by John Shirley
Wolfe shuddered. He’d met Blank once before in a homeless encampment after asking people on the street how to find Pearce. But he hadn’t gotten a good look at Blank there, in all the smoke from the campfires and the uneven glow from the flickering flame light. Blank had listened to Wolfe’s enquiries, and approached him, claiming he could take a message to Pearce, for a price.
Wolfe had taken a chance—and Blank had come through. Was Blank the one who’d betrayed Pearce to the hitman that day? It seemed unlikely. Pearce seemed to trust Blank implicitly.
“Keep quiet a li’l minute here,” came Blank’s gurgling voice, as a group of young black men in black and orange hoodies coats went striding by.
Wolfe nodded and looked Blank over.
Blank wore a grubby overcoat that might have been black—or might have turned black; its lower hem was frayed almost like the fringe on a leather jacket; two of its large black buttons were missing. A wide brimmed, dented slouch hat angled almost rakishly on Blank’s head, half hiding one eye—instead of a hat band, the hat had a battery powered electric light strapped on it, a surprisingly powerful light, now switched off. Blank’s brown eyes were all that remained intact of his face—the rest of it had been burned away. Pink scar tissue from the old burns overlapped like bandages of raw flesh across his cheeks. His mouth had been burned lipless, and his snaggled, blackened teeth were perpetually visible. His nose was mostly burned away; one of his eyelids was just a parchment-like scrap of skin; his eyebrows were just a memory. His face looked, to Wolfe, like a face in a drawing that had been mostly erased by a hurried artist. There was no clear cut face there. That was one reason he was called Blank.
There was another reason, Wolfe knew. Blank lived off the grid, even when he walked around within the grid.
Many homeless people actually had cell phones. Cheap phones were given to them by family, or social services. They often used free computers in a library, or borrowed a friend’s laptop. Some homeless were ex-I.T. workers who’d been laid off one too many times, and still had a lot of tech when they could get it powered up.
But not Blank. Not only did he have no cell phone, he didn’t even have an electric watch, or a portable radio. He had no driver’s license, no state I.D., no social services I.D. No identification card at all. He had no wallet, and it was said he had no tattoos—or none that hadn’t been burned away. His fingers had been as badly burned as his face...so he had no fingerprints.
Facial recognition wouldn’t work on a man without a face. And he never told anyone his real name. People on the street knew him only by the moniker “Blank”.
Blank was blank.
“Wolfe...” Blank’s voice was a gurgling growl—his voice, too, was blank, without its original character, because his vocal chords had been burned by hot smoke in the nameless fire that had burned him so badly. Rumor had it that years ago, when he was first homeless, Blank had been sleeping in a crack house, and someone careless with his dope lighter had set the place on fire. Most people in the house had burned; Blank had gotten out...or part of him had.
But that story was just a rumor. Blank’s past was blank, too.
Wolfe could see why the scarred derelict was useful to Aiden Pearce. It was hard to trace Blank—which made him the perfect “bagman” and streetside go-between.
“They’re gone,” Blank said, turning toward the street.
Wolfe saw, then, that Blank’s left ear was missing. There was just a hole in the side of his head.
“Who was that?” Wolfe asked.
“Gangbangers. Viceroys.”
“You got a message for me?”
“Maybe. I’m just lookin’ in on you for Pearce.”
“He can look in on me anytime he wants, what I’ve seen.”
“You ain’t using the camera scrambler?”
“I am, yeah.”
“So he needs me to check on you while you’re out, at least in some places. ‘Nother thing, he just decided: you get the tool for sure. I’ll be telling you where to find it tomorrow. Meet me at noon....”
“Noon tomorrow. Okay. Where?”
“The camp where we first met.”
“That where you stay?”
Blank took off his hat for just a moment to wipe the top of his head with his hand...and Wolfe saw that most of the tramp’s hair had been burned away in that long ago conflagration. Only a few tufts of gray hair stuck out, in random spots.
Blank put his hat back on and said, “I don’t stay any place longer’n six or seven hours at most. Mostly not longer’n six or seven minutes. Got to keep moving! Not much use to anybody if I don’t keep moving.”
“Okay. The homeless camp under that same overpass, right? At noon. So—you have no cell phone...how does Pearce get in touch with you?”
“He has his ways. Puts messages up for me somewhere. They come and go quick and only I know what they mean. Uses what he calls ‘a drop’ too.”
“I know what that is.”
“Tomorrow at noon, Wolfe. Careful going back to that safehouse he’s got you in. Watch your back on the way there. And before you leave here, press the scrambler again for the cameras. The effect probably done wore off.”
Then he switched on the hat light, and went out of the alley...and Wolfe knew that the hat’s glare blurred his image when he walked under the cameras. His face was “faceless”—but a scarred face is recognizable too. The glare made him just a blur from the neck up, so they couldn’t even see his hat.
Wolfe waited a couple of minutes, then went out onto the sidewalk. There was no sign of Blank out there now. He was gone.
#
Wolfe had almost reached the partly pushed-over fence around the projects building when he realized that someone was following him.
He turned, and saw several black men in hoodies and sagging pants walking stolidly his way, their eyes locked on him.
Wolfe stepped onto the overturned fence, clambered over it, and hurried between the old, thickly tag-marked high rises. He went as fast as he could without running. Running would show fear, instead of respect. Showing fear was dangerous out here.
On the wall to his left was a big crown-shape, a cartoon of a king’s crown, stenciled in day-glo orange. Black Viceroys. No one had dared put their tags over that symbol.
He stepped over debris, boots crackling on broken glass, and strode quickly around a corner of the building to the left, and the now-doorless entrance of the high rise. Straight ahead through the door was a rubble-strewn corridor; to the right was the concrete and metal stairs he was going to take up to the seventh floor.
At least, he’d have done that if three more gangbangers hadn’t blocked his way.
They stepped out of the stairs, two of them carrying crowbars in their hands. The third one, the tall one in the middle with his hair dyed orange, had a 9 mm pistol in his waistband. Day-glo orange shoelaces were woven into his signature sneakers, and orange trim on his black vinyl windbreaker.
“Where you think you’re going?” the Black Viceroy asked. And the Viceroy put his hand on the butt of his 9 mm semi-automatic.
CHAPTER SIX
The tall one in the middle was their leader, Wolfe figured. He was the Black Viceroy here who had had the requisite nimbus of authority. And he had a little more maturity—he looked to be in his mid to late thirties.
Wolfe looked him in the eye and said, “I’ve got a gun, too. We don’t want to use those. Somebody probably get shot. Might be me.”
The tall one almost smiled. “Let me see the gun. Show it real slow.”
Wolfe, real slow, unbuttoned his coat, opened it, to show the .38 stuck in his belt.
“That a lot smaller gun than yours, Shuggie,” said the Viceroy on Shuggie’s left.
Shuggie grinned, showing a gold grill. “Yeah. I got a niner. He got a snub nose.”
“At this range, a .38 will do the job really well,” Wolfe said, keeping his voice calm and even.
“Don’t even think about it, man,” Sh
uggie said. “You better look behind you.”
Wolfe glanced over his shoulder. The three Black Viceroys who’d been following him earlier were there, a few steps away. One of them lifted up his sweatshirt to show his own 9 mm pistol.
Wolfe looked back at Shuggie and nodded. “You could rob me, but I got only twenty dollars on me. No credit cards. Boots aren’t worth much. I haven’t been out of prison all that long so...I’m still kinda broke.”
“What you got in that backpack?” Shuggie asked.
“An external hard drive.”
“And where you taking that?”
“Home. Just cutting through the old projects. Heading about ten blocks up. Ducked in here ‘cause I don’t like people following me.”
“You lying,” said Shuggie, his gaze steady and his voice flat. “You were going into this building and you was doing it for a reason. We saw you come out. What’s up in that old building?”
This wasn’t good. They were going to clean out the safehouse if he didn’t stop them.
“Okay,” Wolfe said. He shrugged. “Crappy little room, pirated electricity, old used PC.”
“What kinda PC?”
“Dell.”
“Piece of crap. But we got to look the place over. And we got to kick your ass for good measure. And if you don’t like it, we paint the walls with your brains.”
“Place isn’t worth walking up all those floors to look at,” Wolfe said, meeting Shuggie’s eyes. “Just a squat.”
“We got to look at it,” said the Viceroy on Shuggie’s right. “See what’s there. This is Viceroy’s territory. Everything here belong to us.”
Wolfe shook his head. There were secrets up there. He owed Pearce. He had to cover for him. “Nope. You got to kill me. You can do that. But...be boring.”
Shuggie looked at him with his eyebrows raised. “Boring?”
“Sure. A fight’s more interesting. Two of your guys. You let me pass if I take them down.”
Shuggie snorted. “Two?”
“Three if you want. Unarmed. No guns. No knives. I don’t have any blades on me...”
Shuggie laughed. “Motherfucker’s out of his mind.”
“I take him down my own self,” said the one on Shuggie’s left.
“When I tell you, Renfo,” Shuggie said. He turned to the one on his right. “Lordy?”
“Lord Washington always do it,” the man said. One of those “talk about himself in the third person” guys, Wolfe figured.
“I can do both at once,” Wolfe said, putting his backpack on the ground, out of the way. “But...” He buttoned up his coat. “No guns.”
“Then give your gun here,” Renfo said, sticking out his hand demandingly.
Wolfe shook his head. “Shuggie can cover me with his niner. But I’m not giving up my gun.”
“Never mind that shit,” Shuggie said. “He wants two, give ‘em two. Go on then, Renfo, since you gotta open your yap about it.”
Without wasting another split second, Renfo stepped in a little before Lordy and swung a long looping right at Wolfe’s face.
Wolfe ducked his head back, let the blow pass, grabbed Renfo’s arm, twisted—and flipped the Viceroy over his hip so that Renfo fell heavily onto his back.
Lordy sunk a fist into Wolfe’s gut—Wolfe tightened his abdominal muscles, took the punch grunting, but managed to keep his breath from being knocked out of him. Then he set himself and a split second later straight armed Lordy in the chin with the heel of his hand, using a classic martial arts move. As Lordy went over, Wolfe spun and clipped Renfo on the side of the head just as the Viceroy was trying to get back to his feet. Renfo went down again, Wolfe turned, reset his stance and brought a knee up to catch Lordy in the nose as the man tried to straighten up...
“Okay, enough of those dumbjacks,” Shuggie said, stepping in.
Shuggie set himself into a stance almost identical to Wolfe’s, then neatly blocked Wolfe’s left jab. Wolfe danced back, but not without getting a ringing crack against the right side of his head from the chopping edge of Shuggie’s left hand.
Uh-oh.
Wolfe and Shuggie circled one another, then Shuggie flashed his right hand, Wolfe took the bait and raised an arm to block—but it was a feint, and Shuggie stepped in under Wolfe’s block with his other fist, and only a snaking move to the right kept Wolfe from getting knocked off his feet. As it was, he caught a good clip on the edge of his jaw.
Wolfe rocked back from the blow, turned his recoil into a spin, came around in a kick-fighting move. Shuggie seemed ready for that—he grabbed Wolfe’s kicking boot and twisted.
Wolfe went down, rolling, pulling his leg free. The sound of the gathered Viceroys cheering was loud in his ears.
“You’re right,” Shuggie said. “This isn’t as boring as shooting you. But it’s not that much fun either. Too ea—”
He didn’t finish saying “easy” because Wolfe had scissored his legs around Shuggie’s ankles, pulled him off balance.
Wolfe was up in under a second, leaping onto Shuggie.
The two men rolled, struggling for control, each trying to get in a punch.
Shuggie rolled on top, and Wolfe tucked his right knee, managed to flip Shuggie off—but Shuggie, as he went, clutched at Wolfe, got a hold of his shirt at the top of his coat, and Wolfe felt it rip. Buttons went with it, popped off his old Army coat.
Wolfe wrenched free, rolled, got to his feet. He prepared to make a move...
Wolfe’s coat was partway open, his shirt ripped...
Shuggie was staring at Wolfe’s chest. There was a tattoo there most people didn’t see...
Wolfe used Shuggie’s hesitation to kick at his adversary’s knees. But Shuggie had whip-fast reflexes—and he slipped to one side, twisted his body, grabbed Wolfe’s leg, flipped Wolfe onto his back.
Mick Wolfe lay there gasping, the wind knocked out of him.
The Viceroys were laughing, hooting mockingly.
Shuggie stepped in close, almost standing over Wolfe—then reached down and put his hand out to Wolfe.
The other Viceroys went silent in astonishment.
Wolfe hesitated—then reached up and took Shuggie’s hand.
Shuggie pulled Wolfe to his feet, kept the handclasp for a moment. Then he let go.
Wolfe looked at him, wondering what was up.
Slowly, Shuggie rolled up his right arm. There was a tattoo up there, near the elbow. It was identical to the one on Wolfe’s chest.
The tattoo showed a black bayonet within a red arrowhead shape. It was the symbol of Delta Force: Special Forces Operational Detachment.
“Anybody can have a tattoo,” Shuggie said, rolling his sleeve down. “But you have Delta moves, too. I thought I recognized a couple of those. ‘Course—my moves were better.”
Wolfe nodded, ruefully rubbing his jaw. “Hand to hand wasn’t a specialty of mine.”
“Technical?” Shuggie nodded toward the backpack.
“Yeah. I was in the field for a while.”
“Where?”
“Afghanistan, Mali, Somalia.”
Shuggie looked at him. “What name?”
Wolfe hesitated, then decided he was outnumbered, out fought, and outgunned—so he’d better be honest with this man. “Wolfe. Mick Wolfe.”
Shuggie frowned. “Heard something from a guy just outta North Africa. Something about a Wolfe getting in trouble with General Van Ness.”
“That’d be me.”
“That’s how you ended up in prison?”
“Military prison. Disciplinary barracks.”
Shuggie sniffed, looked at the sky as if he were wondering about the weather. “I had my own run in with Van Ness. One of the reasons I left the Army. Guy’s a shitbag. Once he’s got it in for you...”
“Yeah. I heard he started his command in Iraq. You were under him there?”
“That’s where it was. I was working out of Baghdad almost four years. And Van Ness doesn’t like blacks being in Special Forces
at all.”
“I trusted the motherfucker. Tried to report something...he didn’t want reported.”
Shuggie nodded slowly. “Mick Wolfe. Lot of decorations, I heard? Silver Star?”
Wolfe shrugged. “For what it’s worth.”
“Not worth a penny to most people. But it’s worth something to me anyway.”
“Shuggie,” Renfo said, “this sombitch lost the fight! We get him to open that door upstairs. I heard there’s a place on the seventh floor, hard to get into. Gotta be his.”
“We don’t go up there, today,” Shuggie said.
“Aw, Shuggie, come on! There’s a lot of guys in the Army around, don’t mean—”
Shuggie spun around, his niner suddenly in his hand. He shut Renfo up by shoving the nine millimeter pistol in the Viceroy’s mouth. “Say one more thing like that, I blow your head right up, Renfo. This man ain’t just Army. He’s Delta Force.”
He shoved with the gun and Renfo staggered back, choking.
Lordy cleared his throat and, stepping cautiously back, he said, “Is one thing you ought to know, Shuggie. There’s word out about Mick Wolfe. The Club wants him. They got two hundred grand on his head. He’s the one shot up their casino the other night.”
Shuggie looked at Wolfe with renewed appreciation. “No shit! Two hundred thou!”
Wolfe slowly lifted his right hand, preparing to grab his .38. He doubted he could shoot his way out, but he had to try.
Shuggie shook his head at Wolfe. “You don’t need to go for that gun. I wouldn’t take two hundred thou, or a million damn dollars from those pricks in the Club—not for any fucking reason. Not even as a pretty present tied in a bow.”
Lordy groaned. “Two hundred K is a lot of fucking money, bro.”
Shuggie nodded. “Yeah, kind of. But the Club’s our enemy. So now we got another reason to watch this man’s back. Two reasons now. He’s my friend...and he’s our enemy’s enemy.”
He turned to the five other Viceroys there, and swung a pointing finger to encompass them all. “This man is under my protection! You all got that? My. Fucking. Protection! He is an honorary Viceroy, far as I’m concerned. I owe my life three times to men like this. Anybody don’t like it better see me in person. You spread the word! No motherfucker touches this man—and nobody says shit to the Club about where he is! Or I’ll put your damn stupid heads on spikes!”
