Between missions, she was always given the chance to visit home, but she did it less and less often unless she knew for sure Mama wouldn’t be there.
After a trip to 1999, where she talked a woman into avoiding going to Times Square on New Year’s Eve—her leg would’ve been broken, which would’ve kept her from running in the New York Marathon, which was where she’d meet her future wife—she came back to see Isabelle.
“I’m sorry, Wanda, I’m afraid I have some bad news. Wilhelmina Jackson passed away in her sleep last night.”
Wanda immediately ran to the elevator and went down to catch the subway home.
Mama wasn’t home when she got there, but the cops who were there said that someone called 911 from the phone in their apartment, so it was probably Mama who found Grams’s body.
Over the next few days, Wanda made all the arrangements. The funeral was held at their church on 129th Street, and all of Grams’s friends from the neighborhood were there. The funeral home had her cremated after, which was what she wanted.
Mama didn’t come to the funeral. Or back home.
After two weeks of waiting for Mama to come home—or to call or something—Wanda gave up. She gave up the apartment, since Limbus let her stay at 666 Fifth, and since Mama had disappeared. Wanda suddenly wished that they lived in the 21st century, when people had their own personal phones. Then maybe she could have found Mama.
But maybe this was best.
When she went back to work, Isabelle said, “I want to caution you, Wanda, that this next assignment is a difficult one. You can refuse if you want.”
Wanda fell more than sat in Isabelle’s guest chair. The view was of the skyline in 1932, with the just-finished Empire State Building standing out from all the other tall buildings. “Just tell me. I need somethin’.”
Isabelle stared at her for a few seconds first. “All right. Your assignment will take you to July 1977.”
Now Wanda winced. “Say what?”
“As I said, you can refuse. There’s a young man named Luther White who needs to be convinced to take action.”
After Isabelle hesitated, Wanda rolled her eyes. “Just say it already!”
“It’s not pleasant. Up until now, your assignments have all been what one could call a positive outcome. Not getting hurt, not hurting people, not dying—none of these have been what you would call life or death situations, truly.”
“But this is?”
“Yes.”
“What, you need me to tell this Luther White cat to kill someone?”
“Yes.”
Wanda’s eyes went wide. “Say what? I was kiddin’!”
“I’m not. Luther White needs to shoot a gangster who goes by the name of ‘Shorty.’ Unfortunately, we don’t have any pictures of Shorty—he avoids cameras quite skillfully, which is much easier in the 1970s. But if Shorty lives, we do know that he will get several other people killed, including both his girlfriends—a waitress and a bookkeeper—and also start a gang war with the Italian Mafia that will result in the deaths of many innocent bystanders. He himself will still die in 1981, but if he’s killed in 1977, many more people will live—one of whom is a major asset to Limbus.”
“One’a them innocent bystanders?”
Isabelle just said, “If you don’t want to take the job—”
“Nah, it’s cool. I figured you’d be layin’ something like this on me sooner or later. Y’all are too nasty to always be sendin’ me on nice assignments.”
The good thing was that she could wear normal clothes.
But that was the only good thing. The last place in the world she wanted to go was New York on July 13th of last year.
Or, actually, July 12th, since that was when she was supposed to meet up with Luther. It was at a bar, which was one of Mama’s favorites, but she lucked out, and Mama wasn’t there.
Luther’s file said he had a thing for ladies with short afros, flat noses, and really dark skin, and Wanda already had those, which was probably why Isabelle tagged her for it.
“Hey baby,” Luther said to her when she sat down at the bar near him. “Let me buy you a drink?”
“Damn, brother, I just sat my behind down. Give a lady a chance to settle?”
“And let some other dude horn in on you? No chance, baby, no chance.”
Luther was about as smooth as sandpaper, but Wanda let him play his game anyhow. They shared a bunch of drinks, eventually moving from the bar to a table.
“I gots to say, baby, you are a fine distraction.”
Wanda got all fake-outraged. “Distraction? That all I am to you?”
“Oh, I’m hopin’ for more, you can believe that, but right now—well, life’s fulla some complicated shit. ‘Scuse me,” he added quickly. Wanda had already made clear how much she hated profanity.
“Complicated how?”
“There’s this bad dude named Shorty. He needs to go, you dig?”
“Go where?”
“You don’t need to worry about that, baby, point is—”
“Don’t talk to me like I’m no child! Look, if the brother needs to go, he needs to go.”
“I just don’t think I can do it.”
“Do what?”
Luther looked away. He’d been staring right at her the whole time—it was actually kinda freaky, and if she’d really met him in a bar, she’d have already left the bar to get away from this cat by now—but he couldn’t look at her anymore. “I been livin’ the life since I was a kid. I rumbled with some dudes, but I ain’t never…”
He couldn’t even finish the sentence. Wanda got up.
“Where you goin’ baby?” Luther reached out to grab her arm.
She shook his hand off. “Sorry, but I got feathers in my drink.”
“Whatchoo talkin’ ‘bout, baby?”
“I was thinkin’ you was a man, not a chicken.”
He stood up to face her. “Don’t nobody call me no chicken, bitch!”
She got in close to him. “Then don’t be no chicken, fool! You said this Shorty got to go. Then he got to go. Only question is if you man enough to be the one who escorts his behind out.”
He kept staring at her, all angry, and then he looked away. “All right, yeah. You right, baby, you right.”
“Damn right I’m right.”
“Let’s sit back down, okay, baby? I don’t want to ruin a fine evening like this.”
“Nah, I’d best be gettin’ on.”
His face fell. “But—”
She put a finger to his lips. “I’m busy tomorrow, but the day after? I’ll be right back here. You come back, you tell me you done what you said you was gonna do, and then we’ll pick up where we left off, you dig?”
Luther grinned. “Outta sight.”
Wanda left the bar as quick as she could.
She had to get back to 666 Fifth. She did what she was supposed to do, and she had to get the hell out of there. She did not want to be present during the blackout.
On her way to the place Limbus had rented for her over on 140th, she stopped. Maybe she could stay. Head over to the St. Nicholas Houses tomorrow night, and she could actually see how Rondell got shot. She’d only been there after the police had cleared out the place after the shooting, not seeing Rondell’s body until three days later at the morgue.
Wanda shook her head. There was no reason to see that. And she couldn’t change it. She’d read the contract, and it was pretty clear that if she did anything on an assignment that wasn’t specific to the mission, she’d be terminated. With everything Limbus Inc. could do, “terminate” could mean anything. She wasn’t risking it.
Besides, Isabelle had talked about all those nanocams around—that was how they knew about her own craziness on July 13th. So she could always—
Again, she stopped walking. Another pedestrian almost crashed into her and cursed her out for stopping in the middle of the sidewalk.
For a few seconds, she just stood there, angrier than she’d ever been
in her life.
Then she ran back to the place on 140th, and used the device to get back home.
Isabelle was waiting for her like usual. “Good job, Wanda. I know that was a tough—”
“Stuff it, bitch, why you lyin’ to me?”
“I’m sorry?” Isabelle’s head snapped back like Wanda had slapped her. “I didn’t—”
“You said there wasn’t no pictures of this Shorty cat, but y’all got them damn nanocam things. So y’all know what Shorty look like, so why didn’t I get to see him?”
Isabelle sighed and shook her head. “I did tell the committee that you might figure it out.”
“Committee?”
“The committee that runs the department. My bosses. They insisted on the manner in which I presented you the assignment precisely because it was felt that you should not know the true identity of ‘Shorty.’“
“Why the hell not?”
“Come with me.”
Isabelle led Wanda back to the big screen room. She pulled a remote control out of the pocket of her pantsuit—it was turquoise today. One of the screens on the wall got bigger, superimposed over all the others.
Wanda followed, fuming, wondering who this committee thought they were.
Then she stared at the screen.
It showed the courtyard of the St. Nicholas Houses. It was night, and none of the apartments had lights on. There was a barrel that was burning, and that was the only light. It had to be the night of the blackout.
Rondell was standing there facing two men. One of them was Luther.
She whispered, “No…”
The one who wasn’t Luther said, “End of the line, Shorty.”
“Man, this is some messed-up bullshit! Y’all know who you fuckin’ with? Do you, motherfucker?”
“Yeah, we do,” Luther said. “We fuckin’ with a dude who gots to go. Bumpy put the word out that you was trouble. Now we doin’ what gots to be done.”
“Don’t nobody fuck with Shorty, you dig? Nobody! I will kill you and your family and your—”
Luther held up a .38 revolver and shot Rondell four times.
Isabelle stopped the playback and restored the screen to its usual small size with the rest.
“I don’t b’lieve this,” Wanda whispered. “How is this—” She shook her head. “This can not be happenin’.”
“In fact, it already did.”
“Wait, you said that Shorty—that Rondell—that he had two girlfriends?”
“The waitress was you. The bookkeeper was a woman named Patricia Sheridan.”
“Say what? I know Trish! That bitch goes to my church!”
“And Rondell cheated on you with her. To be fair, he cheated on her with you, as well. Oh, and that thousand dollars you had to pay back because Rondell didn’t read a contract? That was a lie. He lost that thousand in a heroin deal that went wrong and he was forced to pay it back. That was what started him on the road that led to him being declared persona non grata by Wendell ‘Bumpy’ Ross, one of the major crime bosses in Harlem, which is in turn why Luther White shot him.”
“Why did you make me do that?” Wanda asked angrily, her confusion and sadness being completely took over by being pissed.
“Because you were the only agent who would’ve been able to talk Luther into it. You’re his type. And, as I said, if Rondell hadn’t been shot that day, you would’ve gotten killed—thus costing us a major asset.”
“Say what?”
Isabelle smiled softly. “Wanda, the main life that we needed to save—the major Limbus asset that needed to be preserved by making sure that Rondell Smith died on the 13th of July 1977—was you.”
9
Wanda walked out of 666 Fifth right after that.
She just started walking up Fifth. Eventually she came to the corner of 59th Street. FAO Schwarz was on her right, the Plaza Hotel on her left. She could never afford the toys at Schwarz, although Grams did once get her a rocking horse from there for Christmas. That lasted for about two years before Pops broke it. He said it was by mistake, but Wanda never believed him.
She walked up into Central Park. Maybe she’d get mugged and put out of her misery.
Isabelle had let her go, but she knew that wouldn’t last. She’d signed up for ten years, and she hadn’t even finished the first year yet. Breaking the contract was also grounds for termination, and she was even more sure now than ever that they meant “terminate” in the nastiest way possible.
She had nowhere to go. Grams was dead, Mama was missing, the super was living back in their old pad. She didn’t have any real friends, just a few people at church, and maybe Frieda. Hell, she’d been so busy working two jobs, she didn’t have time for friends. Particularly after Rondell got shot.
Eventually, she wound up at the carousel. She decided to pay the fare and ride one of the brown horses. Grams used to take her to the carousel when she was a little girl, but she hadn’t ridden on it since she was twelve. She always rode on the brown horse.
The stupid music started playing on the calliope and the brown horse moved up and down in a slow steady rhythm. The breeze blew through Wanda’s short afro—that same short afro that Luther thought was so groovy—as she leaned back, holding onto the golden pole.
Rondell lied to her.
Hell, that was the real reason she didn’t have any friends. After Rondell died, she just stopped giving a damn about her own life. She’d work her jobs and make enough so that she and Grams and Mama could live, but there was nothing else, except church on Sunday, and she didn’t talk to anybody at church, either.
It was all a lie anyhow. Rondell was a gangster. And a cheater and a liar.
And Wanda was the one who got his fool behind killed.
Did he deserve to die? He was going to die in ‘81, or at least that was what Isabelle said, and Wanda herself and Trish and other people would be dead also.
Then again, she’d been to 2075. Everyone she knew was dead by then. And everyone she met in 1880 was dead by her time.
The carousel slowed down and Wanda hopped off the brown horse.
“A major asset,” Isabelle had called her. That was definitely new.
By the time she made it back to 666 Fifth, it was starting to get dark. She took the elevator up to the 42nd floor. When she’d been in 2011, she’d actually used the internet to look up the building, and officially it only had 41 floors. She wanted to talk to Isabelle about it, but that could wait for another time. There was only one thing to say to her right now.
Isabelle was actually packing up her stuff to go home when Wanda walked in.
“Wanda! Are you all right?”
“No. I ain’t never gonna be all right, but that was true before you left that damn card in my door. Fact is, I ain’t got nothin’. I ain’t got my jobs no more, I ain’t got Grams no more, I ain’t got Pops no more, I ain’t got Mama no more, and it looks like I ain’t never had Rondell in the first place. All I got left is you. ‘Sides, I signed the damn contract.”
Isabelle nodded. “Good. I’m glad we understand each other. Get some rest. I’ll have a new assignment for you tomorrow.”
“Right on.”
Third Interlude: The Unblinking Eye
Sellers had played it straight. Malone arrived at the address where the club should be and found it unmarked, save for a single bulb that burned red above a doorway. A man, immaculately dressed, leaned against it. When Malone handed him the slip of paper, he took one look at it—and two looks at Malone—and ushered him inside.
The place was what he’d expected. Darker than it needed to be, wood paneling and plush couches with a bar that didn’t include too many rail brands. He sat down on a stool and a man dressed like the bartender in The Shining asked him what he’d like. He ordered a scotch and soda, and began to read.
Several scotches later, and he flipped the last page closed. Time travel. Impossible. Or was it? He didn’t know what to think anymore, and if Limbus was real—and at this point, why
not?—then who was to say what limitations they might have? It was a scary thought. And eerily comforting, too. Between the thought of total chaos and someone running the show, he’d always sided with the latter. Maybe Limbus wasn’t God, but they seemed pretty damn near all powerful.
“Can’t say that I’ve seen you here before, friend,” said a man as he slid onto the stool beside Malone. “Always happy to meet a new member.” He held out his hand, and Malone took it.
“Not a member, actually. I’m here as a guest of a…mutual friend. Matthew Sellers.”
The man’s eyes twinkled, but his expression remained unchanged. “Is that right? Bernard Samuelson,” he said, finally letting go of Malone’s hand. “And how is Matthew doing?”
“Seems like business is pretty good. Always helps to have powerful investors.”
“I always found that be true.” He removed a cigar from his pocket and offered it to Malone.
“No thanks.”
Samuelson shrugged, snipping off one end with a gold-plated cutter before lighting the other with a match. Samuelson took a deep draw, and his eyes went to the stack of paper sitting on the bar.
“I always liked literary men. Business or pleasure?”
“Business. About a company I think you are rather familiar with. One called Limbus.”
Samuelson started to laugh. “And here I thought you were a serious sort of fellow.”
“Serious as a dead girl at the bottom of a mine shaft,” he said, flipping out his badge so Samuelson could see.
“Well I know nothing about that. As for Limbus, have you any idea how much that little story cost me? The headaches? The questions? Not only a murderer, but a head of some sort of cult? And my poor niece. I mean, you read the story, right?”
“And Katya. Must have been hell on her.”
Samuelson grinned. “Yes, detective. She’s real, too.”
“If it was such a hassle, why didn’t you sue? You, your niece, Katya. You should own Sellers.”
Samuelson puffed on his cigar and regarded Malone. He let the question hang a while before answering it. “I suppose I could tell you that I looked into it. Or I could say that Matthew is such a nice young man and I didn’t want to see him fail.”
Limbus, Inc., Book III Page 20
