by Bright,R. F.
Number Three stepped forward, aiming the camera at Tessyier, a half step back, a little to the left, and shouted, “Rolling!”
Tessyier crashed around the deck, briefcase shackled to his lacerated wrist, flailing wildly, blood spurting from his neck. He tried with both feet to strip the briefcase from his wrist, nearly ripping his hand off, then suddenly collapsed in a defeated lump. Slowly, his free hand probed for the rail and he calmly pulled himself up.
“Could there possibly be anything you forgot to say?” chided Boyne. “I can’t imagine it.”
To everyone’s shock, Tessyier leapt over the rail and into the river.
Number Three groaned, “Ez’s adlibbin’ it now.”
“Not very convincing, iz’ee?” said the Driver.
Tessyier disappeared beneath the water, bobbed to the surface, and sank again. Boyne pursed his lips, and said, “Game, set, match.” He pushed the button. The briefcase detonated. A huge explosion, muted by several feet of water, pushed the tug out into the river on its wake. A fine spray filled the frosty dampness, then blew downriver.
A glorious silence ensued.
“Oy, Captain?” asked Number Five, a pugnacious little knob. “Wha’ about all dat pelf?”
“It costs good money to send a great and tragic message, my son.”
Everyone agreed.
“But! Me mum didn’t raise no gacks.” He pulled from his inside coat pocket a neatly folded glassine envelope and dangled it from one corner. It unraveled to reveal Tessyier’s twelve little bars of gold. “Thumb on the scale, bucko. Thumb on the scale.”
Everyone raised a thumb and the Driver tipped his hat. “Mum’d be proud, sir.”
Boyne pointed at the boat, as the pilot gunned the engines. “Where’s he going?”
Bullets ricocheted off the heavy steel pilothouse, but the windows splintered, raining shards of plate glass onto the pilot. He dove to the floor, grabbed the bottom of the wheel and searched for the throttle with the other hand. The powerful tugboat, unburdened by its intended load, raced into the mist.
“Ez’s on the rabbit, Captain,” shouted the Driver.
Boyne raised his hand. “That’ll do. A little drama to substantiate his story. And what a story he has to tell. He’s our witness. No witness, no message.” He waved the troop back to the transporter.
“You think Tuke is out to sea?” asked Number Three. “Like the Bloviator said?”
“If he is, we got him. But I don’t see it. He’d never paint himself into a corner. But if he is where the Bloviator said, we win. If he’s not, well, we’ve done some of our best work here tonight. The message will prevail. It will be remembered.”
“And what of our Judas?” asked Number Five. “Is he morty morty morty?”
“Well. If the bomb didn’t kill him outright, I pray he makes the best of the opportunity.”
“Opportunity?” the troop sang.
Boyne made a graceful half-turn and began walking backwards, arms outstretched to the mighty Mon. “He could be the first man to swim from here to New Orleans — with one arm.”
“Call Guinness,” howled the Driver.
Boyne removed his luxurious hat and placed it over his heart. “He will feature prominently in our toasts tonight.”
The transporter sped away into the crystalline city with a chorus trailing after, “. . . Slongeha!”
Max felt a little skittish being off with a strange woman, Nurse Elizabeth Cromwell, in a strange place, all by himself.
“How’d you like to make some money? Real money?” she asked. “Serious trade? Whatever you want. Pays any way you want.”
Max had read his mother’s vast collection of 1930s detective novels several times and loved to talk to himself in colloquial Noir. “Is this where the rube falls for the jape?”
“No. It’s not.” Nurse Cromwell was also an avid reader. “Look. You’re a prize specimen, and you don’t have anything to lose.”
“Ya never know.”
Nurse Cromwell pointed to his bandaged arm. “Blood is the last thing a rich man will sell.”
Max folded.
Nurse Cromwell took his arm. “I have a friend who . . .” A burst of laughter echoed down the hall! A woman in her early twenties was skipping toward them, waving jubilantly, satiny black hair dancing around her shoulders. She wore a tailored black velvet jacket over an opaque purple body suit, interrupted by a bright yellow velour mini skirt and electric-blue heels.
Nurse Cromwell rolled a what-do-ya-think look at Max. “My friend.”
The friend tossed an arm around Nurse Cromwell, two air-kisses, then turned to Max and drank him in — every last drop. “Ohhhh,” she purred. “Just as you said, Elz. Good lookin’ out.”
Max had never seen such a pretty woman. Miss Camille was pretty and smart and all, but this creature was something else. She put one hand on his shoulder, the other on his chest, then slid them both down his arm and took his hand. She studied it, weighed it, smiled approvingly, and shook it with both of hers.
“I’m Priyanka,” she said, mouth delicately agape. “What a find.”
Max started to speak, but couldn’t. She was so perky and fresh he thought he heard her giggle, but realized it was him.
“Max,” said Priyanka, as if she already knew him. “We have to talk.”
He gave her his undivided attention. She was dark and smooth and sweet as a chin-dripping mango. Her hair was the blackest thing he’d ever seen and flowed like liquid silk. Her features were strong, symmetrical, and perfectly proportioned. Dark amber eyes sparkled at him as she ran a delicate finger across her forehead to toss an unruly tress snared in her perfectly arched eyebrows.
“Uh huh,” he said dreamily.
“What brings you to town, Max?”
“Some trouble back in Lily.”
“Lily?”
“That’s where I’m from. A woman got shot. We brought her here.”
Priyanka’s smile got even brighter. “And! He’s a hero.”
“No. No. No. I’m here with Trooper MacIan and Otis. Some guys shot Gina. My old teacher. They were looking for . . .”
The blood bank door banged open and out trod Trooper MacIan holding the entire blood-bag rig in his outstretched hand like Frankenstein. “What the hell?”
Priyanka gasped. “A duet?!”
MacIan fired a scathing look at Nurse Cromwell. “You!”
She nearly fainted.
“Get me out of this. You crazy? Or what?”
Nurse Cromwell undid MacIan and pretended to be contrite. Hooking Priyanka up with prize specimens was a very lucrative side-job she intended to keep.
“There’s another man inside. You idiot!”
Priyanka watched Nurse Cromwell leave, hoping she’d take MacIan’s anger with her. “Let’s not make too big a project out of this, boys,” she said. “I have a simple equation for you both. It’s all arithmetic. They put numbers on the money for a reason.”
MacIan hadn’t seen a woman this colorful in a long time. A one in a million beauty. “Not interested,” he barked.
Rejection rolled right off Priyanka. “I represent a thousand discreet and highly desirable women, here and in all the walled cities; New York, Galveston, Key West, Portland, all the places you’d think. These women can afford to pay for the best men that we can . . . find.”
Max was shocked and intrigued.
“The finder’s fee?” said MacIan.
“Paid by the buyer, of course. Bank rules.” She patted her palms on Max’s chest. “My clients will pay handsomely for a night’s pleasure, and a perfectly timed donation. You are the perfect donor, Max. It’s big bucks for . . . big bucks. Convert it to any currency you like. On us.”
Max started wondering just how far this might go.
“And you,” she turned to MacIan, “a large and lumbering, bad-boy-boy-scout, you could make booo-kooo dollar— just to make ’em holler.”
MacIan looked a little cheated. “No donation?”
/>
Priyanka morphed into an angel of sympathy. “You are a gorgeous beast, but no doubt a veteran.”
“And?”
“How long were you over there?”
“Longer than I’d hoped.”
“An oft-told tale. Sadly. But! Exposure to plutonium-tipped ordnance, biological agents, high stress, bad food and who knows what recreational damage you’ve done to yourself. High potential for birth defects. Tantrums. PTSD, HIV. Too many acronyms. And as you know, there are way too many veterans. Your brand is in surplus.”
MacIan was sad to see his currency had nosedived.
“But you, Max. You’re flawless. I can get forty, maybe fifty thousand dollars for your . . . seed. Men like you are rare.”
MacIan chuckled. Max had already eclipsed him. “What do you think, Max?”
Priyanka’s eyes grew pouty. “You’ve got to take advantage of your — advantages.”
“Do you intend to take advantage of me?” asked Max.
“I hope so,” she quipped. “Just think of these poor women. A viable man is so rare, and the lizard-dicks know it, the scaly fucknards. But you. Rugged. Powerful. Attractive in every way. One night’s pleasure. Maybe . . .”
Down the hall, the double doors crashed open and three men rushed toward them, one carrying the blood-soaked tugboat pilot over his shoulder. A wave of blue scrubs swarmed them with a gurney. A stocky man with Jesus hair and a horrible skin condition dumped the pilot onto it. “He beached his tug down the street and crawled halfway up here,” he said.
A nurse probed and prodded, then said calmly, “Bleeding badly — no internal damage. He’ll be OK. Friend of yours, Jon?” The pilot tossed about on the gurney, glad to hear he was not going to die. The nurse spread the pilot’s eyelids, flashed a light. “Who did this to you?”
The woozy pilot moaned, “They blew him up. That poor kid. They blew his ass to pieces.”
The burly man leaned close, and said in a rumbling voice, “Who blew him up?”
The pilot, covered in blood-tipped spikes like a glass porcupine, sat bolt upright. “Them black-hearted Irish bastards!”
22
Boyne’s transporter crossed a big yellow bridge over tiny Point State Park and onto Pittsburgh’s North Shore. At the checkpoint, they were warmly attended by a Black Heart patrol. One of them flashed the Driver his new tattoo: a black heart woven through a Celtic Harp, intertwined with a banner emblazoned with their motto, in proper Irish: Pouge ma honen. They had taken up the slogan in hopeful solidarity with everyone who rejoiced in the notion of their betters kissing their asses. The Driver took the ramp down to the Allegheny River, directly across from The Point, to a cluster of apartments called The Lady Name Towers. They sat right along the waterfront, near the ruins of Three Rivers Stadium.
Boyne studied a printed profile of their second Tuke associate in a blurry group photo. He examined each face. “Let’s head over to Tower Beulah.”
“Thought she lived in Gwendolyn?” said the Driver.
“She does. But why ruin such a sporting night? We’ll make a game of this. In honor of the Bloviator.”
The Driver concurred. “We’ll gamify it, Captain. Like he said.”
Number Two considered himself a marksman and therefore the most sporting of the bunch. “The regular, Captain?”
“Of course, that’s what makes it the regular,” said Boyne, reining back his contempt for Number Two. “But here’s the thrust of it, boys. We’re here to flush out this Tuke mentaller by scaring the shite out of his friends. A grand spectacle is called for. That’s our goal, and the goal defines the game, thank you Mr. Bloviator. A message to his tribe. Sooo! We’ll suspend the usual subtleties, in favor of a little stagecraft.”
They parked in the Security Only space in front of Tower Beulah, got out and stretched. The deeply unpopular Number Two clung to Boyne. “You did say ‘regular,’ Captain?”
Boyne nodded, but Number Two was festering like a boil. “Same as always.”
“Then it’s my call, according to the rules, and it’s the Barrett 50.” Number Two lingered with a butcher’s dog smile that grated on everyone.
“Classic,” said Boyne.
Number Two nudged the Driver in the direction of the gun locker under the seats. They pulled two long cases out and assembled a matching pair of Barrett 50mm sniper rifles. They were over sixty years old, but still perfectly accurate up to two miles.
At Tower Beulah’s tidy entrance, they were met by a gleeful Black Heart doorman, who swept from his head a top hat with a polished, black leather brim. Boyne handed him a two-liter soda bottle filled with bootleg Irish whiskey, made in New Jersey. Very hard to come by. The doorman smiled adoringly at the hand-painted label featuring a plump, yellow beehive. But! Upon closer inspection, he saw the swarm of bees, which an even closer look showed to be tiny black hearts. This cuvée was impossible to get. He gasped.
Boyne took the doorman by the shoulders, and with a stern face, said in regal Irish, “Agus na damnaithe fágtha gan focal.” (And the condemned left speechless.)
The doorman put his hands over his heart and gave the teary eyed countersign. “Glaoigh ormsa i measc na naomh.” (Call on them amongst the saints.)
They took the service elevator to the roof, set up the two Barrett 50s and pointed them over the parking lot toward Tower Gwendolyn, about two hundred feet away.
Boyne called them to order. “Whose turn is it to take on the reigning champ? Number Two.”
The only nice one, Number Four, spoke up, “It’s me, by da rules. But I don’t have da pelf.”
The Driver erupted, “I’ll go yer tariff, mate,” and peeled five one-hundred-dollar bills off a large roll. “Put that can-o-piss in his place.”
The smarmy Number Two accepted the challenge by licking his little finger and stroking his wispy right eyebrow.
Number Two and Number Four each took a position behind a Barrett mounted on a heavy tripod. The rest lined up at the edge of the roof and waited for Boyne to start the contest. Everyone was rooting for Number Four.
The shooters squinted into their telescopic sites, tilting up and down and panning side to side across Tower Gwendolyn. There were at least two hundred windows, all dark. The sun was threatening to come up, so Boyne spoke quickly. “Ready?”
They both nodded.
Boyne whipped out a cell phone, put it on speaker, and dialed — ringgg, ringgg. Number Four held his aim steady on the middle of Tower Gwendolyn, ready to zero in on any changes. But the loathsome Number Two was scanning the rooftop for a certain plumbing configuration.
Ringgg, ringgg. A sleepy woman answered, “Hello?”
The troop put their hands over their ears and peered at Tower Gwendolyn. No lights came on.
“Hello? Who is this?”
No new lights.
“Mrs. Klevens? It’s building security.”
“What’s wrong?”
“It seems someone has stolen your car from the lot.”
A brief silence, then angrily, “I don’t have a car.”
“Sorry, luv. Then it’s not you.”
“Asshole!” She slammed the phone down.
Sad little Number Four panicked and started swish-panning all over Tower Gwendolyn, but it was all just a telescopic blur.
Number Two, cool as a cucumber and twice as dickish, tilted slowly down from the toilet air vent stacks, then slowly back up a few floors, then down a few, always in line with the toilet vent stacks, and sure enough a light came on in a small window, on the twentieth floor. A bathroom window.
Boyne frowned; this was a done deal.
Number Two let loose a barrage of 50mm death. At this distance, the kinetic energy in these rounds pierced the brick and tore the bathroom to shreds. In a few seconds there was little left of the Klevens’ bathroom, which was now painted in blood and bone.
The Driver wagged a finger at Number Two, and scoffed, “Luck! Plain and simple. Just luck.”
The stench of vict
ory pushed Number Two very close to the fatal mistake of insulting the Driver. “Luck? Bollocks!” Number Two leapt onto the parapet and shouted at his fellows, as they all prayed he’d fall. “I owe this victory to inevitability. Not luck, but the inevitability of a good healthy piss, in the middle of the night. If you’re not old enough to know ’bout that, I’m sure the Driver can fill ya in.”
The Driver balled up a wad of cash and bounced it off of Number Two’s chest. “Listen to me, douche-nozzle Number Two. If I have an opportunity to do you no good . . . ohaaaw! You’ll be pissin’ blood for a month.”
As the boys packed up, Boyne whipped out his cell phone and logged into a deep-cover, heavily encrypted messenger app set up specifically for Representative Murthy. He typed: Klevens – X. He waited for a reply, but none came.
All the transporter’s doors slammed, Boyne settled into his command center, and off they went into the night. A notification beep called Boyne's attention to his main computer monitor. How odd. He looked at his cell phone, but it was still blank. The computer monitor came on, acid green, displaying a text message receipt for his last phone message. He checked his phone again, still nothing. How odd, he thought, staring at the message: Klevens – K.
23
Representative Murthy strolled down a long vacant hallway covered in a worn industrial carpet toward Representative Thomka’s sprawling office. The space intended for thousands was now populated by a mere handful and evoked a sense of well-being, which tempered the unrelenting stress of working at a company hemorrhaging money. And this morning the staff, all nicely dressed women possessed of natural but doddering beauty, seemed to be holding a riot in Thomka’s office. Their outrage involved stolen mobiles — the industry term for any kind of computer not nailed to a desk.
Thomka looked to Murthy for a rescue. Murthy said with some surprise, “Whoa. Ah, hey?”
All the rancor in the room shifted to Murthy.
The slender woman standing right in front of Murthy barked, before the rest closed in, “There’s no way all of those robberies were random.”
The most senior woman nudged her aside. “Twenty-eight thousand mobiles, latest models in every size and configuration disappeared — this month! Last month, thirty-one thousand. Same thing.”
