John Ridley_Those Who Walk in Darkness 02

by What Fire Cannot Burn

  Watching Soledad limp away, Eddi got an ill feeling. Her insides real quick got morbid and unwell. Eddi’d never seen Soledad so busted up. Wasn’t just that she was watching Soledad cane away with an odd rocking gait that was same as Vegas neon announcing Soledad was jacked. Wasn’t just that Soledad’d been injured at all. Plenty of times Soledad had gotten the bad end of things. Less, maybe, than some MTacs, but enough so that the image wasn’t alien to Eddi.

  Soledad was busted in another way. She’d been always to Eddi a single-minded MTac out kicking ass. She was still emotionally myopic, was still putting her foot to tailbones. But she wasn’t an MTac and didn’t seem to be one in the most severe way possible. In a change-a-day world, Soledad had been a constant. The extreme variations between life and death Eddi was pretty sure she could handle. But in the day-to-day, aside from being extant or extinct, it was nice that some things always remained. Lucy was always going to screw things up, Ricky was always going to forgive her. Politicians were always going to set aside the public trust for cash or whores. Soledad was always going to be an MTac.

  Or not.

  And what really made Eddi’s ill feeling putrid, it wasn’t going a few rounds with a mutie that changed things. It was not looking both ways when Soledad ran across a street.

  It was extreme chance. It was real bad luck. It was not much of anything that changed everything.

  Eddi was ready for major life changes. Eddi’d been through the sudden loss that robs survivors of good-byes, makes closure a quaint notion. That kind of shit makes every other unchanging thing a minor miracle.

  Soledad limping away was one less miracle in Eddi’s life.

  Thursday was off for Soledad. She got up late thanks to the little white pill she took to help induce the sleep that otherwise rarely came to her. She went swimming. Worked out her bum leg. Hurt like hell. But she wasn’t about to let herself go to waste. Laundry. She gave thought to going to a movie but couldn’t find one she figured she could sit through without later regretting the two hours of her life, the nine dollars of her hard-earned she’d tossed away. She gave thought to calling Vin. Couldn’t particularly think of anything to say to him different or new or somehow meaningful that wasn’t covered in their last pseudo-conversation three or four days prior. She did send off an elongated e-mail to her mother. Soledad had plenty to say to her mother. A dark part of Soledad wondered if her mother was even really sick, or had just tumbled onto a grotesque way to build a relationship with her daughter. Errands were run and Soledad ate and watched the news. She eked out a few more pages of the Mailer book she’d spent closing in on a year and half “reading.” She fucked around on the Internet for a while.

  Eight months after his seventy-third birthday a guy fell in love for the first time all over again. A mother was told her child would not live to see the morning. An NBA hoops star who hadn’t started let alone finished college, but still managed to pull in more than twenty mill a year, was refusing to take no for an answer from some girl he’d known all of three and a third hours. A guy who’d never wanted kids was taking his sons to the amusement park for the third time this year thanking God for them every step of the way as, ironically, they were the only things that gave his life meaning.

  All this was happening across town, somewhere across the country. Somewhere beyond Soledad. Physically beyond her. Emotionally. In her time and space it was the most ordinary of days that passed utterly without significance. The kind of day, in another forty-eight hours, there would be little of it she would be able to recall with distinction if at all. With absolutely nothing else to do, having wrung herself empty of every approximation of purpose, she lay in bed and let sleep come.

  Sleep ignored the invitation.

  Soledad debated taking a little white pill. Wasn’t worried about getting hooked. She was worried only that when she ran out, more would be hard to come by as more required a prescription she didn’t have. And taking the pills built up a resistance. As it was, beyond just the sleep they gave her, Soledad dug the knockout that came with the drugs. Made her think that death . . . yeah, it had to be respected, but there was no reason to fear it.

  That quick, that easy, Soledad was thinking about death again.

  Getting her mind off that, she settled on skipping the pill. Better to go a few sleepless nights than have them lose their sweet, sweet effect.

  Soledad lay in bed. Ignored the urge to check and check and recheck the clock. Over a few hours maybe she slept a little, but probably she didn’t. The phone rang. It was late. Or really early. Either way Soledad knew she wasn’t going to care for what was waiting on the other end of the line.

  “It’s Raddatz.”

  “Hey.”

  “What kind of shape are you in?”

  “Tired. I can function if I have to.”

  “What I talked about before: the end of fear. Do you want to be part of that? Is that something you want to be part of?”

  “Well, I don’t know what it is. I can’t say I want to be part of something when I don’t know what it is.”

  “It’s the right thing, Soledad.” He was being oblique. “You’ve got to know, inside you, the truth is you want to do what’s right.”

  She lay in the dark. Not a word. Not a sound. The day had come so close to being insignificant. Now it was on its way to being monumental. An invite from a rogue cop to be part of “what’s right.”

  “Soledad . . . ?”

  “It’s a bullshit question. Yeah, I want to do what’s right.”

  “I’m going to come around. Be ready. And, Soledad . . .”

  “Yeah?”

  “Have your piece ready too.”

  Not that Soledad had ever put much thought to such things, but in passing she never figured a clandestine meeting regarding murder—murders that had occurred, murders that might—would take place in a Jamba Juice.

  That’s where she was with Raddatz, with Panama, with Donatell, with Shen. All of them with their scars and missing digits. And Shen with his . . . his head. It was where a head goes on a regular body. Right up there on top of the neck. That’s where its similarity to normality ended. Shen’s was all stoved in on the sides. Pushed in at the front. Features violently asymmetrical. At some point something had crushed it severely. And all the king’s horses and all the king’s men . . . The kid clerking the counter unable to keep eye contact with Shen while he took Shen’s order for a Mango-a-Go-Go. Donatell had been right about Shen. Shen did make him look good. Sitting around as they were, they looked like busted war vets come out to drink smoothies, reminisce and try and convince each other the sacrifice they’d made in some desert or jungle or European city thousands of miles away’d been worthwhile.

  Except for Soledad. In the company she kept, the burns on her neck made Soledad look like a security guard who’d gotten scratched breaking up teens scuffling at the mall.

  Somber. The group was somber as they took a minute to put down their blends of fruit and ice and nonfat yogurt, and it would have been hi-F’n-larious to Soledad—grown men, boozers all probably, drinking their girlie drinks—except their avoidance of liquor and caffeine signified they were keeping clean for work. And not a one of them was at the minute on the city’s clock. The work that was coming was extracurricular.

  A little bit of bullshit was slung back and forth. Home talk. Cursory personal matters. There was subtext to it. Reminders to all: There’s something I’ve got to go home to; a family, a life. Somebody. Something. So when we hit it, I got your back. Make sure you got mine.

  From an envelope Raddatz slipped a photo. Surveillance photo. Black-and-white and very, very grainy. Very snowy. The camera that took it was apparently shit. In relation to the doorway he was passing through, the subject was a man of average size, though his weight appeared above median compared to his height. Vague as that was, it was also as detailed a description to be gotten from viewing the photo. Wearing a sweat suit, a hoodie with the hood pulled up over his head, all the more to
be said was that he (or she; it was impossible to be absolutely certain of the subject’s gender) resembled those FBI sketches of the Unibomber, and those FBI sketches of the Unibomber never quite resembled anybody, which is why the FBI caught the Unibomber only after the Unibomber’s brother ratted him out.

  The photo got passed and passed and passed. Everybody took a look. Nobody said a thing.

  Except Soledad.

  Soledad said: “Who’s this?”

  “It’s the guy,” Raddatz answered, “we’re looking for.”

  “Didn’t know we were looking for a guy.”

  Shen hit the bottom of his cup, slurped up the last of his drink.

  Soledad said again: “I didn’t know we were—”

  “He’s a person of extreme interest.”

  “That says a whole lot. How do we find Mr. Interest? If this is all we’ve got to go on . . .” Soledad flicked the picture over the table back to Raddatz.

  “Run a watch.” Panama made it sound like Soledad’s lack of savvy was tightening up the muscle around his neck and head, causing him pain.

  “We’re going to watch over the whole city? The five of us?”

  Donatell: “We know where to look.”

  “How do we know where to look, ’cause I don’t know shit except for what you’re telling me.”

  “You gonna give her everything?” Shen asked of Raddatz.

  Raddatz kept quiet.

  “Good intel. That’s what DMI’s all about.” Panama gave DMI one-oh-one. “You get good intel, you get your freak.”

  She wasn’t trying to be contrary. For the sake of her true objective, Soledad was trying to front acceptance of the offered vagaries. She nodded a little. But the reality she wasn’t buying what was being passed off didn’t need articulation, was obvious beyond words.

  “I think what we wanted was to give you a taste of how DMI works.” Panama was coming across, was trying to come across soft. Not one time before had he been anything less than tough with Soledad. Every word he was saying now: bullshit. “This is just us processing a tip.” He didn’t trust her. He was trying to shove her off.

  “Middle of the night in a smoothie store is where you all process your info.” She made it all sound stupid, wanted Panama to know how stupid he sounded. “If I’m in or I’m out, that’s up to you. But if I’m out, don’t call me up and drag me around way after dark anymore.”

  As he got up from the table, Raddatz to Soledad: “You ride with me.”

  So here was Soledad in a car parked off a street in Westlake. Waiting. Watching, supposedly. But she knew she was on the hunt. No matter the convolutions Raddatz was taking her through, she knew that she and the cadre were on the edge of a badness. At the low end was acting without authority. The far end was targeting a metanormal for execution.

  Simply, murder.

  To Raddatz: “This guy we’re watching, is he a freak or is he a freak fucker?”

  Raddatz said nothing.

  To Raddatz: “If this is a freak, if you’re thinking about doing more than just watching him, we need to call in MTac.”

  Raddatz kept looking straight ahead. Right out the windshield. His gaze went down the block, over the horizon. It was that distant.

  “If you’ve got solid intel, it needs to get passed to—”

  “We’re getting a little more.”

  “It takes the five of us to eyeball a freak? They only send four MTacs when it’s time to take one out.”

  “I’m taking a chance bringing you along.”

  There were a lot of ways to take that. Best, Soledad thought, not to take it any one way in particular. No assumptions. Let Raddatz explain himself. Let him help her figure what to do.

  “You’re good-cop, Soledad. From what I know, as a cop, there’s not one thing wrong with you. You remind me of me.”

  “You complimenting me or you?”

  “If it’s a compliment, it’s backhanded. When I imply I was a good cop, I was the kind who didn’t ask questions. I believe . . . I believed in the job—”

  Believe. Believed. The tense shift stuck out to Soledad.

  “I believed, and I followed orders. I didn’t question things. I could be trusted to do right.”

  “That’s what good cops do.” Soledad slouched against her door. Kept up the outward appearance of being relaxed. She eased, very much eased, a hand for her piece. For whatever was coming she’d feel better gripping it.

  Raddatz: “It’s also what your average Nazi did: act without consideration. Just follow orders.”

  “That’s not a backhanded compliment. That’s backfisted.”

  “As much against me as you. But same as me, I think you can change.”

  “Change to what? The opposite of good cop is bad.” Her fingers brushed the butt of the O’Dwyer.

  “Being a better one.”

  “What’s better than doing right?”

  “Keeping from doing wrong.”

  “Jesus Christ, it’s like talking to a fortune cookie.”

  “Leave your gun.”

  Soledad quietly gave props to Raddatz’s good eyes. His hand was resting on the steering wheel. His hook was in his lap. Unless he started swinging it, he wasn’t a threat.

  Soledad, getting a strong grip on her O’Dwyer: “It’s too late for that.”

  “Never too late.” Raddatz, looking to Soledad: “You’ve got a reputation for being cold and hard. More so than most of the MTacs.”

  Soledad didn’t take that badly. It was fact, one she’d gotten comfortable with a long time ago. She got a comfortable grip on her gun too. It was carrying her green-tipped load. Slugs gel-capped with contact poison. Soledad wondered, if she had to take the shot, would it put Raddatz down before he got off one in return? In close quarters what were the odds Soledad would get back-splashed by her own poison? Right then she kinda wished for a regular gun. Didn’t have to be big. Just deadly in a conventional fashion. While she was thinking that, Soledad checked her back side. Made sure none of the cadre were creeping on her.

  “But only once,” Raddatz went on, “have I seen you quick to anger. When I threatened Hall’s wife to keep her son from her.”

  Before she could even process the thought an answer fell out of her: “A kid needs his mother.”

  “So you see.”

  “See what? I throw somebody a break, you think I can’t do what’s—”

  “You see the gray.”

  Soledad flicked her free hand like she was deflecting a useless thought.

  She said: “The law, justice, doing the job; there’s gray all over those. If this is supposed to be an academy primer, it’s years too late.”

  “You believe in a better world? Hell, you know you do. You want a better world, it starts now. Tonight.”

  An invitation. An open invitation. With her hand on her gun, knowing she was ready to kill him anyway, Raddatz was still offering her to join the cadre.

  If just in theory she took the offer, if she jettisoned her expressed obligation to Tashjian and threw her allegiance to the cadre, what she did this night wouldn’t be her first kill. Not hardly. But it’d be her first without sanction. Without the letter of the law backing her. And that, that “little” thing—the law—made the difference. Maybe not ultimately a true moral difference. That’s what cable TV shoutfests were for: pundits to go back and forth on right and wrong before the moderator got in the last word after the final commercial break. But the law gave Soledad and every other cop justification. And justification, under the circumstances, after San Francisco, allowed her to execute her obligation: protect normal humans.

  It allowed her to protect normal humans and still sleep the sleep of the innocent. On the occasions she slept at all.

  This night she couldn’t let things go to murder and feel the same way. Clean.

  Could she?

  Unbelievable. The situation had advanced to the brink, and still Soledad was conflicted. She would have complicity, or she would be duplicitous. On
e or the other. And only just then could she even vaguely pick which.

  “I don’t believe in vigilantism.” Fuck being a rat. She’d pick Tashjian’s side, but she wasn’t going to be surreptitious. “Being a better person means we’re not like them. We follow the law. We don’t make our own rules. We’re not gods. We don’t hand out life and death whenever we please.”

  “You’re with us more than you know. I’ve got a high regard for life and death,” Raddatz said. “The power to take it is awesome. The power to preserve it is humbling. And the ability to know which to apply scares the hell out of me. If I could explain this in a word . . . I need you here.”

  “That’s a strong way to put things.”

  “I need your skills, but if you don’t want to use them, I need to know where you are. I can’t take a chance.”

  “Not when you’re going to do some coloring outside the lines. How about we do this: How about we start up the car, head back to DMI?”

  “I can’t.”

  “I hate them as much as you, as much as a person can. But all this does—”

  A laugh from Raddatz. Snide.

  Soledad rode over it. “All this does is give the power back to the freaks.”

  “It’s not about power, except the power to do what’s right. And I honestly believe in the crucial moment you’ll do what’s right. I believe, I have to, you can’t do otherwise. But I need your trust. I need—”

  A little electronic chirp. It was muffled under the fabric of Soledad’s coat, but she and Raddatz both heard it. It was audible confirmation from Soledad’s gun the safety had been flicked off.

  There was her trust.

  She said: “I’m telling you one last time: Start the car and—”

  Raddatz’s radio came up weakly, barely able to read Shen’s call.

  “. . . spotted . . . pretty sure . . .”

  “Shen!” Raddatz did a one-handed fumble with the radio, adjusted dials, tried to squeeze life from it. The movements so quick Soledad nearly pulled out and took the shot. “Shen, you’re coming in weak. Repeat.”