A Tax in Blood

by Benjamin M. Schutz

  Arnie looked at me and said, “What am I going to do here? Watch the meat cool?”

  Chapter 32

  I took my recorder and picks off Jesus’s body and scooped up the files from the doctor’s desk. Arnie had gone ahead to bring his car around. He arrived just as I reached the curb. When I opened the door to get in, he picked up a box from the passenger’s seat and held it out to me.

  “Want some pizza? It’s mushroom and sausage. Your favorite.”

  I laughed. “No thanks, I’ll pass. Maybe later.”

  Arnie pulled away and asked, “Where to?”

  “InterAmerican Federation Building.”

  Fifteen minutes later we were parked opposite the I.A.F. building. The limousines were lined up in the circular driveway, dropping off men in medals and uniforms, and women in jewels and gowns. The security people were checking invitations, guest lists, picture I.D.s and so on. We had no chance of getting in that way.

  “What now?” Arnie asked.

  “We can’t take this to the security people. The head of security is in on this. The building is international territory. Our police couldn’t get in there if they wanted to.” I pulled out my map of the place and stared at it. “Let’s drive around, see what the back side looks like.”

  We drove past the well-lit formal gardens. You couldn’t see much over the patterned concrete walls. On the second floor balcony, I saw men pacing back and forth. We drove to the end of the block. I kept staring at the map. Everything looked well-lit, locked up or patrolled.

  “Why not try to buttonhole an American going in, tell him what’s going on, and see if he can warn Villarosa?” Arnie asked.

  “We may have to try that.” I was busy matching up details of the grounds with the map. Fences, walls, gates, front fountain. Everything matched up. “Wait here. Let me check something.”

  I jumped out and jogged over to the garden wall. The service entrance gate was made of iron bars. There was just one thing left to check out. I walked up to the gate and looked up at the huge rear windows of the building. The enormous crystal chandeliers backlit the men on the balcony. My eyes scanned the layout of the gardens. It was a maze of low hedges around a series of gazebos. Not an unbroken straight line anywhere. I hurried back to the car.

  “What’d you see?” Arnie asked.

  “It’s what I didn’t see that’s interesting. Put on the dome-light.”

  I showed Arnie the map. “See this dotted black line going from the main building through the garden?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Well, there’s nothing in the garden that corresponds to that dotted line.”

  “Okay. So?”

  “So, look. The line continues from this building here to the building over there.”

  Arnie looked up. “That’s fine. But there’s nothing there. Just the street.”

  “Right. So what’s there that you can’t see?” I turned in the seat to face him. Arnie sat there with his eyes flicking from side to side, biting his lower lip. Then slowly he began to smile. “A tunnel, perhaps?”

  “What say we go find out?”

  We drove around the corner and pulled up to one of the side doors of the smaller building on the map. Casually, we walked up to the door. I searched the glass panels for imbedded alarm wires and found none. A sign above the door said I.A.F. Adminstrative Annex. Arnie was looking at the underside of the guttering for cameras. “No eyes,” he said. Everything in the building was dark. There were no guards to be seen. Thank god this was a public building and America had yet to fully terror-proof itself.

  “Shall we?” Arnie said.

  “After you, Alphonse.”

  He unwrapped a pick set like mine and selected a slim blade. A couple of turns left and right, a little pressure upwards and the door was open.

  “Voila!”

  After we slipped inside, I felt all over the frame for an alarm contact and found none. Once in the main corridor and away from the windows Arnie turned on a pencil flash. Halfway down the hall we saw a door marked Stairway, and we went through it. The door at the bottom was locked, but it too yielded to Arnie’s gentle ministrations. Once through that we found ourselves in a corridor filled with boxes floor to ceiling. There was barely enough room to turn around. There must be a Parkinson’s law of storage: Junk accumulates to fill the space available.

  Arnie flashed the light around. To our left was a metal mesh gate with a sign, NO ADMITTANCE. There was also a large padlock to enforce the message. Arnie walked up to the gate, hooked his fingers through the mesh, and rattled the gate. He stepped back and said, “Piece of cake.”

  “Oh, Ollie. You’ve got a blowtorch up your sleeve?”

  “Don’t need it. Step back. We’ll be through in a minute. Here, hold the light on the gate.”

  I took the flash and stepped back. Arnie walked up to the gate, turned around, and paced off several steps, all the while staring at the floor. I backed up with him. He looked up at the ceiling. “Okay.” With that, he pulled his sword from its sheath. “Uh, Arnie, excuse me, that door is steel mesh and it’s a good quarter-inch thick. You never told me that your blade was Excalibur.”

  “Ye of little faith.”

  Arnie held the sword, gripped in both hands, low over his right shoulder. He bounced on the balls of his feet, breathing deeply through his nose. Finally, with a shriek he dashed towards the door. Lunging forward, with his hands pulling down as if he were tossing a bag of grain, he snapped his wrists and the blade flashed through the links of the gate and buried itself in the floor. Slowly, tenderly, Arnie worked the blade free, ran his hand along its edge and apologized to it.

  I pushed the gate open and followed the pencil flash into the darkness. There were exposed pipes running high along the left wall and little else. After I’d gone on a ways, I saw a vent in the ceiling. I stopped and shined the flash on it. Arnie felt the grate, then said, “I don’t feel any air moving at all. It’s totally closed at the other end. No use to us.” We went on. We were probably under the gardens by now. On the right-hand wall we came to another steel mesh door. This one had a key lock. Behind it was a large electrical panel, sprouting wires in every direction. These were bundled into cables and disappeared into the wall around the panel.

  “Looks interesting,” Arnie said.

  Arnie needed two tries to pick the lock. I flashed the light on the electrical panel.

  “Looks like the main electrical panel for the building. If we cut the power here, it would give us the cover of darkness to work in,” Arnie said.

  “Great. Since I know what the boy and Gutierrez look like, I should be the one to go after them.”

  “Okay. Take the light with you and make sure the door to the main building’s stairway is unlocked. Then bring it back to me. I’ll need it when I flip these circuits and cut the cables.”

  “Right.” I stopped then, trying to figure out how I’d get back to the door in the dark without killing myself.

  “Count your steps,” Arnie said grinning. “This is 218 from the door I cut through. I’ll need to know how long to wait for you before I cut the lights.”

  I scurried down the tunnel as fast as I could. The door was locked but I was able to pick it. When I got back to Arnie I told him that it was seventy-nine steps to the door.

  “Okay, remember the darkness will be a boon to this kid. If he’s smart at all he’ll move towards Villarosa in the dark, probably with this Gutierrez guy. Everyone else will probably be standing still. They’ve got no reason to try to go anywhere. See who’s moving and try to get to the front of the line.”

  “Good point. What about you?”

  “I’ll retrace my steps and bring the car around to the front of the building. Once inside you’re on your own.”

  “Yeah. I know.”

  “Leo, don’t do anything stupid up there. You’re just rearranging the dead, you know. If they don’t whack Villarosa here it’ll be somewhere else. And from what you said, the kid’s in a rush
to die. Don’t go over the falls with him.”

  “Yeah, but he’s been helped along quite a bit. I know what Gutierrez can do. The kid deserves a second chance. He’s a tool and he doesn’t even know it.” I also knew the hold the dead can have over the living.

  “Good luck then.”

  As I walked out of the range of Arnie’s flash I counted up to seventy-nine in the darkness. I also reminded myself that if I did nothing, the treaty would fail and no American boys would die in Villarosa’s country. All I had to do was trade in two deaths to prevent? forestall? thousands later. I stood in the darkness, my hand on the knob, imagining the different outcomes. Another wall, another stadium full of boys like Arnie had once been, or an aging dictator and a crew-cut kid who liked pizza and comic books, was afraid of girls and wanted to be a hero like his brother. I decided that if I was going to be haunted I preferred the dead to be nameless and faceless and that the chain between my deeds and their deaths be longer than the one whose links I could so easily count between myself and Marty Fernandez. When I turned the doorknob I heard a sputtering crackle and hiss behind me. Gun in hand I raced up the staircase in a darkness as complete as the one I had left behind.

  A man’s voice boomed out clearly, “Ladies and gentlemen, the general is very sorry for the inconvenience. We are looking into what the source of the trouble is right now and have called the electric company to try to restore power as soon as possible. In the meantime, for your safety, please be careful moving about and wait until we have been able to place candles in strategic places to provide some light.”

  Some couples were making use of the romantic potential of the situation. A number of men had taken out their lighters. In their glow I saw three or four men moving towards the exit doors. This stopped me for a second. Then I realized that if the security chief wanted to make the most of this cover, he’d send his men away from Villarosa and leave him isolated. I moved as quickly as I could without drawing attention to myself in the direction the other men had come from.

  In the grand ballroom, I found the general standing alone by the punchbowl. Security had cleared out, giving Marty a clean shot. I was sure the general had been told that they were securing the perimeters. I pivoted to see if anyone else was in the room. A slim figure appeared in the doorway, then another. Gutierrez? Marty? I tightened my grip on my gun. If I saw the slightest movement I was going to shoot. I’d have to.

  The lights went on. Villarosa, to my left, was dipping into the punchbowl. “It’s about time,” he said.

  “That it is, general,” Colonel Schmidt said.

  Schmidt was standing at Marty’s shoulder. Villarosa turned slowly, majestically and looked down at them along the ridge of that famous nose. Schmidt began to back away from Marty. Marty looked spaced-out and frightened.

  I stepped up and said, “Hold it, Marty. Don’t move.” My gun was coming up when Schmidt threw his left arm around Marty’s throat, reached into the boy’s jacket, pulled out a revolver and held it to his head.

  “Don’t move, Haggerty, or dear Marty is a dead one.”

  I brought the muzzle up until it was aimed right at the center of Schmidt’s face. “Do you think I care what happens to this asshole?” I wanted to keep Schmidt talking. You’re less likely to pull the trigger when you’re shooting off your mouth.

  “Rolando, Rolando, what are you doing? I was gonna do it. I swear,” Marty whimpered.

  “Shut up, you fool,” Schmidt sneered. “Drop your gun or I’ll blow his head off.”

  “Not a chance, Schmidt. This time you’re not walking away.” Slowly, steadily, I closed the distance between us.

  “That’s far enough. I am walking out of here with the boy. Even if you shoot me, by reflex I’ll pull the trigger and kill him, so back off.”

  “You’ve been watching too much T.V., colonel.”

  “Stop or I’ll—” I shot Schmidt right in the face. His body flew backwards and slid spreadeagled across the floor, smearing a trail of blood and brains behind him. Marty collapsed in a heap. General Villarosa let out an enormous sigh.

  An armed security man burst into the room. He looked at Schmidt and then at me. Our guns were trained on each other. Villarosa waved his hand at him and shouted, “Stop” before we shot each other.

  “General,” the security man said, “we must leave the building at once. It’s an emergency. Another attempt on your life. Come now.”

  I bent down and scooped Marty up and slung him over my shoulder. The security man had holstered his pistol but kept his hand on its grip. As I hurried out alongside Villarosa, I saw a uniformed man scowling at us.

  “General, who is that man?” I asked.

  “Colonel Baranquilla, head of security. Why?”

  “He’s part of the plot to have you killed.”

  “I don’t believe that.”

  “How come you were left standing alone when the lights went out? Baranquilla’s idea, no?”

  “Let’s get out of here,” Villarosa said.

  We hurried across the foyer and down the front steps. All the guests were milling about on the lawn.

  Villarosa’s security people were herding the crowd away from the front doors. Beyond the gates, U.S. Capitol Police and D.C. police cars were lining up and officers were piling out. Villarosa stopped and spoke rapidly in Spanish to another uniformed officer. He and two other men disappeared. Later I learned that they had caught Baranquilla five feet this side of U.S. territory. Sometimes politics is a game of inches.

  In the pushing and shoving, I meandered towards the invisible plane beyond which lay the beautiful U.S.A. Marty was still out. I crossed that invisible barrier between home and anywhere else and let out a deep sigh. A couple of D.C. cops approached me, hands on their guns.

  “He’s just passed out. There was a shooting inside and he was a hostage.” I gently lowered Marty to the ground. “He hit his head pretty hard. You might want to get him a doctor. He might have a concussion.”

  I saw the general talking to a police officer and pointing at me. It was going to be a long night. Arnie came up alongside me. “Nice to see you made it out. This the kid?” He pointed at Marty.

  “Yup, the one and only.”

  “What happened in there?”

  “I got to Villarosa about the same time as Marty and Gutierrez, who is actually Schmidt, but that’s a long story. Anyway I drew down on Marty and Gutierrez pulled a gun and used him as a shield when he tried to get away.”

  “And?”

  “And he’s lying inside drawing flies. Then a security guard came in and said that everyone had to leave the building. So we joined the crowd.”

  “That was my bright idea.”

  “What was?”

  “When I came up out of the tunnel it finally occurred to me to practice what I preach—Go at their strength.”

  “Which is?”

  “Making it hard to get in. So I made them want to come out.” The Cheshire cat had nothing on him.

  “Okay. How’d you do it?”

  “What else? I phoned in a bomb threat.”

  Chapter 33

  As I had promised Randi, Thanksgiving was celebrated at my house. She and Samantha were in the kitchen talking about writing while Arnie and I sipped our drinks on the porch. We hadn’t talked since the shoot-out at the I.A.F. building.

  “Didn’t save much of anything did we?” I mused, not really expecting an answer.

  General Hortencio Villarosa had signed the treaty the very next day and in less than a week American “advisors” were “in country.” The first one died a week later, while on patrol. His name was Norman Powell and I saw his picture in the morning paper. There are no nameless, faceless dead.

  “There was nothing you could do for the kid,” Arnie said.

  “Oh, I got him his second chance, that’s for sure.”

  That second chance for Marty Fernandez was an admission to a psychiatric hospital where he was kept on a round-the-clock suicide watch. Four d
ays later though, he leaped out of his new therapist’s third floor office window and died instantly on the hood of a visitor’s car forty feet below.

  “You gave me a second chance too, remember?” Arnie reminded me.

  “No. I wasn’t smart enough for that. Samantha knew what you needed. A way to recoup your honor. That’s why she told you where I was instead of calling the police.” Arnie began to disagree but I waved him off. “No. She didn’t tell me that. She wouldn’t. I called the Rev. Your work for him was nowhere near Georgetown. In fact he told me that you’d delivered the guy to him at six A.M.”

  “It’s what I am, Leo. The code is a part of me all the way through. I wish I could come all the way home, and sometimes it really hurts, like at the wall, but I have to accept that that’s the price I pay, and for right now, I’m willing to pay it. Besides, I have friends who are willing to meet me halfway.”

  “That’s right, you do, friend.” Though I was smiling at his words, inside I remembered my lie to Samantha about what I was doing in Gutierrez’s office. One day a lie like that would cost me more than it was worth. You can’t have it all, Haggerty, I thought. When was I going to learn that?

  Randi came out and told us that dinner was ready. I followed Arnie inside and took a moment to appreciate the bounty before us. Since Nate Grossbart had been able to extract the full death benefits due Marta Vasquez from her husband’s life insurance policy, he gave me no more trouble than I expected when it came to paying my bill. A fair piece of that fee was on the table or in the oven or chilling in the refrigerator.

  Samantha came up to me, kissed me on the cheek and whispered in my ear, “I’ve been in the kitchen talking to Randi.”

  “What about?”

  “About writing, school, being a woman, boys and men—and you. You know how you said your work was as enduring as bubble gum? Think again. You’ll be a part of that child forever. Like you’re a part of me.”