All the Rage rj-4

by F. Paul Wilson

  "Yes!" Sal shouted. "Oh, yes!"

  "And is it enough?"

  "Yeah, Jack." Sal's voice softened as it dropped about a hundred decibels. "I think it is. And I think it's gonna be easier for me with my sister now."

  "Jeez, don't tell her anything," Jack said quickly.

  "Ay, I ain't stupid. I know how stuff gets around and I don't wanna wake up dead some morning. But at least I think I can finally look Roseanne in the eye now and not feel like a useless wuss. She won't know, but I'll know, and that's what counts, if you know what I'm sayin'."

  "Yeah, Sal, I do."

  2

  "Who?" Milos screamed.

  He stood in the center of his office in the rear of the unfinished Belgravy and stared at the remnants of a thirty-two-inch Sony TV before him. A brass table lamp jutted from the smoking hole of what had once been its Trinitron screen.

  "Who?"

  Who had done this to him? Who hated him so to publicly humiliate him this way? He couldn't believe that this East Hampton Environmental Protection Committee had done it. Truth was, he couldn't bear the thought of having been hooked, netted, and filleted for all the world to see by some raised-pinkie, tea-sipping, silver-spoon-sucking pussy from old-money Long Island.

  He pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes and fought to focus his rage-scattered thoughts. He could feel his heart hammering inside his chest. He felt as if he were floating in space.

  Think! Who!

  The Russians… it had to be the Brighton Beach Russians. They'd been allies of his early on but lately they'd become jealous of his success. Only they would have the nerve to do this to him.

  But this wasn't their MO. They preferred more direct methods—a bullet or two in the face was their style. No, this had to be someone with more control and calculation, someone who knew his weak points and was not afraid to ram a blade into one and twist.

  Who, damn it!

  And why? Milos wanted to know that as badly as who. If he knew why, he could figure who, and then he'd know what… what in particular he had done to make some sick govno set out to ruin him.

  And that was what he was: ruined, pure and simple. Who would deal with him again? Who would take him seriously? After that tape, how could anyone fear him?

  A ragged scream ripped from his throat and echoed off his office walls.

  The only solution was retribution. He had to find whoever it was and destroy them. He had to send a message to the world that no one fucked with Milos Dragovic and lived.

  Even that would not restore his respect, but it would be a start.

  But where to start? The only lead was a public phone in the East Eighties and a man on a videotape, a man in a car owned by a woman who lived on Sutton Place.

  This man could be the key. He might not be the mastermind, and most likely was not, but he could be the helicopter pilot. He could have been scouting the house in the day to plan the best place to drop his garbage at night. Or involved in some other way. If he could speak to the man, Milos could make him tell.

  Could be the man had no connection at all. If so, too bad. For him.

  Milos was through with caution. Something had to be done, and now. The Sutton Square house had been empty all weekend but the holiday was over. Time to move. He stalked to his office door and kicked it open.

  "Ivo! Vuk! In here! Now!"

  Milos watched the two men jump up and leave their paper coffee cups on the cocktail table where they'd been sitting. They hurried toward him across the dance floor—or what was supposed to have been a dance floor. He couldn't imagine opening Belgravy after what he'd just seen. None of the people, the beautiful people he'd planned it for, would show their faces. The place would wind up filled with smirking hoi polloi hoping to catch a glimpse of the buffoon they'd seen on TV.

  I'd sooner torch the place, he thought.

  "Yessir!" Vuk and Ivo said, almost in unison, and Milos swore Ivo had started to salute.

  They looked nervous, and well they should. They had avoided arrest by tossing their guns and extra clips into the pool at the first sign of the police. And they weren't the only ones. The illuminated bottom of the oil-stained pool had looked like an underwater armory.

  And since it was his pool, Milos had been charged with possession of all those unregistered weapons.

  But his lawyers could get him out of that.

  The problem was who and what and why.

  "This man you have been looking for over on Sutton Square. Bring him to me."

  "Yessir!"

  "And if he gives you trouble, shoot him. Do not kill him. Shoot him in the knees, then bring him to me. I wish to talk to him. He knows something and he will tell me."

  "Yessir!"

  As they turned to go, Milos added: "Do not return without him. And if something happens to your car this time, the only way I want to see you two come back is in a hearse."

  They swallowed and nodded, then hurried for the street.

  3

  Jack had known something was way wrong the instant he stepped into Nadia's office at the clinic. She'd looked like she'd been on a two-week bender, and now, after listening to her story, he could see why. She'd broken down three times during the telling.

  "So the last time you saw him was when?"

  "Dinner on Saturday. Sushi… at the Kuroikaze Kafe." She sobbed. "Doug loved the spider roll there."

  "Hey, Doc, you're using the past tense," Jack said. "Shouldn't do that."

  She blew her nose and nodded. "You're right. I just…" She seemed to ran out of words.

  "Let's move to Sunday. You didn't see or talk to him all day—"

  "I tried but his phone was busy."

  "But you were there Sunday night and saw no signs of a struggle."

  "No. At least I don't think so. It was dark, you know, with the power out and all. No, wait. I saw the computer and it was fine."

  'That means the break-in took place after you left."

  And what does that tell me? Jack wondered.

  Absolutely nothing.

  He could see a second-story man getting caught in the act during a break-in and losing it and killing the owner. It happened. But he'd never heard of anyone taking the body with him. A corpse wasn't exactly something you could slip into your pocket and stroll away with.

  "Do you think it could be"—the word seemed to stick in her throat—"GEM?"

  The question jolted him. "A big corporation? Taking someone out? Come on, Doc. They use lawyers for hit men. And why should they want to?"

  "Well, I told you about Doug hacking their computer—"

  "Yeah, but could they know about that? And even if they had caught on, how would they know what he'd found, if anything? I mean, it's not as if he was blackmailing them…" Jack caught and held her gaze. "Was he?"

  She gave her head a vehement shake. "Never. Not Doug. He was thinking of picking up some GEM stock on the chance that what he'd learned meant it was going up, but I know blackmail would never ever cross his mind."

  "You're sure?"

  "Without a doubt."

  Nadia could have been kidding herself, like the mother of the school's biggest pothead saying, Not my kid. But Jack didn't think so.

  "So I doubt it's GEM."

  "Don't be so sure," Nadia said. "Milos Dragovic is somehow connected to GEM, and GEM is connected with"—she took a deep breath—"Berzerk."

  "Damn!" Jack said, slapping the table. "I knew it! That sample I gave you matched up, I take it."

  She nodded reluctantly. "It's my project at GEM, the very molecule I'm supposed to be stabilizing. It's called 'Loki' there."

  "Loki… makes you loco. And stabilizing it makes sense. The guy who sold it to me told me about how it all changes to something useless after a certain time."

  Nadia rose from her seat and wandered out from behind the deck, rubbing her hands in a washing motion. She looked agitated, too agitated to sit.

  "Every twenty-nine days, twelve hours, forty-four minutes, a
nd two-point-eight seconds."

  Jack blinked. "How—?"

  She seemed to be on automatic pilot as she moved to the coffee setup and grabbed the mug with nadj across its front.

  "And it's not just the molecule itself that changes. Every representation of the structure of the active molecule, whether it's a drawing, a model, a computer file, even human memory of it, changes along with it."

  She stopped pouring her coffee and turned to stare at him, pot in hand, as if waiting.

  "Go on," he said.

  "Aren't you listening?"

  "To every word."

  "Then why aren't you telling me I'm crazy?"

  "Because I believe you."

  "How can you believe me? What I'm telling you is impossible—or should be."

  "Yeah. And the same could be said for the beastie your buddy Monnet gets his Loki from."

  "'Beastie?' You mean it comes from an animal?"

  "Sort of."

  "Sort of what?" Nadia was saying, and sounding a little annoyed as she went back to pouring her coffee. Good. Better than crying. "It 'sort of comes from an animal, or it comes from a 'sort-of animal?"

  "A sort-of animal that doesn't follow any of the rules, just like this Loki stuff."

  Things were beginning to make sense now… sort of. Jack told her how he'd followed Monnet out to the freak show, and what the boss there had later said about a research scientist who'd found some "fascinating things" in the dying rakosh's blood.

  "Doc, I'm willing to bet that one of those 'fascinating things' turned out to be Loki or Berzerk or whatever it's called."

  She turned, holding her mug with both hands. "But what kind of animal—?"

  "I wouldn't call it an animal—animal might make you think of a rabbit or a deer. I'd call it a creature or a thing. The only one of its kind left. And it's not like anything else that's ever walked this earth." He could have added that he had it on good authority that a rakosh wasn't completely of this earth, but he didn't want to get into that here. "Let's just say anything is possible where this thing is concerned."

  "Even altering memories?"

  Jack shrugged. "Nothing connected with that creature would surprise me."

  Nadia looked at Jack, then at her mug. "Why did I pour this? I was too jumpy for coffee before and I'm way too wound up now." She half turned toward the door, then rotated back. "Do you want it?"

  He'd already had a couple of cups, but it was always a shame to waste good coffee.

  "How'd you make it?"

  "Just black."

  "Add a couple of sugars and I'll take it off your hands."

  Nadia emptied two packets into the mug, then handed it to him. He noticed her hand was trembling. Looked like the last thing she needed now was caffeine.

  "The good news is it's dying," he said.

  "Dying?" Her hands flew to her face. "Oh, God! That's why he wants me to stabilize the molecule! He's going to lose his source!"

  "And soon, I think."

  "Dragovic's behind it all. He's forcing Dr. Monnet to do this. I know it, I know it, I know it."

  "I don't," Jack said. He sipped his coffee: good and strong, the way he liked it. "And besides, Mr. Dragovic has other matters to occupy his mind at the moment."

  Nadia brightened. "Yes! I heard about that." She narrowed her eyes as she looked at Jack. "You wouldn't happen to have anything to do with his troubles, would you?"

  "His troubles are with the law and his image," Jack said and drank some more coffee.

  "Anyway," Nadia said. "We've got to stop him, stop the drug."

  "What do you mean 'we'?"

  "All right, you. I wouldn't know—" She stopped as Jack began shaking his head. "What's wrong?"

  "I don't do drugs… other than caffeine"—he hefted the NADJ mug—"and ethanol, that is."

  "Well, good… great…"

  "But what I mean is I don't sell them and I don't stop other people from selling them."

  "But Dragovic's forcing—"

  "You don't know if Dragovic's forcing anything, Doc."

  "All right then, forget force. The thing is, Dragovic has somehow involved himself in GEM and GEM is somehow behind this Berzerk poison."

  "Which people are buying and ingesting of their own free will."

  Nadia turned and stared at Jack, disbelief scrawled across her face. "Don't tell me you approve."

  "I think drugs are stupid as all hell, and I think people who drug themselves up are dumb asses, but people have a right to control their own bloodstreams. If they want to pollute them, that's their business. I'm not a public nanny."

  "You mean if you saw someone selling Berzerk to a twelve-year-old, you wouldn't do anything?"

  "Never been there, but I might break his arms."

  Jack thought of Vicky. And maybe his legs. And his face.

  Nadia smiled. "So you would make it your business."

  "We were talking adults before. Now we're talking kids. I'm not into crusades, but certain things I will not abide in my sight."

  She cocked her head and stared at him. "Abide… that's a strange word from you."

  "How so?"

  "It's something I'd expect to hear from a southerner, and you're very much a northeasterner."

  Good ear, Jack thought. "A man who taught me some things used to use that word."

  She looked as if she wanted to pursue that but changed her mind. Good.

  "But back to Dragovic. His customers are committing crimes because of what he's selling them."

  "And going to jail for them." Jack finished his coffee and stood. "As for me, I believe I've seen enough of Dr. Monnet and Mr. Dragovic for a long time."

  "But it's not finished."

  Jack sighed. "Yeah, it is. You wanted to know the connection between Dragovic and Monnet. It's this drug. You wanted to know what Dragovic has over Monnet: nothing. They're in this together, as in partners."

  "I can't believe that."

  "Monnet's the guy who discovered the stuff, he's the guy who's testing the stuff, and if you take a trip out the GEM plant in Brooklyn I bet you find he's manufacturing the stuff. Be objective for just two seconds, Doc, and there's no other conclusion."

  Nadia half sat, half leaned on the desk and stared at the floor, saying nothing. Jack didn't like the job of telling her that her hero had clay tootsies, especially with her fiance missing…

  "Tell you what, though," he said. "I'll ask around, see who's been boosting in the DUMBO area, and find out if anybody knows anything about Sunday night."

  She looked up and smiled for the first time since he'd arrived. "Will you? I'd really appreciate it."

  Jack left her with at least a little hope. He emerged onto Seventeenth Street with the morning sun warming the air and the traffic back full force after the holiday. Had the rest of the day pretty much to himself. So why not drop in on Gia? Vicky would be off to school by now. That meant they'd have the house to themselves.

  Yeah.

  Started walking east. Passing Stuyvesant Square he wondered if its heavy-duty spear-topped wrought-iron fence was meant to keep people out or in. Came to a cluster of medical buildings and wove through a throng of people in white coats with stethoscopes draped around their necks like feather boas. Why wear them out on the street?

  Wassamatta? he thought. Afraid someone won't know you're a doctor? His irritation surprised him.

  Hung a left onto First Avenue when he reached the faded brick slabs of Stuyvesant Village. Gia was about forty blocks uptown from here. A cab would be faster but he decided to walk it. Felt so full of energy—Nadia's coffee must have been superstrong—he'd be there in no time.

  He was a good walker, had a stride that ate up distance. Strode up the east side of the avenue—one long strip mall—until he reached the Bellevue-NYU medical complex where every damn building seemed to be named after someone. That annoyed the hell out of him for some reason.

  After he passed through the shadow of the brooding hulk of the Con Ed power p
lant, the street opened up into the UN Plaza with its big Secretariat building looking like something out of 2001, towering over the sway-backed block of the General Assembly.

  Jack remembered posing as a tourist in there last summer while following one of the Indian diplomats all over town. What a load of bullshit he'd had to suffer through while waiting for Kusum to leave. Tempted to make a detour right now, stop in there this very minute and tell them how to get their act together. First thing he'd have them do was move the big tombstone of the Secretariat, maybe lay it on its side so it didn't block the morning sun when he was walking by, or at the very least cut a hole in its center to let some light through.

  Later. Maybe he'd straighten them out this afternoon. Right now he felt too damn good to waste even a second of this beautiful morning on those jerks.

  But the flags—all these goddamn flags really bothered him. Rows of flags, blocks of flags, flags everywhere, wasting enough fabric to clothe most of Bangladesh. Reached into his pocket and grabbed his knife. Had a big-time urge to run up to those poles and start cutting the ropes—free the flags!

  But no… take too long. Especially with Gia home alone. She was waiting for him, he knew. Jack was sure she could feel his approach, his growing proximity.

  Moved on, passing a statue of Saint George killing some stupid-looking dragon on the other side of the fence, and there in the bushes, was that an elephant, a brown elephant? And then it was all blending together and then reversing direction and he felt like he was coming apart, pieces of him floating away, sailing into the air and then curving and boomeranging back to reassemble and fuse into something new and wonderful, the new Jack, King of the City.

  After all, wasn't it known as New Jack City?

  Energy bloomed in him as he picked up his pace. No matter that it was uphill all the way, he was strong, stronger, strongest. Came to Fifty-fourth and cut east one more block to Sutton Place South where he had a beautiful view of the sparkling East River. God, he loved this city, his city. Hadn't been born here, but that was OK. Meant he wasn't here by some accident of nature but here by choice. He'd come here and made it his own, explored every nook and cranny, knew highborn and low and every sort between. Owned this city, man, and no one was going to tell him any different.