by S. L. Huang
“You want McCabe to help?” squawked Checker.
“He’ll want to help,” I said. “Considering it’s his cause, and all.”
“And, what, you’re going to tell Simon to march in there and brainwash him into giving us the airtime and then brainwash everyone else into—”
“No,” I said. It wasn’t like I knew Simon very well, regardless of how thoroughly he haunted my dreams and flashbacks. But his holier-than-thou insistence about not touching people’s brains without their consent—me excluded, apparently—had been practically shouted from the rooftops.
I wasn’t sure I could get him to talk to anyone, even people who were intent on killing each other. Twisting around the mind of a radio host to give us airtime was definitely going to be a bridge too far.
“No,” I said again. “Simon’s not going to give us the airtime. You forget who owns half the media stations in Los Angeles—the Lorenzos.”
Checker paled. “That’s an even worse idea.”
I shrugged. “Why? Sure, they’ve been all passive-aggressive toward me lately, but the Mafia’s civilized. Besides, Malcolm only threw me through a door the last time he saw me. I don’t think he’d kill me if I asked for a meet.”
Checker stared at me. “You are insane.”
“Not right now,” I said. “But I’m sure it’ll swing back around.”
“Not funny, Cas. Not funny!”
One of his computers chimed.
We all surged forward, Arthur and I coming to scan the screen over Checker’s shoulder as he scrolled. “What dropped?” Arthur said. “Am I seeing something about a shooting here?”
Checker flipped through screens full of color-coded data. “Yeah, uh—there was a shooting a few hours ago. It’s breaking now—it looks like it was police. They killed someone. The reports are saying he was unarmed.”
“Tell me it wasn’t a white cop and a black kid,” Arthur said softly.
“No, it’s—I mean, I don’t know. But it’s looking like … background’s still coming in, and nothing’s verified, but I think the victim was one of the militia leaders.”
Oh. Oh, shit. The militia groups had been convinced the government was doing something to the population here.
And now the government had shot one of them.
No. Not the government. Rio.
I wondered how he’d engineered it.
“What’s the retaliation gonna be?” Arthur said.
“Are you asking me?” Checker’s voice climbed. “Because I don’t know the answer to that, Arthur. I don’t—”
“We have to get on this now,” I said. “If we get Simon in front of all the rest of them, maybe there won’t be a retaliation. Maybe we can stop it.”
“You’re still talking about using a telepath to—” started Checker.
“How can I help?” said Arthur.
“Arthur, wait,” Checker said. “I am not okay with this. Can we at least discuss it? You’re talking about going into the heads of a huge number of people—”
“To tell them to walk away,” I said. “To tell them to put down their weapons and not attack each other.”
“That doesn’t make it right!” cried Checker. “There have been just conflicts—there are just conflicts in the world right now. Not everyone who picks up arms is inherently wrong. And I don’t even know if they’re wrong in this case. If I thought someone had been messing with me the way we did—”
“The way we did,” I emphasized. “We—I—am responsible for fucking everything up in the first place. All I’m going to do is set it right. Back to the way it was.” Minus the militia member who had just been killed, and Miguel, and the other Blood Skulls members, and maybe Katrina, and who knew who else. All of whom had been victims of my catastrophic attempt to fight crime.
“You can’t do that!” argued Checker. “You can’t say one thing was wrong and then build another wronger thing on top of it and say you’re just reverting things—you can’t play with people’s brains like it’s a science experiment and then hit control-Z if you don’t like what comes out the other side!”
“What do you think we should do, then?” I demanded. “Seriously. Give me one other choice. You keep talking about a third option, well, find me one, otherwise stop delaying us.”
“I don’t think we should do this! Even if we can’t find another way, this is the greater of two evils!”
“Cities’ve been healed thanks to one leader’s charisma plenty of times in history. It can happen again,” Arthur said. “I can live with that. Can’t live with more folk dying. I’m sorry, son—this isn’t intellectual.”
“You can’t say that.” Checker sounded like he’d given up. Hopeless. “You can’t say that, Arthur. We make the intellectual argument because in the moment, we have to be able to see the larger picture, not the—not the emotional one.”
“And that’s where we differ, ’cause I think the emotional’s just as valid.” Arthur turned back to me. “What do you need?”
I braced for more protest from Checker, but he didn’t say anything more.
“I want you for the meeting with McCabe, when we get to that point,” I said to Arthur. “In the meantime, stay here and keep trying to reach Rio. When you do—tell him I’m calling it off and not to do anything else.”
“You think he’s got more planned?”
“I’d count on it,” I said. “Also, whatever you do, don’t tell him what we’re trying to do.” If there was one thing Rio would object to even more than brain entrainment, it was using a telepath to subvert the free will of everyone in Los Angeles who heard the radio address. I was dreading what would happen when he figured out what we’d done—the best I could hope for was that it would happen after we’d already done it, not in time for him to stop us.
I pointed at Checker. “Don’t you tell him, either.”
Checker’s face twisted like I’d hurt him. “I’m not going to sic Rio on you, Cas.”
“Are you going to try to stop us?” I asked.
He sucked in a quick, sharp inhale. “I’m going to keep looking for another way.”
“Better look fast,” I said.
twenty-nine
I DIDN’T have a way of reaching Simon except through Rio, and we still hadn’t gotten through to him. Which meant my next step was clear: prepare everything for when I did corner Simon. In other words, get a lock on that airtime we needed, which meant reaching out to the Lorenzos. I tried very hard not to worry about what would happen if I had another neurological collapse in the middle of negotiations with the Los Angeles Mafia.
After making me wait an excruciatingly long time in a cold garage, Malcolm granted me an audience from the other side of a shotgun. He didn’t greet me.
“I’m not here to make trouble,” I said, raising my hands slightly. It would be ridiculous if I were—he’d directed me to come to the mountain residence of Mama Lorenzo herself, a mansion in the Hollywood Hills that had seriously beefed up security. And since I’d told them I was here on a civilized visit, I’d had to let her people take my sidearm.
Despite my protestations of civility, Malcolm had still met me here, in one of the estate’s two enormous garages. This one was empty, with a cement floor that had a drain in the middle of it.
That wasn’t ominous at all.
“Good to see you again, too,” I said.
“I should kill you,” he answered.
“Or maybe I should kill you,” I returned evenly.
The corner of his mouth flicked up. “You flirting with me, Russell?”
I gave him a look expressing how funny I thought that was. “We want the same things right now.”
“Do we?”
“Like you all are always saying. Your boss has a code—she takes care of her city.”
“So she does.” The barrel of the shotgun stayed on me, as immobile as if Malcolm were carved from granite. I probably also had a dozen snipers trained on me, security I couldn’t see.
I tried to ignore it all. “The last thing Mama Lorenzo wants is a war breaking out on her turf. One she doesn’t control.”
“And you really expect us to believe you’re trying to stop such a war? After what you did to Pourdry and the rest of us?”
“Like you wouldn’t have shot Pourdry yourself if you had half a chance,” I scoffed. “The other stuff was just me trying to keep the peace.”
“Funny way of showing it.” Malcolm squinted at me. “And yeah, sure, we knew all about Pourdry. Know all about you, too.”
My heart started beating faster.
“Now personally, I don’t mind you, Russell,” Malcolm continued. “Even after your little ‘peacekeeping’ mission. But we’re talking business now, and that means you’re dealing with the Madre. Once she got you on her radar, she looked into your dealings. Varga, Thach, Ivchenko…”
Oh. Shit.
I’d done a few contracts each for the men Malcolm had named. I knew what he was driving at. “Those jobs were all drugs or guns,” I said. “Not kids.”
“Well then, our mistake. You’re a paragon of virtue.”
“So that’s why Mama Lorenzo’s been blackballing me,” I said. It made a breathtaking amount of sense, now that I stopped to think about it. “Not because she’s holding a grudge. Because she went and looked into me and then decided she doesn’t approve.”
I couldn’t help making the word sarcastic. Mama Lorenzo’s usual business might lean toward extortion and racketeering, with blood reserved only for those who crossed her, but we were still talking about a Mafia Madrina.
Malcolm, however, took my statement seriously. “Like you said, she’s got a code. She cleans up her town.”
Right.
An angry, desperate sort of self-consciousness crept around the edges of my conscience. I’d been trying to stop the crime wave. I’d never paused to consider I might be judged on the wrong side of it.
Sure, I took advantage of the jobs that came up, but I was a cog. Replaceable. If I wasn’t making money off something, someone else would—the only way to stop the corruption was to behead the hydra, not drive myself to the poorhouse.
General solutions, not particular ones. What I did in the day-to-day had little importance, as long as I fought the bigger evil at its root—right? After all, didn’t everyone do that? If I had a plan in place to blow up an evil corporation’s headquarters, what did it matter if I’d done some shopping at its local big box store first?
Mama Lorenzo clearly didn’t see it that way. She’d probably deemed me too difficult to off, but she could put a serious dent in my income with barely any effort, just a few words dropped into the gossip chain. I’d stockpiled enough cash that money was less than a nonissue, but the work … if Arthur and I hadn’t started crusading over the past few months, my brain would have turned inside out on me a lot sooner than it had.
I licked suddenly dry lips. It was hard to have a bargaining position with a woman who viewed you as the dregs of humanity.
“Would Madame Lorenzo be willing to set aside her opinion of me to solve the new crisis we’re about to have?”
Malcolm still hadn’t lowered the shotgun, and suddenly, without moving, his stance became more aggressive. “What new crisis?”
I swallowed. “The one that’s going to break out as soon as I put a stop to what’s in the water.”
Malcolm was way too smart for a hitman. Or maybe I was just that transparent. He paused for a moment and then said, “So that was you.”
“Put a dent in recruitment, did I?”
“You’re awfully cocky for someone who just admitted to poisoning everybody.”
More like I couldn’t help running my mouth off. Fuck. I decided to try for honesty. “It was an experiment. To see if we could turn people from a life of crime. I guess it didn’t work on you.” He had the grace to look a tiny bit amused. “But we’re pulling the plug. The problem is, LA’s become a tinderbox. The minute we stop, everyone draws and fires. That’s not good for anyone.”
I left out Rio. I wasn’t sure why—his presence and mission would probably only help my objective here. But for some reason, dragging his name into this felt … wrong. I wasn’t going to turn the Mob against him any more than they might already be, even if there was justification for it.
Malcolm exhaled through his teeth. “The Madre won’t be happy to hear all this. Won’t be happy with you. And you want our help? After you fucked us all?”
“Yeah.” Maybe he’d respect my ballsiness.
“With your mess.”
“It is my mess,” I said. “And I’m willing to pay. Whatever Madame Lorenzo wants.”
“And if it isn’t money?”
“What, then?”
“Maybe all she wants is, you run a job here in town, you clear it through her.”
“Not a chance,” I said automatically. But why refuse, if you’re only going to walk into the lion’s den after this, and let the lion sculpt you into an entirely different person? Still … I was already giving myself up to one person. I didn’t know if I’d be capable of doing it twice. “Give me something I can work with,” I said to Malcolm.
He very deliberately lifted the barrel of the shotgun an inch. “Maybe if you don’t agree to our terms, then we don’t got a deal. And maybe this being all your doing, there’s a different exchange rate for you.”
Malcolm probably wouldn’t be able to kill me here—probably, though I wasn’t sure whether I should bet on the unseen security. Still, it didn’t matter. Even considering how hard I was to kill, Mama Lorenzo had the power to make sure people didn’t stop trying until they finished the job.
But the fact remained that during this meeting Malcolm hadn’t tried himself yet, and that meant there was still room to negotiate.
“I’m not going to be her lackey,” I said slowly, more firmly than I felt. “That’s a nonstarter.”
Malcolm didn’t say anything.
“I’ll stop taking contracts for her rivals,” I offered. “Varga, Thach’s people, the Russians. Fuentes and XG44. Turner and company.”
“The Grigoryans,” Malcolm said. “The cartels. And the Russians will include Dolzhikov.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Okay.” The Grigoryans wouldn’t have hired me anyway and the cartels only rarely, so those were no skin off my back. But I’d miss working for Dolzhikov. Otherwise, the agreement would cut out my employment with all the biggest crime families in town, but I could live with it—I preferred independent contracting anyway. “She quits the blackballing, though. If I stop working for her rivals, I stop hearing other people are afraid to hire me.”
“And the water goes clean.”
“With your help.”
He nodded fractionally. “One last thing. You try any shit like that again in the Madre’s town, you talk to her first. Or your name goes on the other list.”
I supposed it said something about Mama Lorenzo’s character that she would be willing to forgive me for calming criminal enterprise across Los Angeles—even if it had impacted her—but she was making it a priority to stop me running guns into her city.
“Understood,” I said.
“Good.” He swung down the shotgun to hold it competently at his side. “What do you need?”
“Mama Lorenzo owns Norricom Media,” I said. “They fund KHBP radio. I need time on the air with Reuben McCabe.”
Malcolm blinked. I’d managed to surprise him. “McCabe? Why?”
“I need to reach his audience.”
“Folks aren’t gonna stand down just ’cause you ask them to.”
“Not because I ask them to, no.”
Malcolm studied me. “No go without the details, Russell. What’s your plan?”
“I’ve got a friend who has leverage with the militias,” I said. “And some of the others. If he can give an indication of that with enough people hearing it, they’ll back off. It’ll work.” Assuming Simon would agree to it. Whatever; I would make him.
“You
sure?” Malcolm asked.
“Yeah. I’m sure. Can Mama Lorenzo get me the airtime?”
“She’ll get you the meet. McCabe doesn’t like being strong-armed.”
“I hear Mama Lorenzo’s pretty good at strong-arming.”
He grimaced. “Free advice, Russell. You want someone’s lunch money, you threaten them. You want someone to work with you, you start off by asking nicely.”
“Sure,” I said.
“McCabe’s a political power. You get on his bad side, the Madre won’t step in.”
“Just get us the meet,” I said. “And it has to be tonight. We need to get on air with him first thing in the morning.”
It was almost midnight, but Malcolm didn’t object. This was, after all, part of the reason it was a favor.
“I’ll walk you out,” he said, gesturing at the pedestrian door at the front of the garage. “Stay by your phone.”
“Thanks,” I said.
He paused and turned back to me, his posture relaxing from its militant formidability. “I hope you do succeed. Whispers the past couple days—we’ve been getting threats. And not from the usual suspects.”
I started to put it together then, to make the connection, but too slowly. Far too slowly.
“You pull this off, it could be the start of a working relationship with the Madre,” Malcolm continued. “You’re not bad, Russell. Stay on her good side, yeah?”
I nodded.
He nodded back to me and reached out. Grasped the doorknob.
Pulled open the door.
The bullet sheared through the right side of his face with so much force it barely spun him, even as it took half his skull with it. His body lost its rigidity a split second later, as if it was only just catching up to the fact that he was dead.
I threw myself to the side, away from the door and any possible lines of sight, just as a rifle report echoed across the mountains. From very, very far away. Security had taken my handgun, but a pistol wouldn’t reach the distance the shot had come from anyway—nor would Malcolm’s shotgun, lying impotently across his still fingers.
So still. He was one of the most efficiently dangerous men I’d ever met, and now his body lay crumpled, its joints at odd angles.
