fight!” Armando crowed. He lashed out with a front kick that caught me in the lower belly while Leroy circled, looking for an opening. I thumbed open my knife and slashed at Armando’s follow up kick. He yelped and leaped backward. Leroy rushed me, one hand going for my knife, the other going for my face. I rode his rush backwards and brought the knife up along the underside of his arm, laying it open. He screamed.
“Maricon!” Armando snarled. He went for a gun beneath his jacket. I rushed him, my knife cutting figure eights in front of him till it connected with his arm, slashed his chest. I pinned his gun hand across his body and forced him back, my knife at his throat.
“Choose, motherfucker!” I said. “Chill or I cut off your head.”
“Fuck you, maricon. I’m going to fuck you up the ass tonight,” Armando hissed. There was a powerful blow to the back of my head. I saw stars. I slashed backwards with my blade. I felt my blade connect with something and then I was pinned between two huge ham-like arms. Potato Face was back in the fight. Armando beat me around the head with his pistol and everything began to swirl around me, a blanket of dark tossed over my ringing head, and as I went down I heard Armando say, “Oh, you’re going to pay for this, bitch.”
iii.
I came to slowly. There was a hood over my head. My hands and feet were bound with duct tape. I was an aching heap on the floorboards of a van in motion. I couldn’t think straight. I kept still while I tried to sort out my surroundings. My ribs and back ached. They’d thrown the boot to me while I was out. I was surprised to be alive. I had some loose teeth, my nose felt a mess, my head was a mass of knots, and I probably had a couple of cracked ribs. But I was sure I was in better shape than the guys I’d cut.
For an instant, my biggest regret was that they’d taken my knife. I’d never see it again and that angered me. I’d carried that knife all over the world and I hated the thought of a couple of street thugs taking it.
But then, those street thugs had taken me, hadn’t they?
I heard labored breathing, the kind someone with a broken nose would make, beside me on the floor. One of the three was within reach. One on the wheel, one on the floor, probably another one riding shotgun. We hit a bump and my head nearly split with the throbbing. I added a probable concussion to my list of injuries.
Leroy’s voice came from the front. “Motherfucker ain’t dead, is he?”
A heavy foot swung into my middle. “No, he ain’t dead.” Potato Face. “He’s going to wish he was.”
“Mr. Frank Lovelady!” Armando called from the front. “Hey, maricon! Are you awake or sleeping?”
I lay still.
“Put him to sleep,” Armando said.
Something heavy smashed behind my right ear and I fell into darkness.
iv.
I dreamed that I was lifted like a coffin at a funeral, held overhead by hard hands, and carried in a procession past lines of watchers, some in tears, others grim faced and alone with their thoughts. It was a bilocation; I floated off to one side and watched the limp sack that was my body being carried, and I was completely detached from any worry about how it was or how it was going to be. It was out of my hands, and into the hands of some higher power, and there was someone calling out to me, trying to wake me from a sleep so deep that it
seemed that it would go on forever.
Frank, Frank…come up to us, Frank. I can’t see you, you have to come up to us now, Frank…
Rake.
That was clear, though I was muddled and foggy. I didn’t know how to reach him. I was an observer split between my skin and the spirit that carried my consciousness. I watched, as though in a movie, my body dragged down stairs, bump bump bump, into an earthen cellar rich with the dank smell of old soil and molds. My disembodied consciousness circled my limp form, probed at it, got a confusing swirl of thoughts and impressions, as though I were an alien being, my mind unfathomable. But which was me? This bag of flesh limp on an earthen floor, or the disembodied consciousness floating to one side? My spirit self was called, and it rose up through wooden floors into the sky, where the sun was settling into twilight. I was in the country, somewhere far from the city, and the stars themselves called me up to them, and for a while I walked from brilliant star to brilliant star, from distant planet to planet, and when I turned and looked back the earth was like a green and blue jewel draped with clouds, gleaming in the black night blanket of sky.
A distant groan called to me and I was pulled back, swirling like dirty water in a drain, down from the stars through the night to an isolated farm house far out in the country, through two stories of building and then down into the cellar and there I was tugged back into the envelope of flesh that carries the light and I was inside my body again…
And my head throbbed brutally. The hood was damp and crusty with blood and saliva. The earthen floor was moist. I slowly tested my limbs and torso. I seemed intact. My legs felt as though someone had beat their names with a ball peen hammer into the bones. I was still bound hand and foot with duct tape. My fingers were numb.
It wasn’t as bad as I’d thought. I’d been in worse shape before.
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