Warrior (Freelancer Book 2)

by Irving, Terry

  He held up his hand. "No, don't say anything. It'll either be a lie or an effusive expression of thanks, and the former will embarrass you and the latter, me. You'll start on June 19th when Brezhnev is at the White House. Now get out of here." He waved dismissively and turned to the phone.

  CHAPTER 22

  May 21, 1973, M Street NW, Washington, DC

  M Street was crowded. The pace on the sidewalk was noticeably slower than usual as sauntering replaced the usual Washington speed walk. Rick knew it wouldn't last. In a matter of weeks, walkers scurrying to get out of the winter cold would be replaced by walkers scurrying to get out of the summer heat. Rick could believe the old story about how the British used to pay their diplomats stationed here a "tropical duty" bonus.

  "Will you buy a candle to support disabled children?"

  Rick looked at the ugly brownish candle being thrust at him by a ragged teenager with hair falling out of a tangled ponytail. She had the glazed look of the convert in her eyes and, whether she'd been converted by New Hope, the Children of God, the Jesus Freaks, the Healthy Happy Holy People, or the Soul Rush followers of the Guru Maharaji Ji, he knew that none of that money was going to children, disabled or otherwise.

  Looking past her, he could see four or five knots further down the sidewalk where other cults were selling pamphlets, wind chimes, or pictures of their particular Beloved Leader. A dozen Hare Krishna Dancers were spinning ecstatically on the corner of 19th Street, banging tambourines and finger cymbals, faces turned to the sky.

  Rick looked back at the girl with the candle and said, "Disabled children? Come on, that's not even original. What dumbass religion are you working for?"

  Now that he was paying attention, he could see that she was very young, maybe thirteen and quite possibly younger, and looked like she could use a bath and a good meal. She had tears in her eyes.

  Feeling like a complete jackass, he reached into his jeans and pulled out a twenty-dollar bill. He'd read somewhere that giving alms was actually about the soul of the giver and not the need of the recipient.

  Anyway, he liked to watch their faces.

  This girl suddenly looked like a normal kid as her eyes widened, her shoulders relaxed, and a smile blossomed. Rick realized that she'd been tensed up for the contempt or rejection she undoubtedly got from most passersby, and he'd stepped right up and delivered.

  She started to say something, then stopped. She was looking around him at the snarl of cars crawling along M Street. Instantly, the childish expression of appreciation was replaced by an almost feral look of fear and submission. She mumbled something and darted away.

  Rick took a couple of steps into the recessed doorway behind him. Less visible to the street, he watched as the girl darted between two parked cars and stood at the edge of the M Street traffic with her hand up. A battered blue Econoline van pulled up, and the passenger rolled down the window.

  Sitting in the passenger seat was Flick Crane.

  Rick turned and went inside the store. Embarrassingly, it was the Erotic Bakery, a favorite for bachelorette parties and gay birthdays. Stoically, he pretended to admire the phallus-shaped cakes while watching the van through the window.

  As he watched, the girl proudly handed Flick the twenty and then dug through the pockets in her oversized bell-bottom jeans, producing a small pile of grubby bills and some change. At the sight of the coins, Flick spoke to her sharply, and she flinched, as if she thought he was going to hit her.

  She shook her head and seemed to pull into herself, trying to become smaller and to move as far away from the van as possible without actually moving her feet.

  Flick snapped another question, and the tangled ponytail bobbed as she checked the contents of the canvas newspaper carrier's bag on her shoulder. She nodded, and Flick made a dismissive gesture, clearly telling her to get back to work. As the van pulled away, Rick could see him hold the twenty up to the driver and throw his head back in a laugh.

  "Can I show you one of these or would you rather see the men's cakes we have over there?" A sweet-faced college-age girl was looking at him across the bakery counter. Rick took a quick look at the lifelike baked replicas of the female anatomy she indicated and said, "Oh, no, thanks, I was just…umm…browsing."

  "OK, something for a boyfriend, then?" She bent down and searched the display case for a second. "We do have some marzipan penises here somewhere. I've been told they're delicious."

  "No, I was just looking. Got to go." Rick escaped before she could stand up again. He could feel the heat rising in his cheeks and smiled, amused at his own reaction.

  On the sidewalk, he turned right and headed for the VW, thinking about how Kristee had said Flick was an enforcer for this weird religious-political cult in Virginia.

  Whoever they were, he knew they had been involved in the Wounded Knee shootout, but why would they go halfway across the country to cause trouble? Why had they been willing to kill to stop the Arrows from being delivered to Lame Deer?

  Before he reached the VW, he stopped and snapped his fingers. Shaking his head, he turned and walked down to the Union Trust Bank at Connecticut and L Streets. His favorite bank manager—well, actually, the only bank manager he'd ever liked, or even remembered—was sitting at his desk at the door. Rick assumed he was placed there because he still believed in the concept of customer service, and the real managers didn't want him to corrupt the rest of the staff.

  The graying head came up as soon as Rick came through the door. "Why Rick. You've been away forever! It's good to see you."

  "And it's good to see you again, Mr. Nicholson."

  Nicholson came around his desk and gave Rick a warm handshake. "Please call me Jeremy."

  "Yes sir, Mr. Nicholson."

  The older man shook his head with a smile and asked, "Do you want to go downstairs?"

  Rick nodded, and Nicholson led the way to an elevator just inside the front door. It opened immediately, and they went down a floor to the safety deposit boxes. Rick signed the card, produced his key, and they unlocked the two locks on Box 213. Nicholson led Rick to an empty room and closed the door.

  Opening the box, Rick looked at the neat stacks of cash inside. He'd taken quite a bit with him to Montana, but there was still about $10,000 left, neatly stacked in blocks of 20 one-hundred-dollar bills. He took a brick and put ten folded hundred-dollar bills in his shirt pocket. Then, he undid his belt, unbuttoned the top button of his jeans, and slipped the remaining bills into a pocket from an old pair of jeans that he'd sewn in the same place as the outside rear pocket so that the thread was hidden. The money was held tight against his butt. Nothing in that pocket had ever been found in a casual search. Rick figured if he lost the money because he'd taken his pants off, it was either an extremely serious police search or he deserved whatever happened.

  He re-did his jeans, closed the box, and returned it to its niche in the wall of boxes. He knew that anyone who saw a scruffy biker with all that money would automatically assume it was stolen. In fact, it wasn't a result of how much he'd received but how little he'd spent.

  When you wore the same boots, jeans, and t-shirt every day, you only needed so many clothes. Group houses were incredibly cheap, especially if you shared food costs, and until now, his motorcycle had been the property of Cosmopolitan Couriers.

  He just didn't spend much money. He kept a checking account and a credit card under each of his identities, Rick and Jim Putnam, which he normally only used to cash his paychecks. He wrote checks every April when he paid state and federal taxes for both identities, far less hassle than trying to avoid paying.

  He was quite content with this way of life. He had the money to buy whatever he wanted, and, luckily, most of what he wanted couldn't be bought with money.

  Nicholson was speaking to another customer when Rick emerged from the elevator, so he waved "thank you" and left.

  CHAPTER 23

  May 21, 1973, Georgetown, Washington, DC

  Rick piloted the bu
s down M Street in Georgetown. If anything, Georgetown looked worse than before he left. The Summer of Love and Woodstock had plowed head-on into Altamont, and the human debris from that disaster was everywhere.

  Kids ranging from college age down to eleven or twelve years old were drifting up and down the sidewalks, smoking cigarettes in doorways, or trying to catch some sleep in the afternoon sun. Rick thought that it must be tough to find a safe place to sleep at night, so a nap during the day could be a real lifesaver for these wanderers.

  DC Metro police were cruising Wisconsin Avenue on their Vespas, blowing horns at the sleepers or, for those too tired or too stoned to react, parking the little scooters and walking over to deliver a sharp rap on the sole of the foot. The kids would pick up their backpacks, plastic bags, and surplus Army gear and rejoin the slow drift to another place to sleep.

  The more alert were working the tourists for coins at the corner of M and Wisconsin. Through the open van windows, Rick could hear all the variations of "Got any spare change?"

  He remembered a panhandler in Manhattan who'd given him a two-minute standup comedy routine before hitting him up for cash. Afterward, he had pursued Rick down the sidewalk and insisted that there must have been a mistake. Rick said the twenty was no mistake. His performance was better than most he'd seen at the improv clubs.

  By comparison, these kids were barely trying.

  As he crept along in the solid mass of traffic, he had time to notice the predators. They looked like the kids, but their faces were a little sharper, a lot more awake, and far more calculating.

  Repeatedly, they'd come up to a kid, usually one who was alone, offer a cigarette, and then start a quiet and serious discussion. Rick knew that the pimps worked the bus station over on New York Avenue, so he figured these were the various cults out to "save" these poor young souls.

  Most of the kids just took the cigarette and stared blankly in the general direction of their benefactor. Others had that desperate look of someone well past the end of their rope, and they listened intently.

  Rick remembered what it was like. One year, he'd hitched down to the Daytona motorcycle races with just enough money to buy an infield ticket. Most of it was fantastic: the almost-solid sound of 100 race-tuned engines at maximum revolutions, swooping riders almost parallel to the asphalt in the turns, riders drafting and fighting for position. Other parts weren't quite as enjoyable: camping in the grassy area next to the track with hundreds of drunken Pagans, Warlocks, Banditos, and a mixed bag of Florida Outlaws, Mongols, and other hangers-on.

  The worst was when he tried to take a nap under the boardwalk and got worked over by a platoon of Jesus Freaks. It felt as practiced and planned as an NVA ambush. Before he was fully awake, they'd offered him water, food, and cigarettes; and one particularly attractive girl was sitting on his backpack. They had never stopped smiling as they told him how happy they were, how miserable their lives on the street had been, what incredible love and affection they had for each other, and the glorious sense of joy when they accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.

  They'd all gathered around him in a warm huddle. Later he learned that this was called "snapping," so completely filling the potential recruits with love and warmth that they would suddenly "snap" into the group.

  Rick just felt awkward and uncomfortable. He ducked down and out of the embrace, retrieved his backpack by tumbling its rider onto the sand, and escaped.

  His childhood with an alcoholic parent had given him a thick armor against anyone who used love as a weapon. Even so, he could still feel the powerful pull of that promise of unconditional love and acceptance.

  As he made the left turn to Wisconsin, Rick thought he'd given his trust to the Army and his loyalty to his country, and, even though he still had a positive attitude toward the U.S.A., his allegiance to any group much bigger than a dozen was pretty well used up.

  He hauled the VW around an immediate left turn and into a narrow alley where Cosmopolitan Couriers had their garage, office, dispatch center, repair shop, and parts department. Parking illegally across from the entrance, he took a deep breath and went inside.

  It was a mess. Well, it was always a mess, but this was extreme, even for Cosmopolitan Couriers. BMWs were lined up along the back wall three deep, and the left side of the space was filled from floor to ceiling with boxes marked with what looked like part numbers.

  The only open space was the front desk where the dispatcher worked and the bottom of the stairs that ran up to the second floor. Cesaro, the immigrant mechanic who did all the repairs and maintenance on the bikes, was carrying one of the boxes down those stairs and staggered over to place it on the growing pile.

  The dispatcher, an older man with an enormous mustache—Rick had never known his name—was hard at work. A multi-line punch-button phone was blinking silently, slips of paper were lined up precisely on the desk, and he was coolly giving commands into a large stand microphone.

  Snarls of distorted radio noise that, as far as Rick was concerned, could have been Martians discussing the weather, came over. It must take practice to learn Martian, since the dispatcher calmly responded with new orders, directions, or advice.

  Down the counter, Boyce Gassel, one of the co-owners of the courier service, was shuffling a pile of bills and invoices, muttering to himself. He didn't look up so Rick walked over, leaned on the old wooden counter, and said, "Hey Boyce."

  Boyce's eyes flicked up for a second and went back to the papers in front of him. When his head snapped up and he scowled, Rick knew that he had realized that a man guilty of the sad and ugly death of one of his beloved bikes had dared to show his face.

  Without warning, Boyce stood up and took a swing at Rick. Luckily, the counter shortened his reach, and Rick, who had expected something like this, stepped back out of range.

  Boyce's face was bright red and he spoke in a low, venomous whisper, "You shitty little son of a bitch. How dare you walk in here after dumping Number 115 into a Metro dig? You were fired the instant that bike hit the bottom and don't even try to get your fucking back pay."

  Remaining out of reach, Rick said, "I feel terrible about that bike. Seeing it down there was like a death in the family."

  He held up his hands in a placating gesture, "Look, I'm here to pay you back."

  Boyce grabbed for Rick's shirt but missed. "You bastard! That was my baby! It was the first Beemer I'd ever owned! This whole company is built around it, and you think you can destroy it and just pay me some fucking money?"

  The dispatcher cradled a phone on his shoulder and said, "Bullshit, Boyce. You say every busted bike was your first bike. By now, I've got to believe you went and bought a hundred bikes at once."

  Boyce glared at the older man and then turned back to Rick. "OK, so 115 wasn't the first. It was still one of my babies."

  Rick nodded. "I understand that. That's why the first thing I'm doing, now that I'm back in town, is trying to make it right. I'll pay you full price for the bike."

  "Are you kidding? That was a vintage jewel!" Boyce's voice was still furious, but Rick thought his face was a bit less flushed. "There is no amount of money that can make up for the loss."

  Cesaro was passing behind Rick, carrying another box. "No way, Boyce, 115 was $1540 new and counting the parts and depreciation, it's worth $893.54. Maybe $900, but no more."

  Boyce scowled at the mechanic. "What about having to hire a truck to lift it off the spikes where this bastard left it? What about my mental anguish when I saw it lying broken in that pit?"

  Cesaro put the box on the pile and headed back upstairs. "I don't know about your anguish, but you know damn well that the Metro crane pulled it out and dropped it right in the bed of our pickup truck."

  "Traitor!" Boyce shouted after Cesaro's departing back.

  Rick pulled the ten hundred dollar bills from his pocket and fanned them out so Boyce could count them. "I figured that $900 was the price, but I'll add in a bit for your anguish. I've got a
thousand here. Will that make us good?"

  Boyce leaned back and began to pound out a rhythm on the counter with his hands. "You're not thinking you're getting your old job back, are you? Because that's not happening."

  "Nope. I just want to make things right."

  Boyce's hands suddenly went to a crescendo, stopped, and he thrust a hand forward. "OK, give me the thousand, and I'll let you walk out of here alive."

  Rick was amused at the idea of Boyce beating him up; but he was already looking over his shoulder for too many people, so he stepped forward and held out the money.

  Boyce snatched it out of his hand and began counting.

  Rick glanced around and asked, "What's going on? Are you shutting down the business?"

  Without looking up, Boyce said, "Hell no. We just lost the lease on this place. Fuck! You've made me lose count. Wait a second."

  The dispatcher chuckled, "Only you could get lost counting to ten."

  Boyce glared at him but kept counting. When he was finished, he tapped the bills into a neat stack, pulled an enormous roll of bills from his front pocket, undid the rubber bands holding it together, and added Rick's money. Rolling it back again, he looked around and said, "No, we just lost the lease. Some idiot is going to try to create a jazz club in here. Can you imagine? I mean, it was a stable before we showed up, and we've never gotten the stench of horse shit out of the floor."

  Rick nodded and asked, "Where are you going?" "Up to Adams Morgan, where it's still happening. Georgetown is over, man."

  Rick laughed. "Are you kidding? The only things up there are Columbia Station, the Omega, and the Ontario Theater." He shook his head, "And the Ontario's been showing nothing but chop-socky and porn since their little art-house experiment failed."

  Boyce had already turned back to his papers, "It's going to be the next big thing. Now get your sorry ass out of here before I change my mind and beat you up."

  Rick gave an OK sign to the dispatcher as a "thank you" and headed for the old double doors left over from the place's stable days. "I'll see you around, Boyce."