A group of men stood in the Naugahyde nightmare of the waiting area: three gymsteak meatballs twitching in place, eager for attack commands, and their keeper, a tall man in a double-breasted suit with a pricetag that was easily north of two large. He was one of those follicle-free bald men whose pates appeared buffed, and seemed quite pink under the uncomplimentary fluorescent lighting. He had watery lavender eyes, an almost lipless mouth like a deft incision in his face, and large, powerful hands. When his enforcers saw my gun, all three moved as though Bob Fosse had choreographed them—they widened their stances and reached for their armpits. One of the bald man’s big hands came up to belay their action.
“Mr. Maddox,” he said.
“You’re Gerardis?” I asked.
“Thorvald Gerardis, yes. It’s a pleasure to meet you at last.”
Oh, boy, his tone was enough to make me want to start shooting indiscriminately.
“Skip the butter,” I said. “Please tell those gentlemen behind you to sit down and put their hands on their knees so I can see them.”
My own armpits felt cold. I fought not to blush. I could feel Zetts go guitar-string tense. My position did not allow me to track the bulldogs and hope to keep an eye on the console man at the same time; I already felt outgunned and outclassed.
The bald man jerked his head to one side; his sentries immediately complied. “As you wish. Incidentally, Mr. Maddox, we have permitted you to keep that weapon as a sign of our good faith. I’ll presume you are here to negotiate.” He shrugged as though none of this was any big deal to him. “So . . . let’s bargain. Let’s exchange information for our mutual benefit. There’s no need for any unpleasantness—”
“Stop it,” I said. “Please shove that paternal politician act straight up your ass.” I had had a lifetime’s fill of politicians and their placating schmooze.
He closed his eyes and gently shook his head at my misbehavior. “What do you want? Or rather, what do you want us to do?”
I exhaled, imagining I could smell the stink of adrenaline and fear on my own breath. “I want a secure room; no bugs, no cameras. Then I want Dandine. I want you to bring Dandine to the secure room.”
The bald man frowned and pursed his non-lips, which were slightly darker than the rest of his complexion, and as unappetizing as two animated strips of liver. “Why?”
“Because I don’t know if you’re really Gerardis or not.”
“Do you know what you’re asking?”
“Do you know what you’re risking? I was at the airport, so stop trying to sweet-talk me.”
“Don’t fuck with this guy!” Zetts blurted, with perfect timing. “This dude is not the lame you think he is!”
The bald man snapped his fingers toward the man at the console. “Do it,” he said. “Call Processing.” Then he targeted Zetts with his unforgiving gaze. “You’re the last person I expected to see here.”
“Yeah,” grumbled Zetts. “Eat me.”
The possibly-not-real Gerardis kept on Zetts. I recognized the tactic. He was trying to force us into a defensive posture. “Perhaps you should ask your little friend here what really—”
I overrode him before his words could get a grip. “I’m not stupid enough to believe that anything you say will let me walk out of here, now that I’m trapped,” I said. “This is pretty much a one-way trip no matter how we play it. So tell your men to stand down and lead us to the secret room. Please.”
There had to be a secret room. There is always a secret room. I was toast if there wasn’t a secret room.
“What you request will take a while,” said Gerardis, if that’s who he was. “You can appreciate that we’re dealing with sensitive issues. I don’t suppose you would lower that weapon?”
“No chance. Mr. Zetts, here, is my asset, and he’s the only thing keeping you from erasing me right now.”
Our host seemed amused by that.
“One more thing,” I said. “Open up your jacket. Hike it up and show me the back of your waistband. Then pull up your pantlegs, one at a time, and do it slowly.” I backed up, keeping Zetts in front of me, trying to better cover the room while the bald man complied. His aura of weary tolerance reminded me of Jenks, in the limo, and I was aching to hit him in the face.
“Satisfied?” he asked.
“Okay. Now, find us that room. One where we aren’t monitored.” He nodded again at the console man, who entered some data and spoke low into his headset. The center set of elevator doors rolled open.
“After you,” I said.
The bald man abandoned his entourage. “Would you like some coffee?”
“Shut up.”
It was impossible to walk down the featureless corridor with anything akin to adequate cover. I settled on making the bald man lead, while I kept Zetts in rein and put my back to the wall, scooting along one step at a time so I could watch the doors at both ends of the passage. Our host walked ahead (hands in pockets, as I had instructed) and never turned to address us directly, although that did not stop him from comment.
“I know it sounds crazy, Mr. Maddox,” he said, “but really, this is unnecessary. You are inside a completely secure facility and I doubt if you have any idea of the layout, ingresses, exits, anything. If our intention was simply to kill you, that could have been accomplished multiple times on the outside, with no fuss. We merely wish to work out a situation that has clearly become infected and is out of control. Once we discuss this, you’ll see how much of it has been a simple misunderstanding—on our part, as well as yours.”
“The magic word,” I said.
Dandine’s warning to me, on the night we first met, was blooming to full, rancid life: . . . if an important-looking functionary smiles and tells you it’s all just a ‘misunderstanding,’ then brace yourself for a bullet to the head.
But it was even better, more horrible. Everything the bald man said stank of speechwriting, multiple drafts, polished and honed. He spoke to lull. He reasserted that he was the power, and I was alive only through his good graces. Then he proffered attractive-sounding solutions and opportunities for negotiation. It was all no big deal, a mere line of annoyance to be crossed out on a contract or covered by a handy rider clause. Then he had used the M-word.
“Tell me something,” he said. “I’m curious as to how you forced one of our most elusive decommissions to resurface.”
“Dandine?”
“If that’s what he calls himself these days. It’s one of those happenstances that amazes me. We’ve been looking for him for the better part of a year. No luck. Then you stumble into the mix, and bang—there he is. You accomplished this by complete accident?”
“He came into my house,” I said. “You said ‘we.’ Why don’t you say NORCO?”
“Hm. We never say that. It doesn’t exist. Don’t you know that by now? You really are hanging on a twig and a prayer, aren’t you?”
“Don’t make him mad,” said Zetts, daring a wink at me.
After another set of doors and a duplicate set of watchdogs waved off by the bald man, we arrived at a room within a room. The effect was of a rectangle of tempered glass about twelve by fourteen, suspended in midair, equidistant from the concrete walls and ceiling. It was supported by a fragile looking crosshatch of aluminum girders and accessed by a small catwalk. Even if you were seated at the minimal conference table and chairs within, the illusion of floating would be unnerving. Two squat, black air handlers were stationed in opposite corners, cycling exhaust to secure vents. No obvious wires or intercoms; it reminded me of Zetts’s electronics cage, turned inside out. The only solidity to the arrangement came from the steel doors for the sole access, which required another, different keycard to open.
I was wasting time being dazzled. This wasn’t an after-hours tour behind the workings of some chic hot spot.
“Another thing,” I said. “I want the man who holds your leash. You keep talking like you’ve already won some sort of victory, but you don’t say anything.”
“Don’t assure me of dick. I want Dandine here, and I want your boss—somebody who can actually make a decision. Offer expires very soon, now. Guess what expires after that? I just might shoot you first, on general principles.”
“You would never have a chance of leaving this complex,” said the bald man dryly. Our voices did not echo in the chamber, but seemed absorbed by the filtered air. Soundproofing.
“You don’t get it yet. I don’t care what order I shoot you in. And after that? Know what? I don’t give a fuck what happens after that.”
I startled myself because it was true. Even if my life was not over, my old life was gone. And even if I rejoined the world of the walking dead and went through the motions at my former job, I would be dead inside because my concept of the world had just been murdered by the actualities of the true world.
The bald man permitted himself a nasal snort of indignation. “My superior has been advised. As you can see, he is not here. Does that apprise you of your worth? I’m just here to do business.”
My hands had stopped shaking. All of a sudden, I felt right at home. Two more bully-boys waited, chests out, chins up, near the catwalk. I wondered what NORCO’s per annum payout for muscle was. What the sliding wage rate might be for those helpless, pissed off dupes we had bagged at the airport. The bonus scale for the shooters in the van on the freeway, or at Varga’s, or the assassins who had tried to nail Theodore Ripkin at his own house. Did they get health benefits? Vacations? Was it a cop-flavored come-on: You get to kill people? Were there that many embittered sociopaths and disgruntled triggermen that NORCO could afford to use them expendably?
“We’re all here to do business,” I said. “Please tell those two men to stand back from the door.”
“Outside,” the bald man directed them. “This won’t take long.” He had one foot on the catwalk.
That’s when something hit me in the neck like a jab from a prize-fighter, something hot and rattlesnake-fast that caused my vision to white-out. My nerves locked before I had the time to fall down, the gun in my hand was a million miles distant, and I was history long before I completed my graceless descent to the floor.
Do you expect me to talk?
No, Mr. Bond—I expect you to die!
Please pardon my little filmic flashback, my mental bullet-quote from the middle of Goldfinger. My system had been battered for the past few days on sedatives, nutrients, then the Mole Man’s illicit stimulants—soak, rinse, repeat—and so my memory was backing up and slopping over into a delightful bathroom comedy subtitled “Get the Mop.” You go up and down enough times, and eventually you climax or flame out. What I knew, or observed, versus what I thought I had seen, or heard, was running together into a bilious soup of images, as time sped up, slowed to a crawl, and folded back on itself altogether.
About to enter the glass chamber, I had thought: This is where it all gets explained, where the bad guy wastes valuable time in spieling off his master plan so the good guy can prevail. Why? For the benefit of the audience, who presumes motive even for the senseless crimes committed every day. Somebody’s baby dies in a banger drive-by, then somebody else on the news says it was because the shooters were really after the teenage delinquent in the same house, and everybody relaxes and thinks, oh, so that was the reason. Then the incident can be filed and forgotten. Some senator crashes and burns with his pants down and no one asks for the cost-benefit analysis of assassination; normal citizens look at the death, stack it against their own conceptions of morality, and shut the file, thinking, he got what he deserved.
Real life, as it turned out, was not one of those count-to-three scenes.
“Dude, wake up, we’re in deep shit!”
Okay, so Zetts was still alive. Dood.
I pried my left eye open and saw Dandine. He had burn marks on his scalp and one of his eyes was rimed in dry blood. He was cantilevered into one of the chairs on the far side of the conference table inside the glass cube, his legs splayed dumbly, insensate. His shirt had blood on it. His hands were bloody. The belt was gone from his trousers and he had no shoes. He appeared vaguely alive.
The bald man—Gerardis, although I was now cunning enough to await verification of his identity—stood a safe distance away from where the three of us were grouped. Me, Dandine, and Zetts.
“Dart’s still hanging out your neck, brah,” said Zetts. It felt more like a drafting pencil was shoved halfway through to my esophagus.
I got my right eye open in time to see Gerardis glance back at his two sentries, who were outside the secure room, near the catwalk. I wondered why they weren’t inside with us, beating us up, acting hard. Two guns were on the table: Dandine’s frightening Beretta and the SIG SAUER I had brought in. Gerardis lifted the SIG and thumb-checked the chamber. A repulsive half-smile jerked up one corner of his lipless mouth, like paper curling to fire. He drew down on Dandine from about seven feet away.
Dandine was looking at me. His expression said, it doesn’t matter . . . it’s okay . . .
He had obviously been beaten or tortured to within a thread of death. I wondered if he had lost any other body parts.
Zetts was seated on my other side. I could see his cuffed hands behind the chair. He, too, was watching me, and made sure I noticed when he gave his wrists a twist and smoothly jerked the cuffs apart. I had bought the break-aways at the Hollywood Magic Shop—part of the plan—but Zetts was too far away from Gerardis to deter him. Zetts kept his freed hands behind the chair, waiting for an opening, a mistake, something we might advantage.
“You okay?” Dandine asked.
“So-so,” I said.
At this point, Gerardis should have butted in with a snide recrimination like oh, how sweet, or a pithy quip such as you two will have all the time in the world to chat in Hell. That was how it was going, right now, aboveground, in the world of Confirmed Kill and Mason Stone’s superheroics. Once again: Reality. Fantasy. Not the same.
Gerardis’s finger tightened on the trigger, confident in his headshot.
My legs were asleep, but I could still tell them what to do. I lunged out of my chair and got in front of Dandine.
In that moment, my job didn’t matter. My apartment didn’t matter. My equity and net worth did not matter. Nor did washing my car, paying my debts, or settling my satellite bill. Maybe getting a pet, some goldfish or a dog—unimportant. All my loves and false loves, done well or botched badly, meant nothing. Fantasies for my future; regrets for my past. Movies I had not seen, nor far ports yet untraveled. It did not matter that I would never again enjoy my comfort foods, or driving fast, or sinking a ball in a dicey, three-rail combo shot. All my conditional triumphs, all my abject failures; null sum. Katy Burgess and my imaginary future with her were irrelevant. Nothing mattered in that moment, which was blissfully free of all history and all thought.
Free. I was free. Finally.
The confinement of the secure room made the gun sound like a howitzer going off. I fell across Dandine’s body and dumped us both to the floor with all the grace of a pair of winos in a bum-fight. The muzzle-flash of the gunshot blinded me; I was staring right down the bore. The end.
There was a great deal of blood. So much blood that it struck the far glass wall and coated it as though bombed by a paint balloon. Ever see those antacid commercials that boast about pink goo coating your clear glass stomach? Like that.
I humped to hands and knees, my limbs numb as the ticking in a stuffed panda, spellbound by the spray of crimson dripping down the wall. The far wall.
The wall behind Gerardis.
Gerardis was still standing. Well, some of his bones were still holding him upright. Chunks of his vaporized gun hand spattered the glass in wet gobbets, as though a vulture had dropped part of a snack in midflight. All of his face and parts of his head accounted for the bloody mush oozing down the entry wall. When his body fell forward, his shoulder hit the conference table and flipped him onto his
back. His corpse hit the glass floor and began making a puddle.
“Got you,” said Dandine. “Prick.”
Zetts dived forward, surfing on his butt across the conference table in a home-run slide. He stripped off one of his dummy cuffs and jammed the prong into the card-access slot for the door. It made an alarming noise of malfunction and the LED remained red.
On the other side of the door, the two sentries were trying to get in. They were specters limned in haze, rendered faint by speckles of scarlet spray paint. One of them hit the door with a fist in frustration.
Zetts collected the Beretta and checked the loads before rejoining us. He helped me get vertical, back into my chair. Dandine refused assistance. Zetts left him on the floor, then sat on the edge of the table, facing us.
“Trust me, it feels better down here,” said Dandine. His voice sounded cracked, more a whisper. Maybe they had burned his vocal cords.
“What happens now?” I said.
“No gunplay, I hope,” said Zetts. “I don’t shoot guns.”
“It’s like a rule,” croaked Dandine. “He doesn’t shoot guns. Never ever.”
A wave of nausea tried to bend me. My eyes bulged as though they were about to emergency-eject like pimentos sucked from two olives. My gorge swelled and I gulped hot acid. The dart was still dangling from my neck. I yanked it out. Nasty golden thing, aerodynamic, a tiny hypo of the sort delivered by a gas gun.
Red shadows moved outside as the guards tried to un-fuck the door. Zetts would know how to compromise a computer-controlled entryway. He could drive, he could hack, and he could anticipate what lesser talents might attempt in the realm of electronic security.
“You’re fucking unbelievable,” I said to Dandine. “You gave me a gun that blows up.”
“I knew you’d never shoot anybody,” said Dandine, from the floor. “You’re not a guy who shoots people. You don’t have the wiring for it.”
This seemed mildly insulting. “The damned thing was a fireback, wasn’t it?”
Dandine gave a weary thumbs-up. “Kept it. Sorry I had to give it to you. But that was the only way I could get it in here. Good thing you jacked out the first round, or my head would be on fire right now.” He pursed his lips. “I knew you would.”
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