Danny hesitated, bone-tired and half-crazy, and did as he was commanded. Wilde lifted the gun. He smiled at Danny, took a few steps forward, bent down, clutched Danny’s head, and kissed him hard on the forehead. Danny thought he heard himself say “What?” in astonishment before Waters cracked him on the skull, sending him to the ground and unconsciousness.
As his vision faded and his mind tuned out, he heard Wilde speak: “I’m pissed ’cause I told you to get the hell out…but I’m glad you didn’t listen.”
Danny stretched out a hand, but they were beyond his reach. He slumped into oblivion.
Chapter 8
Media circus
“OKAY. Let me go through this again; hard to get things right, you know, with my head like this. The warehouse is owned by a legitimate holding company who’ve let it lie dormant for…how many years?”
Danny nursed a cup of hot tea and nursed his head at the same time, sitting at a scarred table in the station briefing room. He’d often thought of it as a sort of operations room but that wasn’t quite accurate, either. Sure, this was a focus point, a sort of central nervous system for cop intelligence, but all the bulletin boards and whiteboards and files and bustle in the world couldn’t mask one salient fact—this building was not where most of the operating took place. “Operation”: an action, process, activity, effort, undertaking. It all took place out there, Danny believed, on the streets and in people’s houses and wherever else the trail led you. And, of course, it also took place in there: in his head, where his mind was busy working, even now, as the lingering effects of painkillers exerted a torpid drag.
Three of his fingers had been stitched and bandaged, and they still hurt. He was bruised and pissed, and pissed at the bruises. Captain Harte stood at a small window with a grubby frame and said, in a tone of deep resignation, “Many years, Danny. Many, many years.”
“So these guys just walked in there and used it, huh?”
Harte turned to him. “Sure. Do you know how many disused warehouses there are in New York? How quickly you can break into one? How infrequently anyone bothers to check on them? How easily you can find out the owner’s name, the building’s history…”
Danny waved his hand impatiently. “Okay, okay. Point taken. And the voices on those videotapes: you say they’re untraceable?”
“Completely and utterly. They’re ghosts, my young friend.”
“But of course they are. Any luck tracing the van?”
“Uh-uh. Stolen last night, found torched near the Brooklyn Bridge this morning. Ghosts, I told you.”
Danny said wearily, “Fingerprints? Fibers? Nothing?” He paused; a mental click. “The pimp. Can he identify any of them?”
“No, no, and no again. Our sleazy friend is currently lying comatose in a hospital bed, and if these fellows are as careful and well organized as they seem, then no, he won’t be able to tell one from the other, even if he does wake up. What about you? Anything recognizable about their voices, accents? You got pretty up-close to one, right?”
“Nah. They’re using…I don’t know what. Some sort of contraption—worn around the neck, I’d guess—it lowers the voice octave, distorts it somehow. He doesn’t sound the way he sounded last night, if you follow me.”
Harte shifted his considerable bulk to a position directly in Danny’s sight line, and said, “We do have one thing. I don’t know how much help this is gonna be, or even if it makes any sense to you.” He closed his eyes, formulating the words, remembering them. “‘She lies and says she still loves him, can’t find a better man.’” Harte looked at Danny. “Well?”
Danny frowned. “Well what?”
“Does that mean anything to you?”
“James, I’m…” Danny laughed. “I don’t know. What are you talking about? What is that?”
“We found it. In the warehouse, written on Coronado’s shirt—that’s the pimp’s name. Scrawled across it in red lipstick. And we’re damn sure he didn’t write it.”
Danny nodded and said, “Ah. Right. Another message, then.” He sighed. “I don’t… I haven’t a fucking clue what that is, or where it’s from. I’ll run it on the internet later. Might…turn up something, or…” He reached for a pen and scribbled the lines into a notebook, then tore out the page and fixed it into his shirt pocket. “‘She lies and says she loves him, can’t find a better man.’ That it?”
“‘Says she still loves him.’ The rest is right.” Harte steepled his elegant fingers and placed them to his lips, saying, “Alright. So how do things stand? At first we had one isolated incident; now a pattern has obviously been established. These definitely aren’t college students we’re dealing with, am I right?”
Danny nodded in agreement.
“Okay. I’m gonna give you two officers to help with the legwork,” Harte continued. “Norris and Singh; they’re good kids. They can run checks for you, source information, all that. If things don’t start to come into focus within a week or so, we’ll expand the operation further.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Thing is, we’re undermanned at the moment—you know this yourself—and too many other things need looking into. It’s a terrible thing to say but nobody has died here yet, so I can’t justify pulling someone off another case. I can’t spare you the men right now, but I’ll make it happen if we need to. Alright?”
“Sure.”
“So keep on it. But report directly to me, Danny.” Harte tapped his chest a few times for emphasis. “I need full control over this thing. It’s… I’ve seen this sort of thing before. It’s like something out of a goddamn movie. The press loves it, they sell it like it’s the latest blockbuster, and the public just goes off the edge. What do you think?”
Danny took a sip of tea and said, “That’s fine. Could I just suggest, one: interviews with anyone involved in video or film production—they seem to have access to professional equipment.”
Harte nodded.
“And two,” Danny said, “a round-up of anyone—male or female, but leaning more toward male—with a history of radical views on gender, misogyny, homophobia, sexual exploitation, that sort of thing. That’s the one defining feature here, James: they’re not just picking their targets out of thin air. They’re random, but within strictly defined parameters.”
“Go on.”
“Well, think about it: they’ve chosen a bunch of yuppie assholes playing rough with two call-girls, a so-called ‘fag-basher’, and a vicious pimp. I mean, you know about this guy Coronado, this pimp; Christ, you were probably secretly grateful to them for kicking his ass.”
Harte wagged his finger. “Uh-uh. Don’t even go near that one, Danny.”
“Alright, alright. The point is: well, the point is the point. The point they’re making. They’re selectively punishing members of society—men—who they believe are abusive, intolerant, anti-gay, anti-women, and so on and so on. They’re like…they’re like Germaine Greer crossed with Charles fucking Bronson.”
They both laughed. Harte moved to a filing cabinet five feet away and began gathering the papers scattered on top of it. He said, “There’s a disturbing image. Alright, Danny: get on it. Anyone with a history for this type of thinking—online, magazines, college newspapers, activist groups, whatever. But for Christ’s sake, be subtle about it. I don’t want some poor bastard hauled over the coals just because he wears sandals and has read The Female Eunuch, okay?”
Danny mimed the act of note-taking, exaggerated concentration on his face, and said, “Arrest all sandal-wearers carrying copies of Female Eunuch. Gotcha. Should I be extra careful if they’ve got full beards?”
“Always with the kidding around.”
“Sorry, James. I’m just…” He leaned his chair back, let his head drop down, ran a hand over his eyes. “I’m fucking drawing a blank here, you know? I don’t…know enough.”
“Well, what do you know?”
Danny breathed out slowly and returned to a proper sitting position. “I know…that they�
�re dangerous, that they’re young—well, I think they’re young. I don’t know what they want, exactly, but I know they’re ruthless and driven in getting it. And I know—no; I feel—that they’re not killers.”
“Oh, yeah? Mr. Coronado might disagree with you if he doesn’t wake up soon, but…why do you say that?”
“They had me, James. The smaller one—he had me, bang, gun at my temple, good night sweet prince. But all he wanted was the release of his friend. He had me and he let me go.” Danny stood and stretched his back, making slow, lazy movements, swiveling around. “I suppose I’m grateful for that, but I can tell you one thing: I won’t make the same mistake.”
He sat in the briefing room for ten minutes after Harte left, mulling things over, touching his bruises, gathering his strength. And maybe reveling in it a little, he admitted: reveling in the dissatisfaction, the frustration, the nagging sense that events were still taking place somewhere he was not, and he was still just reacting to them, arriving at the heart of things a fraction too late. But misery was okay, Danny thought; unhappiness and irritation and anger, these weren’t the worst things in the world. Negative feelings could drive you on, keep you going.
He stood and darted to the door, and Patrick Broder was there when he opened it. Danny started, thinking for a moment that he was hallucinating, the analgesics continuing to mess up his mind. But Patrick had started, too, out of surprise and perhaps a little uncertainty, and Danny knew he wasn’t dreaming.
He smiled and said, “Jesus. Patrick. What are you…?” He stopped and beckoned his visitor inside. “Sorry, that’s… Where are my manners? ‘What are you doing here?’ Hell! What a way to welcome a guest!”
Patrick laughed and stepped in, gazing about the room with a detached sort of interest, and placed a package on a desk. “No, no. It’s totally my fault. I should have phoned or… I know it seems a little weird, me calling round to you.” He laughed selfconsciously. “The front desk told me I’d find you here. Guess I sort of bullshitted my way in. Told ’em I had an important package for you from Network 4.”
Danny smiled. “And do you?”
“Kind of. It’s from Cath and me. Oh, and apologies, by the way, that she couldn’t come herself. We heard about what happened last night—that you’d been hurt. She insisted we buy you something to cheer you up. You know what women are like. That sweet nurturing instinct.” He gestured at the package on the desk, medium-sized and oblong and wrapped in pearl-white paper. “So—dah-daah. Here, open it.”
Danny took the package and tore a hole in the paper. He snorted in laughter and said, “Did you know what was in this?”
“Yeah,” Patrick drawled slyly. “Yeah, I suggested it. Thought it might inspire you.”
Danny flipped the parcel around so Patrick could see the inside: a box set of the Dirty Harry movies, from the original to The Dead Pool. They both smiled.
“Right,” Danny said. “A vigilante cop who’ll stop at nothing. Just the sort of role model the department encourages.”
“Hey, know your enemy, right? You must become what you fight, and all that.”
Danny placed the package back on the desk. “Yeah, thanks for that, sensei. Nah, it’s cool, it’s great. Thanks, to both of you guys.”
“No problem.” Patrick half-sat on one of the desks, scanning the room absentmindedly. “So you wouldn’t approve of all that stuff, then? That Dirty Harry approach?”
Danny fumbled in his jacket pocket for a pack of chewing gum. “Are you kidding? Off the record, of course I approve. What cop wouldn’t want to just go out there and fuck up the first rapist or child-killer who crossed his path? Just fuck him right up. Not all the time. You don’t feel like that all the time. But we’re human beings, Patrick. It’s a natural instinct.”
“The instinct for revenge.”
“Yeah, but I don’t know if it’s all about revenge. I mean, it is to an extent, but it’s about justice, too. Bringing about a proper resolution.” He squashed a piece of gum into his mouth and spoke around it. “I don’t know if you… Am I explaining myself properly here? Okay, it’s like this: to do something like that, something frenzied and brutal, you know, sometimes that can feel warranted. It can feel right.”
Patrick looked skeptical. “Hmm. I dunno. Sounds like you’re trying to justify to yourself. Like you do have the thirst for vengeance, but you’re dressing it up as justice. Like you’re not being honest with…”
Danny shook his head and said, “Nuh-uh. Because the thing is this: I’d never do it. I might think it, and even agree with it sometimes, but I wouldn’t do it. Because those other times, when you don’t feel like that? Those times you realize that vengeance is wrong. It’s wrong, and unjust, and ultimately it hurts you more than them, anyway.”
“Right, you’re gonna quote that old Chinese proverb now: ‘The man who sets out for revenge should start by digging two graves.’”
Danny laughed. “I might. Shit. Chinese proverbs in one ear and your Zen master wisdom in the other… I mean, it’s complicated, I admit, but I think, fundamentally… The law is all we have, you know? The rule of law. This contract between every member of our society. And I know it doesn’t always work. Trust me, I know. But for good or bad, we have to hold onto that. Everything else is just…”
“Happy chaos?”
“Chaos, yes. Happy, I’m not so sure.”
Danny began pulling on his jacket. He said, “Listen, I’m sorry. I am being rude, but I just have a world of stuff to get working on. Is that okay?”
Patrick hopped off his perch and said, “God, yes, of course. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be holding you up like this.”
They moved to the door. Danny said, “Thanks for the gift. It’s much appreciated. And tell Cathy I said thanks, would you?”
“Sure. And thank you for that, uh, little discussion. It was… enlightening.”
“Aw, don’t get all Zen on me again. Please. It’s too early in the day for profundity.”
Patrick laughed. Danny reached for the doorknob and turned it, then held the door ajar. He said, “Hey, by the way. Maybe you can… Hold on.” He reached for the piece of paper with the lines Harte had quoted. “‘She lies and says she loves him, can’t find a better man.’ Don’t suppose you happen to know where those lines are from?”
Patrick nodded, an amused frown creasing his forehead. “Sure. It’s Pearl Jam. You know, the grunge band? Or were they a little after your time?”
Danny smiled and said, “Oh, yeah. It all ended for me when Elvis died. Yes, I know Pearl Jam. Which song is this one?”
“It’s just called Betterman. And that’s the chorus: ‘She lies and says she still loves him, can’t find a better man. She dreams in color, she dreams in red, can’t find a better man…’ And so on. Great song. Why do you ask, anyway?”
Danny shook his head, a loose, tired movement. He folded the paper back into his shirt and said, “Ah…doesn’t matter. Forget about it. Just another piece of an impossible fucking puzzle.”
He laughed to himself. Patrick smiled and said, “Hey, don’t say that. Nothing is impossible. With enough will and dedication? Nothing is impossible.”
Danny smiled as well. “I hope you’re right, Patrick. I sincerely do.”
A media circus: a phenomenon wherein the press and radio and television follow a rising news story en masse, like the retinue of attendants in the train of a king of old. They follow it, then pass it out, forcing it into unexpected shapes and directions, forward or back but always, constantly moving. It’s a symbiotic relationship, a self-fulfilling prophecy, where the story itself becomes the story, the progress of its narrative assuming a superior importance to the reality being played out on screens and front pages. It’s a circus, and everyone wants a front row seat.
And Danny was right at the center of this one. Now he stood, bruised and disheveled, addressing the ranked masses of the media outside the station house doors. He said, “Look, look, all I’m gonna say at this point is, yes
, these three incidents are, we believe, connected; and no, we’re not ‘stumbling in the dark’, as my esteemed friend from News 24 suggests. We have a number of leads, and feel we’re very close to a resolution of this case. Thank you…”
Cut to a daily current affairs show: two analysts propounding theories about the gang, talking across each other. A fleshy woman with hard-set hair said, “Well, obviously, there is some sort of political angle to this that we just haven’t seen yet. People do not just go out and, and, beat up people for no apparent reason…”
A swarthy man in a beautiful suit leaned across and said patronizingly, “With all due respect, Cecilia, you can’t have been paying too much attention to the news recently, because there is a reason for these attacks. I mean, they’ve told us the reason—they’ve spelled it out on videotape! Ha ha ha…”
Cut to edited footage of the first two attacks, playing across all channels, usually after the evening watershed—Hudson and Steve hanging outside the window with their groins digitally blurred; Wilde interrogating Tommy; the words, pulsing and insistent: “Karma TV—it could be you.”
And Bailey and Cathy, watching it all unfold in the screening room, gaping, helpless. He sat on the low leather couch; she paced the room restlessly, stressed out, chewing on a nail. She said, “Shit. How the…? Shit. How did those fuckers get that footage so fucking fast?”
“Goddamn unscrupulous bastards. I’ll tell you what this has got, Cathy: this has got the reek of conspiracy about it. Yeah, conspiracy. It’s a set-up to, to, to discredit us, to blacken our…”
Cathy glared at him. “Oh, shut up, Jonathon.”
Cut to a new entry appearing at the top of “The Asphalt World (Musings, Meditations and Mourning of Modern Culture)”, an online blog written by a 19-year-old media theory student with an IQ of 184 who looked like a younger, even skinnier Jeff Goldblum.
“Holy freakin’ schemoley, Asphalt World citizens. This just popped into my inbox not one hour ago. Not even sure if I’m legally allowed use it. Oh, to hell with it… I’ve uploaded it to the main page; click on the link for ‘Coronado.mpg.’ This claims to be real footage of the 3W vigilantes beating some manners into their latest pupil—a nasty dude with a real sweet attitude.
Even Flow Page 11
