“Virgil got laid off at the mill but he still went out every day looking for work. And he’d leave money with his wife for food and other stuff for the house. One day, he comes home and there’s no money in the place. She had given it all to the freak. Virgil got into a beef with his wife about it and she couldn’t tell him what happened to the money, and Virgil had been drinking a little bit because he was down and out of work and she still wouldn’t tell him anything—he got crazy and slapped her. That was the first time he ever hit her. And then she started to cry and it all came out and he told her he would make it all right and he was sorry he hit her. Finally he calmed her down.
“He told his wife he was going to speak to the police the next day, and he left that morning like he always did. Virgil didn’t know where to find the freak, but he knew he would come around sooner or later. He was patient—when he saw the freak go upstairs he followed right behind, but when he threw open the door the freak was trying to hold his stomach together from where his wife had stabbed him—she was holding a kitchen knife in her hand and going after the freak to finish the job. The freak just lay there on the floor while Virgil and his wife screamed at each other loud enough for the whole neighborhood to hear—she was yelling at Virgil to get the hell out and let her finish what she’d started and he was trying to make her get in the bedroom and she wouldn’t go—Virgil finally just took out his own knife and gutted the freak like you would a deer you just shot. Then he went next door and borrowed a phone to call the police.
“When the cops came Virgil said he had killed the freak but his wife kept saying she was the one. They both got arrested, but Virgil made a deal and took the whole weight himself. He pleaded guilty to manslaughter, and his wife was waiting outside for him to finish his time so they could be together—she came every visiting-day . . . I had this little racket going with some of the cons and I had Virgil help me out with some of it—he sent the money he made home to his wife through a hack we knew was all right.”
I looked down at Flood, still stroking her hair. Lying next to me, she was quiet as death but her eyes were focused and I knew she was listening.
“Anyway, one day the parole board came in to interview all the guys who were eligible for release. I used to make good money coaching some of the guys on how to act in front of those lames, and I went over the whole thing with Virgil to make sure he got it right—no prior record, crime of passion, a workingman, home and family waiting for him, roots in the community, regular churchgoer—he realized that he was wrong and was full of remorse, he would be a good citizen in the future. All that bullshit.
“Before you actually get to see the board you have to see this guy we call the I.P.O., that’s Institutional Parole Officer. He does all the preliminary screening and most of us believed that the board would go with whatever he recommended. I went with Virgil to the interview and sat down at the desk right outside the I.P.O.’s office like I was the next case. It cost me twenty packs to get the seat but I wanted to make sure Virgil handled himself like we’d rehearsed. He did real fine, said everything I told him to say. But then the I.P.O. got to the crime itself. He asked Virgil flat out, ‘Why did you kill that man?’
“And Virgil just told him, ‘He needed killing.’
“That was it for the interview—it was over right then, you understand?”
Flood spoke for the first time. “I . . . think so. I don’t know.”
“Flood, how do you explain killing a cockroach? There’s some things that shouldn’t be on this planet, some things that are born to die, nothing else. Not everything fits in this life, baby, no matter what the ecology freaks say. Who needs rats? Who needs roaches? From the very second that two people sat together around a fire in the forest, there was another human out there who felt better in the dark. You understand? You’re trying to sort out Goldor in your head and it won’t work, right?”
“Yes.”
“And it never will, baby. You keep a clean house, right? You don’t sit around trying to figure out where dirt comes from—you just sweep it out of the way or vacuum it up or whatever you do. You just don’t want it in your house—you already know it’s no good for you. Goldor’s just dirt, Flood. Don’t make any more out of him.”
Flood looked up at me. She started to talk slowly, but then the words ran together and she was talking like she’d never stop. “In that room, where he took us. First I thought you were dead . . . I thought he’d killed you with that space-gun thing. But then I could see you breathe and I thought about that lipstick thing you showed me once and I was afraid you would kill him if he came near you again and I wanted him to tell me about Wilson and I thought I’d play along with him and then it got all crazy and I forgot why I was there and I knew what I was going to do—I knew I’d never find Wilson if I did and I couldn’t stop myself and I wished I could kill him some more, some more times, and I thought about the girl you told me about on that film—she was just as important as Flower and she had people who would kill Goldor if I didn’t and I knew he was going to die anyway and I wanted to keep him talking—I knew you would take the pain over in that chair and wait and I knew I could take whatever he had and I’d live through it too—I wanted him to keep talking so he’d tell me something and I thought about tying him up like he did to you and making him tell us and I couldn’t think of even touching him and then I . . .”
I was rubbing her face with the back of my hand and she was talking quietly and fast and the tears were rolling again. I talked softly to her, like a mother crooning her baby to sleep. “Flood, we will have him, baby, we have his face, we’ll have his body . . . Flood, listen to me, I understand now about the sacred weapon, I understand, okay? I know why you wanted to wear that ribbon. Lucecita knows, baby—just like Flower will know. I wanted to cancel Goldor’s ticket myself, even while I was strapped into that chair I was thinking that there must be a better way of killing him so it would mean more than just stepping on a roach. You did what was right . . .” I whispered, my voice trailing off as I patted her face, still wet with tears.
“The robes?” she asked, looking up at me.
“Yes, the black robes came from my brother, the one I told you about—the master. It was a message from him, from Max, to go and do your work. Your work with Goldor is over. Goldor’s over. Lucecita is smiling down at you now, like Flower and Sadie soon will . . .”
“Burke, if you do that for me, I swear I’ll never leave you.”
“We’ll do it—me for my reasons, you for yours. But you have to get past this, I can’t do it by myself.”
“I can’t seem to get back to myself,” she was sobbing again “—I’m trying . . .”
“I didn’t think you were a coward, Flood—I thought you were a for-real warrior. My brother thinks so too. If you can’t get back, if you left yourself in that room with Goldor, then he won. You want that? He was going to torture you for a few minutes to entertain himself. Does he get to torture you for the rest of your life? Reach down for something, damn it—and if it’s not there you just hide in this little house and I’ll go and do my work—”
“It’s not your work.”
“Yeah, it is. Dead meat brings flies. I stirred up too much already. Wilson has to go—if he’s here, sooner or later he comes for me, or he does something, I don’t know what. I put my money on the table and I paid to see the last card. You’re spitting on the only good thing in this life—we survived. We walked away from that maggot’s house. We’re alive and he’s not. And now you want to die inside so you’re not a woman anymore, not nothing. I’m not going to be nothing. When I check out of this fucking hotel it won’t be because I’m a volunteer—and you can bet your ass it won’t be with the bill paid in full either.”
Flood looked up at me, rolled over on her stomach with her head in my lap, hugging my legs hard. I patted her back, stroked her hair—waited for her decision. I’d said my piece with my mouth—but it was my mind screaming at her to stand up one more time. She muttered
something, her mouth buried in my lap.
“What?”
“You’re not so tough,” said Flood.
On a new roll now, and not knowing how to handle that last, I weighed in with, “The winner is the guy who walks out of the ring, not the guy who won the most rounds.”
“Still on that endurance thing of yours?”
“It’s the best card I have to play.”
Flood turned her head slightly so she could see me out of the corner of one eye. I couldn’t see her face, but I felt her smile in my lap.
“Endurance means you can last a long time,” she said.
“So? I lasted this long . . .”
Flood turned her head back down, opened her mouth so I could feel her hot breath between my legs. She put her teeth around me and bit down—not hard enough to threaten amputation, but close enough. She kept her mouth on me until she was satisfied with her work, then she flowed up into that lotus position facing me. “Let me take a shower. Then I want to see just how good this famous endurance of yours is.”
She walked toward the bathroom, pulling the black robe from her shoulders as she did. I sat there and smoked another cigarette and felt the pain flow back into me and pulse around my mouth—and I knew she was going to stand up.
The shower stopped before I got through the next smoke, and a dripping wet Flood padded into the room, holding a towel partially around her waist. She smiled—it was a good smile this time—and crooked her finger at me in a come-over-here gesture and I stubbed out the cigarette and followed her back into her small space.
She dropped the towel and came to me, still damp and even more of a handful than usual. Her kiss was sweet and tender, sucking the pain from my mouth. She pushed the jacket off my shoulders and pulled the T-shirt over my head, unbuckled my pants, and knelt to take them off after my boots. I kissed her and rubbed her and her body began to glow in the early morning light.
She turned and walked over to the little table, bent over and thrust her backside into the air, looking at me over her shoulder—telling me she was finished with Goldor’s demons and she had herself back.
I climbed into her as she waited, carefully at first. But the woman warrior took my hands and put them on her breasts and rolled her hips until I was fitted to her. I took her soft neck gently in my teeth and tested my endurance.
43
IT WAS JUST past ten o’clock by the time I was ready to move out. Flood and I had been through what had to be done a few dozen times, and I could see she was finally ready to sleep. I told her I’d call when I had something and went out the door. I rang for the elevator, sent it back down to the ground floor, hit the switch to call it back to me. I stood there waiting, smoking another cigarette. When I finished I ground out the butt on the floor and slipped it into my pocket. Still dead quiet.
I took the stairs down and walked to the car—it looked different in daylight, streaked and dull like it needed a bath. By now the Volvo we had used to visit Goldor would be nothing but scrap metal. Still a lot of traffic on the street, but I couldn’t wait for the night—too much to do.
The Plymouth found its way back to the office on auto-pilot. I locked it up, climbed the stairs, checking everything as I walked. Still okay. Pansy wasn’t even impatient but she stalked out the back door and onto the roof readily enough. I picked up the desk phone, cleared it for hippies, and dialed Mama’s—no messages.
Pansy rolled in the back door, I found her something to eat and I sat with her while she snarfed up the mess I’d made for her in her steel bowl—trying to think, and drawing a blank.
I went into the side room to the chest of drawers, made a hook out of a coat hanger, looped it around one of the handles on the bottom drawer, and gently pulled it out. The twin razor-tipped barbs shot out of the opened drawer like a striking snake, but they hit only air—I was standing two feet away. It wasn’t really too likely that anyone would get past all the security devices and Pansy too, but if they did I figured they should pay a little extra toll for the trip. The spring-loaded barbs would stab through anything, even padded gloves, and the solution I’d carefully painted on each tip would induce dizziness and nausea in a minute or two after that. It wouldn’t kill anybody, but it’d make them think of poison right away—and head for the nearest hospital instead of going on with their work. I only set up the bottom drawer—professionals always start that way so they don’t have to close one drawer to go to the next one—saves a few seconds on each job. For a pro, a few seconds saved on a job can mean a few years saved somewhere down the road. You learn a lot of things in prison.
Part of my stash was there. I counted the bills a couple of times. This was my case money—for emergencies only, not bullshit like food or gas. More than enough to smoke the Cobra out of his hole, if it didn’t take too long. I took some of the bills, replaced the rest, set the springs for the barbs, and carefully closed the drawer. I went back inside to the desk, got out a yellow legal pad and some felt-tip pens, pulled an ashtray close, and started to map out the campaign.
Pansy came over to me, slammed against my leg in what she thought was a friendly gesture, put her massive head on my knee and growled encouragingly. She was wasting her time—I wasn’t going inside to watch television, I had to work.
An hour passed and the yellow pad stared up at me, laughing at my blankness. At this rate I’d have to wait for the dirtbag to die of old age.
I went back into the side room and took a shower, using the time to think. Still nothing. I took an old Con Edison uniform, one of those jumpsuit outfits they used to wear, climbed into it, and sat on the floor. Pansy came over and stretched out next to me. I patted her head absently, knowing I couldn’t force it.
Finally I got up and went back to the desk, rummaged around until I found an old draftsman’s compass and a piece of cardboard. I stabbed the compass point into the cardboard and drew a two-inch circle. I used my razor knife to cut out the circle, took it back into the side room, found an ice pick, and stuck the whole thing to the wall. Another couple of minutes and I found a little can of spray paint I’d used on a videotape surveillance camera in one of those luxury apartment buildings a few months ago. I held one palm flat against the cardboard and sprayed, using the open circle as a stencil. In a minute I had myself a round black dot stark against a white piece of wall.
I found a blanket, folded it over a couple of times, and sat down. Then I looked into that dot, breathing in through my nose, forcing the air down deep into my stomach and groin, holding it there, exhaling so that my chest expanded each time. I did it again and again, in slow, steady rhythm until I found myself relaxing, looking deep into the dot. It grew larger and its edges disappeared—I was going inside the black hole and using my mind to probe out ahead of me, looking for the Cobra. Black holes are dangerous—I took Find-the-Cobra with me instead of a mantra, and I went away from this earth for a while.
Pansy’s snarl brought me out of it—something was thumping against the back window in the side room, softly but insistently. I could see an indistinct shape against the dark curtains. I got quietly to my feet, reached in the top drawer, took out the flare pistol I keep there, checked to make sure it was primed, and moved over to the window. Pansy was at my side and just ahead, on point and ready. I parted the curtains ever so slightly, leveling the gun.
It was a goddamned pigeon, trapped in the maze of wire I had built around the windowframe. Only one of his feet was caught—his wings were free and they flapped like insanity let out of a bag. If he had a bit more strength he would have triggered the electrical circuit and some wino in the alley below would have had a fried squab dinner.
I went back inside and threw the switch to the Off position—it’s clearly marked On in case some clown got in the front door somehow and decided to leave by the window—then I reached out to spring him. Pigeons are nothing more than rats with wings—I’ve never seen a city or a prison without them—but they know how to survive. I held him firmly in a gloved hand but h
e didn’t even try to peck at me. He looked okay, so I tossed him into the air and he fell like a stone for a few feet, stuck his wings out experimentally to break his fall and then banked into a river breeze and headed for another roost.
I went back inside, lit myself a cigarette, and praised Pansy for her vigilance. She probably knew it was a miserable pigeon all the time and just wanted to get me out of the trance. It took me a few drags of the smoke before it hit me. I had it worked out all the time—if you’re going fishing, you need worms, right? Now there’s about three good ways to get them: you can buy them from someone who’s selling, you could dig around in the ground and hope you got lucky, or you could wait until it rained and the worms came to the surface and you could take your pick.
That’s how I could find this freak—all three techniques, with the emphasis on the last one. Only I wasn’t going to wait for it to rain.
I went back to the desk and sat down to compose a few ads for the Personals column of some local papers. I couldn’t wait for the nationals, although it was easy enough to figure what kind of reading matter would be on Wilson’s list. It takes three or four months from the time you submit the copy until you see it in print, and he could be long gone by then. I permanently rent a few post office boxes around the city for freelance fundraising, and they would do the job here too.
First, the old reliable “SWF, widowed, young-looking 32, petite and shapely, financially secure, with two lovely daughters, ages 9 and 7. Looking for a strong man with life experience, possibly ex-military or law enforcement, to take charge of her life. Can we meet and talk about it? Letter, with picture ONLY to Box X2744, Sheridan Square Station.”
Then in the Daily News: “COURIER needed. Must be reliable, with prior military experience. Out-of-country work, must have valid passport. High pay and bonus to the right man.” And another box number.
An ad in the Times for a general houseman, good driver, competent with firearms, to serve as chauffeur-bodyguard to two young children on a Westchester estate. With another box number.
Flood Page 28
