Powder Burn

by Blake Banner

  “I…”

  She stood very close with her head bowed, almost touching me. She put her drink down and placed her other hand on my chest, beside the other. “Lacklan, I should go. This is not a good idea…” She looked up, brushed my cheek with her lips and whispered, “I am sorry…”

  And next thing, she was closing the door behind her and running for the elevator. I stood looking at the closed door for a while, then carried my drink out to the terrace, wondering what the hell had just happened. I leaned on the parapet and looked out at the Hudson, vast and old as time, and said aloud, “Did I just get pumped?” I reviewed everything I had told her and decided I wasn’t sure. Then I reviewed everything she had told me and wondered if I had been fed.

  Or perhaps what she had told me was basically true, and all she was doing was protecting her career. Perhaps.

  I drained my glass, phoned Abi and talked to her for half an hour, then went to bed.

  * * *

  Next morning, I was up at five AM to go running beside the river. I ran for half an hour, trained for an hour, and ran back for another half. At seven, I had breakfast and set out for West 116th before the traffic got heavy. There was a dark Dodge Charger with me most of the way, but it turned off at West 113th and didn’t reappear.

  I drove around for a while, keeping my eye on the mirror. I didn’t see anything suspicious, so at just after eight, I parked outside the dojo and waited for it to open. At eight thirty, a young woman showed up in a tracksuit and a sleepy face. She unlocked the steel roller blind, heaved it up and went inside. A minute later, the lights inside flickered and came on. I climbed out of my car, grabbed a sports bag from the back seat and crossed the sidewalk to push in through the door.

  It was a small, functional reception area with a small counter on the right, a computer and a couple of shelves of dobok, belts and books. Straight ahead, there were double doors that gave on to the dojo, and to the left there was a passage with a sign that said, ‘changing rooms’.

  The girl behind the counter smiled and said, “You’re keen.”

  I returned the smile. “Sure am.” I pointed toward the changing rooms. “OK if I…?”

  “Sure, knock yourself out.”

  I laughed. “I’ll try not to.”

  She laughed back and I went in. The passage was long, narrow, and dimly lit. The first door on the right was the men’s changing rooms. I stepped inside and flipped the switch by the door. After a moment, there was a buzz and a crackle and the strip lights came on overhead, illuminating a functional, tiled room. There were eight showers along the left-hand wall. A bench ran along the right hand wall and the wall at the end was taken up by a bank of lockers. I found number thirty-two and opened it.

  Inside there was a dobok, a black belt, which surprised me, and a diary. I took out the diary, put it in my bag and went back to reception. The girl looked surprised. “You ain’t staying?”

  I shook my head. “Got a call. Cerebral infarction. Got to operate.”

  Her eyes went wide. “Oh, OK…”

  I pushed out and loped across the sidewalk toward the Zombie. As I approached, I noticed the Charger was parked right behind it. The doors opened and four men in almost identical dark blue suits climbed out. They all had open-necked white shirts and they were all wearing very black Wayfarer sunglasses. The closest was balding on top and had a face like an angry brick. He was showing me a badge. The guy just behind him looked Italian. Behind him were a black quarterback whose head looked too small for his body and a gorilla whose jaw was too big for his head.

  The guy with the badge said, “Detectives Marsh and Delano. What’s in your bag?”

  I put a smile on the right side of my face and said, “Who are your big friends? Haven’t they got badges to show me?”

  “Don’t get cute. What’s in the bag?”

  “Don’t get cute? Seriously? Who writes your dialogue, Mickey Spillane?”

  He snarled, “OK, smartass...”

  I saw him reach for his piece. I held up both hands and spoke loudly. “OK! Take it easy!” I threw the bag at his feet. “Take the goddamn bag!”

  In the same motion, I took a step toward him, slipped my left hand behind his head, and as he tried to back away, I smashed the heel of my hand into the side of his jaw, dislocating it and shattering the joint. As I released his neck, I slipped my hand under his jacket and pulled out his piece. As he staggered back and went down, over his shoulder I put two slugs through the gorilla’s face and watched his brain plume out the back of his head. It was a surprisingly big plume.

  The black quarterback had a revolver in his hand and was crouching to take aim. I double-tapped into his huge chest and he stopped, gaped and stared down at the two red-black holes. He looked astonished, like he’d expected to be a hard target.

  Meanwhile, Delano hadn’t gone for me. He’d gone for the bag. He snatched it from where it lay on the sidewalk and made a dash for their car. I hesitated a fraction of a second. I could have shot him, but I wanted him alive. So I ran.

  I caught up with him as he was wrenching the door open. He reached for his weapon but I smashed my boot into the side of his knee and slammed my open right palm into his ear. He staggered and as he slid down the side of the car, struggling to straighten his legs, I reached out for the bag. That was when a small moon hit me in the back of the head.

  I blacked out for half a second. When I came around, struggling to understand what had happened, I was lying on the sidewalk on my back. Marsh was standing, making a horrible, whimpering noise through his broken mouth. He had my sports bag in his right hand and he was pulling open the driver’s door of the Dodge. Delano was holding his head in his hands and half-running, half staggering around to the passenger’s side. I still had Marsh’s revolver in my fist. I tried to aim, but my vision was blurry. I let off two rounds, but next thing, the car was reversing, burning screaming rubber. It screeched to a halt, turned, then bolted forward and they were away, headed east at speed, down West 116th Street.

  I scrambled to my feet and tried to stand, but my legs turned to jell-O underneath me. I fell, got up again and staggered to the Zombie. I clambered in and, trying to blink the pain from my head and the haze from my eyes, hit the ignition and slipped out fast and silent after the Dodge.

  They were erratic, changing lanes without warning, accelerating insanely, then braking and swerving between cars. They were drawing attention to themselves, which meant they were desperate. I hung back. I didn’t need to stay close. They were not going to be hard to follow.

  At Frederick Douglass, they jumped the lights, screeched right and fishtailed half across the road with black smoke spewing from their tires. By the time I reached the intersection, the lights had changed and I followed easily. My head still felt like I had a blunt axe wedged in it, but my vision was clearing.

  They turned northwest onto St. Nicholas, then left and west again onto St. Mary’s Place. I began to get an idea where they were going. Next thing, they turned onto Broadway and were accelerating fast and crazy toward the George Washington Bridge. I stayed just out of sight, but I knew that with the Zombie’s acceleration, I could catch them whenever I needed to.

  Crossing the bridge they began to slow, but their driving was still crazy and erratic, and I guessed it was because Marsh was driving, and with a broken jaw, he had to be in a hell of a lot of pain in his head.

  They came off onto the Palisades Interstate Parkway and I began to smile to myself, despite the pain in my head. It was about time I started doing what I was good at, and getting some answers.

  TEN

  I knew I had about two miles in which to catch them, and I began to close in so they could see me in their rearview mirror. By the time we hit exit 1 for Englewood and Palisade Avenue, I was right up their asses and all they could see in their mirror was the massive hood of the Mustang bearing down on them. They came off, cornering hard, with black smoke streaming from their back tires. I stayed with them, keeping ins
ide and lining them up amidships. As they came out at the bottom of the loop, I floored the pedal, accelerating to over 100 MPH in a count of one, and rammed them hard just behind the front passenger door. The Dodge jumped sideways, the engine screamed, and as the tires bit the road again the whole car staggered and careened out of control. I rammed it a second time and it rolled onto its roof on the grass verge. Then it rolled again and landed on its wheels. I pulled over in front of them and climbed out.

  I walked to the driver’s side and wrenched open the door. When I looked inside, I could see that the airbags had deployed and deflated. Marsh was leaning forward, making pathetic moaning noises. His eyes were rolling back in their sockets. I leaned in, took hold of his head in an arm lock and broke his neck. His worries were over. I looked across at Delano. He was very still and his eyes were closed. I went around, pulled open the door, and felt his pulse. He was alive. I took his weapon, stuck it in my waistband and undid his seatbelt. Then, I dragged him onto my shoulder and carried him to the back of the Zombie. There, I opened the trunk and slung him in. After that, I went back to the Charger. I found the diary on the floor, under Delano’s seat. I took it to my car, put it in the glove compartment, and took off fast. I didn’t rejoin the interstate. I turned right onto Sylvan Avenue and then headed north toward the forests that surround Green Brook Pond.

  I took it easy. The big dent in the front of my car made it conspicuous, and with an unconscious man in my trunk, I didn’t want to draw any more attention to myself. After two miles or so, I found the turn off that I was looking for. A small track that passed under the interstate and wound its way down into the forest, where there was an old, dilapidated shack I knew about, secluded among the trees, not far from the banks of the river.

  The track ended where a massive pine tree stood at the center of a large, circular clearing. To the left there was an overgrown path, trodden over years through deep grass and nettles to a ramshackle, weather-beaten cabin surrounded by giant pines.

  I opened the trunk and Delano looked up at me with groggy, stupefied, frightened eyes. I grabbed him by the scruff of the neck, dragged him out and dumped him on the track at my feet. He curled up and shielded his head. I said, “Can you walk?”

  He nodded.

  “Get up. Stop cringing. I don’t want to hurt you if I don’t have to. Get going.”

  He struggled to his feet and I showed him his piece. He didn’t react, he just turned and made his way toward the old cabin. Most of the windows had been boarded up, but over the years, some of those boards had been pulled away and the windows opened. The door had also been nailed shut at some point, but then somebody had torn it open to gain access for some reason, and no one had ever bothered to nail it shut again.

  He pushed on the door and it scraped open. Inside, it was bare boards and a lot of junk, including a broken chair and some torn duct tape. He stood in the middle of the floor and turned to face me. He looked scared. To me, he looked scared enough to cooperate. So I spoke quietly. “Sit down on the floor. Take your shoes off.”

  He swallowed, then sat awkwardly and started pulling off his shoes.

  I said, “You Italian?”

  He glanced at me. “Yeah.”

  “New Jersey?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  I made a face. “What, you started with the Mob, then graduated?”

  “Somethin’ like that.”

  “You married?”

  He was holding one shoe in his hands and looked up at me. He’d gone a pasty gray color.

  I smiled. “How many kids?”

  He shook his head. “I ain’t married. No kids.”

  I waved the gun at his feet. “The socks, take’em off.” As he started pulling at them, I went on, “I don’t need to check your wallet to know you’re married, Delano. I can see it in your face, and the ring on your finger. But here’s the deal. You cooperate, work with me, and you get to go home to your wife and kids tonight. Give me a hard time and I won’t kill you. I’ll leave you to be eaten alive by the river rats.” I hunkered down in front of him and looked him straight in the eye. “Do I look to you as if I am bluffing? Do I need to prove I mean it?”

  He shook his head. He was sweating and his color hadn’t improved. There is a definite point beyond which I won’t go. Feeding a family man to rats while he’s still alive is well beyond that point. But he didn’t know that.

  I said, “Give me your cell.”

  He handed it to me and removed his other sock. I picked them up and threw them out the door where he couldn’t reach them. Then I leaned against the wall. “This is how this works, Delano. I ask you a question. You answer. Some of the questions I already know the answer to. They’re only there to test if you’re lying. Other questions I don’t know the answer to. If I catch you in a lie, I blow off your elbow. A second lie, the other elbow, then your knees. Then I leave you for the rats.” I spread my hands. “You know the drill, you’ve done similar things yourself, right?”

  He nodded. “You don’t need to keep scaring me, mister. I ain’t a hero. I could’a took a pop at you back there, but I didn’t. I left the Mafia to get away from this kind of shit, and I wind up in this outfit.”

  “Good. Let’s start right there then. What is ‘this outfit’ exactly?”

  He shrugged. “That ain’t no secret. It’s a private security company, Mars Security. It’s stupid, you can call me a sissy, but I really don’t like violence. It makes me sick to my stomach. I told the don, he’s my cousin’s uncle, I can’t do this kind’a thing, he said, it’s OK, I could go, get a job. I never cheated no one, you know? Nobody has a beef with me. So I wind up with fuckin’ Mars Security…”

  “I didn’t ask you for your goddamn biography, Delano, cut to the chase.”

  “OK! So my cousin told me he had a friend who could use a guy like me in his private security outfit. I thought, you know, all I had to do was stand around and look tough. I can do that. But they’re recruiting for this contract with some billionaire who needs a fuckin’ private army. The big boss, he’s my cousin’s friend, he puts it in the hands of a guy…” He looked at the wall, nodding to himself. We might have been having coffee at Toby’s Estate. “What’s his name, it’ll come to me, fuckin’ Scottish guy, I can’t understand a fuckin’ word he says. Sykes! Sykes! I knew I’d remember. Martin Sykes.

  “Yeah, so Sykes is in charge of the operation. And he hears through the grape vine I was involved with the Mob. I told him, you know? I don’t do that no more. But he says, ah, don’t worry about it—he says, ‘Dinni woorrih’ like that, ‘Dinni woorih!’ Talks like he’s havin’ a fuckin’ stroke. The money’s great. Just do the fuckin’ job, he says.”

  I’d worried about making him talk. The problem was going to be getting him to shut up. I cut him short. “So Sykes is employed by Mars to run this guy’s security.”

  “That’s what I just got through tellin’ you.”

  “So who is ‘this guy’?”

  He held up both hands. “OK, now don’t get mad. I’m tellin’ you the truth. I can tell you where he lives, but his name, I ain’t sure. I think he’s called Troy, but if I said that was his first name or his surname, I might be lying. He’s got a fuckin’ palace on the corner of Lincoln Avenue and Booth Street, in Englewood. It’s like in the middle of a fuckin’ park. I seen some nice houses in my time. You can imagine, right? The dons…”

  “Delano?”

  “Yeah, what?”

  “Am I going to have to shoot you to shut you up?”

  “Yeah, I know. I run off at the mouth. I can’t help it. My wife says it’s because I’m a Gemini. I think it’s when I get nervous. Right now, I’m nervous. I’m nervous. It’s understandable. You might shoot me.”

  “Only if you don’t shut up, right? So relax.”

  “OK. I’ll relax.”

  “Why were you tailing me?”

  “Sykes told us to follow you and report back on what you did.”

  “The question was why?
”

  He hunched his shoulders and gesticulated like only Italians know how, with both hands. “That’s why we was doin’ it. I don’t know why he wanted to know where you was goin’ and what you was doin’. We ain’t exactly pals. We don’t discuss his inner motivations and his fuckin’ emotional conflicts! You know what I’m tellin’ you? He tells me do it, I do it. Besides, I already told you, I can’t understand a goddamn thing he says. He says, follow this car, see where he goes, who he sees, and report back to me. That’s what I do”

  “You killed Zack, Hans, Hattie…”

  He shook his head. “Marsh did that. I told him, I didn’t sign up for this, you understand what I’m saying to you? I signed up to stand on his fuckin’ drive in a nice Hugo Boss suit, with my shades an’ a fuckin’ microphone in my ear, lookin’ mean. I didn’t sign up to go kill homeless kids.” He shook his head. “Marsh was in the Marines. He’s used to killing people. That was a shame.”

  “What about Bran? Marsh went with a woman.”

  “I don’t know, on my mother’s life, I wasn’t there. He went with somebody else.”

  “Troy wanted them dead?”

  He nodded. “They was only young. And that girl. What he wanna have to go and do that for? That was a shame.”

  “You could have said no.”

  “And have them come after my family? Uh-uh.” He shook his head. “I’m sorry for them, but family is family.”

  “Why’d he want them dead?”

  “I don’t know. Marsh was the muscle, Sykes was the middle man. We never got to talk to this Troy character. He told Sykes, Sykes told us. I can tell you the what and the how, but if you wanna know the why, you gonna have to talk to Sykes or Troy.”

  I thought about scaring him, but I knew he was telling the truth and he’d told me everything he had. Now I had to decide what to do with the son of a bitch.

  “You’re compromised. If you go back, Sykes will kill you. Will the don take care of you?”

  “Yeah, I can go to Miami with my cousin. That’s a different cousin.” Then he frowned. “You ain’t gonna kill me?”