Some convict fantasies are sweet. Some are freakish. Some are beyond lunacy. But some are so common they’ve become classics. And if my old cellmates could see me . . .
Lying on my back on a king-sized bed in a luxo hotel suite, a beautiful naked woman on either side of me.
But they were holding hands across my chest, giving each other comfort in the presence of a man who had none for either of them.
Late Saturday afternoon.
Hard darkness outside. Soft darkness in the room.
When I tuned out the words, their girl-talk was soothing. My eyes were closed. I tried to drift into their mingled scent. Lose myself.
Time stood there, laughing at its joke.
Like when I was Inside.
Was my brother already gone? I was back in the foster home, waiting for my mother to come and take me away from the terror. Knowing inside me she never would and . . .
The phone rang.
Vyra sprang from the bed like a tigress, grabbing the receiver before the first ring was done.
“Hello?”
A split-second pause, then: “Oh, honey, am I glad to hear from you! When are you—?”
This time she listened a little longer before she said: “I’m sorry, baby. I didn’t mean to—”
He must have told her to shut up, because she went quiet for a long minute. Then she took a deep breath and said softly: “Hercules, will you do something for me? Some little thing, just ’cause I miss you so much?”
He must have said okay, because she came right back with: “My scarf? You know, my pretty pink scarf? The one you said smelled like me? Would you wear it?”
The next words out of her mouth were: “No, I mean, wear it anywhere, darling. Just so I know it’s with you, okay? Then I’ll feel like I’m with you too.”
I don’t know what he said to that. Vyra replied, “Me too. I . . .” and put down the phone. “He hung up,” she said to me and Crystal Beth, her voice cracking around the edges.
“This will be hard for me, mahn,” Clarence said. “It would be better if I did the—”
“Well, you can’t, baby,” Michelle said, honey and steel intertwining in her perfect voice to form an implacable ribbon.
“It is not right,” the islander said, trying to push his will past hers. “It is my job to . . .”
“What?” I asked him, trying for edgeless calm. We were too close to the flashpoint now to play around.
“I am the man,” Clarence said. “And Michelle is—”
“What?” she asked this time, the honey gone from her voice.
“My sister,” he said quietly. “My little sister. Who I love so much.”
Michelle stood up. Walked around the side of the booth and kissed Clarence on his ebony cheek. “Little sister’s gonna be just fine, baby,” she said calmly. “You just show me how to do it, and I’ll make you proud.”
“If I knew the frequency, I could jam it,” the Mole told me, standing next to Terry in his underground bunker.
“But we don’t have—”
“This is a scanner,” the Mole said, holding up a box with a few rows of square LEDs. “I think I know the type of transmitter they must be using. If the range is narrow enough, maybe . . . but he has to have it armed. If he waits to arm it until the last second, there is no chance.”
“We can’t risk it,” I said.
“But Michelle . . .” the Mole said softly, fear driving the science from his voice.
“What is Mom gonna—?” Terry asked, picking up the Mole’s fear like it was forest-fire smoke.
“It’ll be fine,” I told the kid.
He ignored me, looking to the Mole.
“She will,” he promised.
“I have to be there,” the boy said. Only it wasn’t a boy speaking anymore.
I looked at the Mole. We both nodded.
Max was as angry as I’d ever seen him. No matter how many times I explained it, he chopped the air in a violent gesture of rejection.
“You know how it’s got to go,” the Prof said, agreeing with me. “We only get the one toss. We need a natural. And you can’t roll snake eyes with three dice.”
But when I signed that over to Max, his nostrils flared and his face went into a rigid mask of resistance. He wasn’t buying.
We went round and round. The mute Mongolian wouldn’t budge. Finally, he made a complicated series of gestures to Mama. She bowed and went off. When she returned, she had a stalk of green in her hand, some kind of plant I didn’t recognize. Max pulled out a chair, set it in the middle of the restaurant floor, pointed at it for me to sit down.
I did it. Mama licked the back of the green stalk and pasted it to the front of my leather jacket, right over the heart.
I sat there. Max walked up to me. I watched him carefully. Nothing happened.
Max held up the green stalk in his huge hand . . . the hand I’d never seen move. Making his point.
I held out my hand for the stalk. Gave it to Mama. “Put it back on me,” I told her.
She licked the stalk again, slapped it down over my heart.
I motioned for Max to step back. Further. Further still. Until he was at least ten feet distant. Then I made the gesture of rolling up a car window. Sat looking through the imaginary glass. Made a “Now-what?” gesture.
The warrior’s eyes narrowed to dark dots of molten lava, but he couldn’t penetrate the problem. And he knew it. If Max could get close, he was as unstoppable as nerve gas. But if they saw him coming, it was over.
He bowed. Not to me. To the reality we faced.
“We can’t bring no outsiders in on this. Family only,” the Prof said in his on-the-yard voice. “That means we ain’t got but three ways to play. The Mole don’t jam, you got to slam, Schoolboy. Otherwise, Michelle’s gonna—”
“I know that,” I told him.
“You got to be the monster, my brother. Wesley’s gotta be there, you understand?” Telling me there would be no El Cañonero this time—he wasn’t family.
“I won’t miss,” I told him.
“You do, we’re all through,” the little man said, hand on my shoulder.
It was chilly on the roof, but I was colder inside. Sunday morning, three hours past midnight, the sun still a couple of hours short of Show Time. The primitive part of my brain pressured me to check in—howl at the moon just to hear the return cries and assure myself that my pack was close by—but I kept my hands away from the cellular in my coat. No traffic on the street, no traffic over the airwaves—that was the deal.
I made myself relax. Fall into the mission. Slow down. Think of something warm. Last contact with the other world: Crystal Beth, chasing Vyra out of the hotel bedroom with a hard smack to her bottom, giggling at Vyra’s squeal. Then coming over to me.
“It’s time,” she said. “You can do it now. I want you. Before you go, I want you.”
“I—”
“You can do it, darling. Hercules is alive. You know it now. I want . . .”
“What?”
“Your baby. I want your baby. I want your life in me no matter what happens. I swear to you, Burke. Listen to me: This is a holy promise. I will be a wonderful mother. I will protect our baby with my life. Our house will always be safe. Please, honey. Come on. No matter what happens, your child will have your name. You’ll never die.”
“Crystal Beth, you—”
“Two names on the birth certificate. Two. Yours and mine. We are mated. I’m not trying to change your mind. You have your purpose, and I wouldn’t stand in the way. But leave me this, yes? A baby. Your name. And my love.”
“I—”
“Maybe your baby’s already there,” she said softly, patting her slightly rounded belly. “Condoms don’t always—”
“I can’t make babies,” I cut her off. “I had myself fixed. A long time ago.”
A tear dropped from one almond eye down her broad cheek. “But you can still make love,” she whispered. “And that’s where babies are
meant to come from, right?”
It was four-forty-five when the cellular throbbed in my chest pocket. I was alone on the roof, but I’d disabled the ring, just in case.
“Got ’em.” The Prof’s voice.
“All of them?”
“Full cylinder,” he said, ringing off.
A full cylinder was six. Where was the detonator man? Where was he? Where was this man who threatened everything sacred to me on this earth? The man who would burn my safe house to the ground? Where was the filthy motherfucking . . . ? Wesley called to me from beyond the grave and I filled in the blank: where was the . . . target?
Dehumanizing the enemy.
Icing up.
It wasn’t a man I had to kill, it was a thing.
A hateful, malignant, evil thing.
Not “him” . . . “it.”
The coyote had spotted the prey—time for the badger to do its part.
In the winter we’d made, food was life.
And only death would harvest it.
Now that he’d called in, the Prof would bail, but he was on foot and he couldn’t get far. Terry was down there someplace too, looking like a teenage boy with spiked hair, stumbling home from one of the clubs. Carrying homicide in the side pocket of his long black coat. No way to stop him from coming. No way to stop him at all if he spotted the creature who would hurt his mother. The Mole had dropped him off a good distance away, but if the kid picked up the scent . . .
Max the Silent was down there too, somewhere in the shadows, raging and lethal. We couldn’t keep him away either. And if he saw the van first . . .
It had to be me. And we only had a few—
“On Hudson, between Jay and Harrison.” The Mole, soft voice throbbing through the phone.
“You sure?”
“Gray Ford Econoline van. Driver only. Says ‘Benny’s Kosher Deli’ in black letters on the sides.”
“Can you jam—?”
But he was already gone.
I hit the speed-dial switch, said “Go!” as soon as it was picked up. I dropped the phone into my pocket and ran across the roof, holding the night-vision scope in both hands, willing Wesley into me.
There it was. Maybe four blocks away. A good spot—Hudson pulled plenty of commercial traffic even that early in the day—nobody would look twice at a van.
The clock high on the steeple corner at Worth and Broadway chimed five times behind me. I swept the area with the scope. No sign of Terry. I knew I’d never see Max even if he was down there. Not much time now . . .
A pearlescent white Bentley coupe came west up Leonard Street, heading for the T-turn on Hudson just north of where the van was parked. The big car moved with slow confidence, a rich rolling ghost. It pulled to the curb and a slim black man climbed out. He was wearing a Zorro hat and a calf-length white fur coat. A woman got out the passenger side. A white woman with long blond hair wearing a transparent plastic raincoat. I could see them talking. Saw the man’s hand flash against the woman’s face. Then he shook her, hard, and wrenched the raincoat off her body. She was standing there in red spike heels and dark stockings, covered only in a tiny white micro-mini and a skimpy black top. She walked a few feet away. A little purse slung over one shoulder banged against her hip. Hooker’s kit: just big enough for a few condoms, some pre-moistened towelettes, a little bottle of cognac, maybe a tiny vial of coke. And the night’s take.
The pimp waited until she looked back over her shoulder, then he pointed his finger warningly and climbed back into his ride, holding the plastic raincoat in one hand. The Bentley took off, making the left onto Hudson and moving right past the van.
The hooker stood on the corner, shivering but hipshot, waiting. A delivery truck passed. She made a “Hi-there!” gesture with one hand. The truck pulled over. She sashayed toward it, waving her hips like a flag. Leaned into the cab of the truck. No Sale. The truck pulled away.
A dark Acura sedan turned the corner. The hooker waved, but the car never slowed.
I snapped the tripod together, positioned the heavy rifle and spun the set-screw to tighten the rig. I nestled my cheek against the dark wood stock, starting to connect. The rifle was bolt-action, unsilenced. It would have to be a one-shot kill or it was all over anyway. I wondered where the target’s hands were. If the detonator wasn’t armed, we had a window of safety. But then the Mole couldn’t find it to jam it and . . .
Dejectedly, the hooker started to walk up Hudson in the same direction the Bentley had gone, arms wrapped around herself for warmth. Cold comfort. I cranked the scope up to full magnification. The van driver was barely visible, just a dark blot in the side window. I prayed for him to be a smoker, but the interior stayed dark.
I had watched Wesley work. That clear-skyed night when he took a mobster off a high bridge, working from a dinky little island in the East River, I was standing right next to him. I knew how to do it.
Breathing was the key. I slowed mine way down, knowing I had to squeeze the trigger between heartbeats. Ignoring the pain in my damaged right hand, my finger on the unpulled trigger, caressing, probing for the sweet spot. So hard to shoot down, calculate the drop. My eye went down the barrel, finding the cartridge. I looked past the primer into the bullet itself. Full metal jacket—I needed penetration, not expansion. It had to be a head shot. Blow his brain apart, snap the neuron-chain to his hand. The hand on the detonator.
I became the bullet. Seeing into his skull. Locking the connection with my spirit before I sent death down the channel.
To keep my house safe.
My heart was a clock, every tick an icepick in a nerve cluster. How much time?
The hooker walked right past the van, not giving it a glance, looking over her shoulder at the wide street, hoping for some traffic. Suddenly, she stopped, turned to stare right at the van, hands on hips. I could see she was saying something. No reaction from the van—it was as dark inside as I was.
Except for that white blob. The target.
The hooker walked over, nice and slow, giving the detonator man a real eyeful. Nothing. She came right up to the van, rapped on the window like it was a door. The window came down. The hooker’s left hand was on the sill, her right hand dropped down to her purse. I saw a whitish face in the scope, wearing a dark baseball cap. Zeroed in until I was one long, thin wire of hate—my mind to my finger to my eye to the slug to the target.
I caught the rhythm of my heart. Started the slow squeeze on the trigger in the dead space until the next beat, the electrical impulse already launched along the wire. The whitish face exploded in fire. A split second later, the sound of the shot echoed up to where I was perched. My finger was still locked on the unpulled trigger, frozen.
The wire snapped.
A motorcycle roared into life. A low-cut racing bike flowed around the back corner like liquid over a rock. The hooker yanked the tiny skirt up to her waist as the bike slid to a stop. The rider was dressed in a set of racing leathers, face hidden under a black helmet and visor. The hooker jumped on the back and the bike rocketed away so fast the front wheel popped off the ground. The blond wig flew off.
I tracked them through the scope in case they needed cover, but they faded from sight long before the bike’s raucous exhaust stopped echoing through the concrete canyon.
I worked the bolt, ejecting the unfired cartridge. It hit the rooftop with a dull thud and I dropped to one knee, pulling an infra-red micro-beam out of my pocket. I found the cartridge, scooped it up and pocketed it.
As I got to my feet I heard a rumble down below and my heart stopped. I looked over the parapet. It was a giant semi with ALCHEMY TRANSPORT SYSTEMS painted on its side, heading right past me. Toward the river. Behind it, a panel truck, a dump truck, the carting-company rig and a pair of station wagons. Convoying together.
Ground Zero, moving.
Past me. Then past a dead crumpled target in a van.
I disassembled the sniper’s outfit in seconds, threw everything into a felt-lined carry-
all. I slung the wide padded strap over my shoulder and took the stairs all the way to the ground floor, hoping that Pryce’s fix held and I didn’t run into a security guard, a silenced semi-auto in my right hand in case I did. When I saw the broad back of Max the Silent on the bottom step, I knew that last part was covered no matter what Pryce had done.
We were in the Plymouth, rolling toward the West Side Highway, when Max grabbed my arm a split second before the ground shook and the Hudson River shot straight up into the air, a skyscraper of white foam.
Then the sky behind us lit up with battlefield gunfire, tracers razor-slashing the night.
“It wasn’t the detonator,” Pryce told me thirty-six hours later. “It was armed, all right, but he never got his finger on the button before . . .”
I didn’t say anything. The detonator man had wanted to blow up the world . . . and the last thing he saw was it happening to him.
“We got all of them down the ramp and into the drink but the last one,” Pryce continued. “He must have put a timing device in that one . . . just to be sure.”
“How many—?”
“We lost four,” he said quietly. “The driver, and the three closest on the perimeter.”
“Your people were fantastic,” I told him. Not knowing a better word for heroes. Wishing I did.
The news reports said all six neo-Nazis had resisted. Five had gone down in a blaze of gunfire. No word about the silencer-equipped snipers who had taken out each of the drivers as soon as they were in place. Or how all the gunfire was for show, way after it was really over. The fire-team would have waited until they got the all-clear, counting on their backup to seal off the area. But the explosion on the river had told them they were out of time.
“Seems the van driver took Lothar’s way out,” Pryce replied dryly, telling me that was going to be the story for the press.
“I never thought you’d be able to use tranquilizer darts,” I said. “At that distance . . .”
“It was the only way,” he told me. “Even with that pink flag flying from the antenna to tell us which vehicle had your man inside, we couldn’t risk being wrong.”
Safe House Page 30
