The City That Never Sleeps

by Walton Simons

  “There’s a difference between accounting and finance. Stay with us and you’ll see just how much of a difference that can be.” The man’s tone oozed confidence and conviction.

  “Let’s say for the sake of argument I’m interested. Are you planning on sending me to Paris for the job?”

  The man shook his head. “Hardly. Our current concerns remain here in the city. As before, your efforts would be directed against the fading criminal power structure.”

  Spector nodded. They wanted him to keep going after the mob. Potentially dangerous work, even for him. “I might be interested.”

  “Excellent. I’ll send one of our people to your apartment to get the ball rolling.” He turned away, then paused. “Please try not to kill this one.”

  “No promises.”

  * * *

  He was annoyed. The line at the bank wasn’t particularly long, but it was moving slowly. His pain was acting up more than usual and Spector was having a hard time concentrating. All he wanted was to be back at his place with a bottle of JD.

  The flunky had come by just like the smooth-talking slimeball had said. Carl was young and well-dressed, like the corpse Spector had made a few days back, but had the good sense to wear mirrorshades. Spector had grimaced at that and knocked the sunglasses clattering to the floor with a quick sweep of his right arm.

  “You’d better staple those to the side of your head if you want them to do you any good,” Spector had said. “I may have a stapler around here if you need the help.”

  Carl had scrambled to get the glasses back in hand and looked like he was going to piss himself. “No, no. I’m just here to help.”

  He’d given Spector a fake Social Security card under the name Thomas B. Stone. Whoever came up with that must have thought they were being clever. Carl had also set up a couple of different-colored background screens and had taken some photos of Spector for a New York driver’s license and a passport. He had taken off as soon as the work was done, but had come back a couple of days later with the driver’s license and some instructions about the upcoming job Spector was supposed to do. As always, someone was in need of getting dead.

  “May I help you, sir?” The teller’s tone was friendly in a tired, rote kind of way.

  “I need to open an account.” He handed over his fake driver’s license and a creased envelope heavy with bills.

  “I’m sure we can help you with that.”

  Spector looked the teller over while she was walking him through the paperwork. She was youngish, but clearly old enough to have been around the block a few times. Her eyes were bright and intelligent; she was too smart for her job and there was no way she’d last.

  He stopped at the Strand on his way back to the apartment and found his way to the travel section. Spector had never really imagined himself leaving the NYC area, but it was an interesting notion. Why couldn’t he travel some, see the world? He picked out some dog-eared travel guides for Australia, England, a few other European countries, and Tahiti. He tried to imagine anyone needing to be killed in Tahiti and couldn’t, so he put that travel guide back on the shelf. Spector headed to the counter to check out.

  Later, on the sofa at his apartment, he paged slowly through the guides while emptying a pint of bourbon. There really was a great big world out there, and if it took a few random bodies to see it that was a price he was willing to pay.

  * * *

  Spector’s mark, a Mr. DiCiccio, was a Gambione lieutenant. Back on Wild Card Day, Spector had had a run-in with some Gambiones, and he didn’t much care for them. His target was in a high-rise apartment, holed up with several other people. Mostly bodyguards, from the info he had. They sent one guy out every day or so to buy groceries. He always wore the same dark blue suit. Spector’s associates had made an identical garment for him to wear, which would make getting inside easier. Working with an organization of professionals had its upside. He stalked the man from the grocery store and caught up with him outside the high-rise.

  “Down the alley, friend.” Spector put a gun in the man’s back, although he had no intention of using it. Guns left evidence; his power didn’t.

  “You’re making a mistake, mister.” The man walked with a grudging slowness into the mouth of the alley. “A big mistake.”

  “That’s my lookout, paisan.” Spector herded him behind a pile of garbage twenty yards in. “Set the bags down, put your hands up, and turn around.”

  The man did as he was told, then looked Spector directly in the eye and said, “Whatever you’ve got in mind, you’re a dead man, you know.”

  He flooded the gangster’s mind with the memory of his death, pushing it in so fast the man’s body hit the ground before his face had the chance to register pain, surprise, or anything else. “Yep. Been that way for a while, tough guy.”

  Spector picked up the two sacks of groceries and moved to the building entrance. He entered the code he’d been given and elbowed his way inside. There were fresh fruits and vegetables in one of the sacks. For a moment, he remembered being a kid at the supermarket. It was just a corner grocery, but it had seemed so big to his young eyes. He pushed the memory away. It was time to focus. There was a room of people several stories up where he was headed now. Those eyes were the last thing they’d ever see. Tough break for them, maybe. He imagined what it was like in Paris about right now.

  The elevator was slow and creaky and his arms were getting tired by the time the doors opened. He moved quickly down the hallway and pressed the doorbell on room 817. Spector held the groceries up higher and turned away from the door so they couldn’t see much of his face.

  “Come in, Antonio.” The voice belonged to an older woman. She turned her back to him and headed into the kitchen. “Just put the groceries on the counter. We’ll eat in an hour or so if you’ll all just leave me alone.”

  Spector deposited the bags on the Formica countertop and padded into the living area, where there was a TV playing a basketball game. There were two men on the couch, one old and heavy, the other young and heavier. The older man was watching TV and turned, expecting to see Antonio.

  “What the…” he managed to say before Spector put him down.

  The young man peered up from behind a magazine. His reflexes were fast and he almost made it to his gun before Spector locked eyes. Almost. Spector smiled in a thin, crooked way. This was going better than he could have hoped. The fact that they’d been on a couch meant no sound of bodies hitting the floor to warn anyone else. He would prefer not to kill the old woman, although he’d do it in an instant if he had to. One thing he couldn’t do was leave a witness. The way he offed his victims didn’t create any actual leads for the cops to use against him, but a witness could be trouble.

  He glanced over at a mostly empty bookshelf on the far side of the room. A porcelain clock noisily ticked away the seconds. His target was almost certainly in the bedroom beyond, and had no idea how few seconds he had left to breathe.

  Spector advanced to the doorway of the bedroom and stuck his head inside. An old man in silk pajamas sat propped up on the bed. He turned to the doorway.

  “Antonio?”

  Spector tried to lock eyes, but for some reason it wasn’t working. He felt fear; his power was the only thing he could count on. The old man put on his glasses and craned his head forward. Spector connected immediately. The old man’s final breath took a long time to leave his body, a leisurely rattling cough.

  The bathroom door opened. A wiry man with graying hair stared momentarily at the bed, then went for his gun. He got the weapon out fast and fired the first shot without looking. The bullet missed Spector and thudded into the wall behind him, spraying bits of Sheetrock. The man squeezed off another round before Spector was able to catch his eye. Then it was over.

  “Fuck,” Spector muttered. Now he’d have to kill the old lady in the kitchen. Her bad luck, but there was nothing he could do about it now. He walked quickly back into the living room and was almost to the kitchen wh
en she shouted something in Italian.

  For an instant he saw her. She was holding something and her arms moved, then it hit him. Water, scalding hot. He screamed and clutched his face. As much as he hated his death pain, he was used to it after all this time. This was worse for being so unexpected. She’d nailed him right in his eyes and he couldn’t see anything. He reflexively kicked out his right leg and caught nothing but air, setting himself off-balance. She grabbed him under his armpits and pushed him backward. He heard glass break, and then there was nothing under his feet. In spite of the pain, Spector knew he was falling. If he landed on his head from eight stories up, that was it. He twisted his body, trying to get his legs underneath him.

  Spector felt a blow to his midsection and all the air went out of his lungs.

  “Just in time. Good thing I was climbing up the building or we’d both be out of luck.” The voice was strange, not quite human.

  He didn’t spend much time trying to figure out why he wasn’t a smashed heap on the pavement. In addition to everything else, one of Spector’s left ribs was broken.

  “Get me out of here,” he said through his blistering lips.

  “I can take you back where you came from.” The voice definitely wasn’t human, probably a joker.

  “Someone just tried to kill me up there. Get me someplace safe. I’ll pay.”

  “You’re already paying, or I wouldn’t be here.”

  Spector couldn’t tell how long it took for his rescuer to get him where he was going. His face was a mass of scalded nerve endings. The important thing was that he’d survived. He’d heal up soon enough. In the meantime he’d just have to endure. That was his life in a nutshell, getting from moment to moment and day to day. He could do that.

  He heard a door open and the whatever-it-was set him down on a couch. Spector felt a broken spring underneath his ribs and rolled over on his other side. The radio was on, playing the Byrds’ “Turn! Turn! Turn!” His eyes were still a mess. He couldn’t see squat out of them. “Do you have any liquor?”

  “Sure.”

  He heard some rummaging around and felt a bottle pressed into his right palm. Spector unscrewed the cap and pressed the rim to his lips, taking as many quick swallows as he could manage. It was vodka, not bourbon, but he didn’t care. Enough of it would do the job.

  “You need anything else? I’ve got places to be. Busy, busy, busy.” The voice wasn’t just inhuman, it was quick and staccato, like the words were racing to get out of its mouth.

  “I’ll survive.” If Spector had a motto, that was it.

  “Later.”

  Spector heard a door close and continued knocking back enough vodka to take the edge off the pain. He’d been badly burned once before and had figured out that dead skin can’t heal, it just sits there. He’d had to peel it off to jump-start the regeneration process.

  There were bits of pasta stuck to his face. Pulling them free was uncomfortable, but not excruciating. Then he put his hands to his eyelids. They were rippled, bloated, and stuck to his eyeballs. “Fuck me,” he said, draining as much of the bottle as he could. Spector pulled off his coat and put it over his head. That, at least, would cut down on the light. He worked a fingernail into the corner of one of his eyelids and began pulling it away from his eye. At first it came off in little bits, then the entire piece of ruined flesh peeled away. He screamed and forced the bottle back between his lips. It was empty by the time he finished the job.

  * * *

  Spector staggered through the doorway of his joker-rescuer’s hideout and made it about ten feet before vomiting the first time. There were still some dead patches of skin on his face he’d have to pick away, but his eyelids were working again and that was what mattered most. He threw up twice more before making it to the corner. The cold wind drained the warmth from his body, adding to his misery level. Spector took note of where he was; it might be useful in the future, having a place he could duck into if the heat was on. Of course that was contingent on how hospitable the joker was at that point.

  He managed to flag down a cab and huddled silently in the back for the entire trip to his apartment. The cabbie wasn’t talkative or annoying, so Spector not only let him live, he gave the man a healthy tip.

  The springs on his beat-up sofa groaned as he flopped down onto it. He looked around his living room and realized that he finally had enough money to make some improvements. The place was a wreck, much like its occupant, and it would be hard to know where to even start. Spector closed his eyes; he’d think about it later. Right now sleep was the first order of business, and for once he didn’t expect any trouble drifting off.

  * * *

  The door buzzer went off three times, spaced at intervals of several seconds. The signal meant Carl, the kid he wasn’t supposed to kill, was downstairs. Spector hobbled to the door, glancing at the kitchen clock; he’d been out for four hours.

  “Damn,” he muttered to himself, then opened the door after hearing footsteps up the stairs.

  Carl poked his head in tentatively, not bothering with mirrorshades this time, and tried to smile. “May I come in, sir?”

  “You woke me up.”

  Carl’s face lost a shade of color. “I’m very sorry. I won’t take more than a moment of your time.” He handed Spector an envelope. “There’s a check inside for the agreed amount payable to you from one of our holding companies.”

  Spector took the envelope and opened it. He pulled out the check to make sure it was payment in full. It was. “Are you afraid of me, Carl?”

  Carl paused for a moment. Spector could feel the kid’s mind searching for the answer least likely to get him killed.

  “Tell your boss I almost got killed again. My enthusiasm for this partnership is waning. Now get the fuck out of here.”

  Carl hit the doorway like a thoroughbred racehorse.

  * * *

  Spector didn’t know what he was doing, or why he was doing it. He’d gone to the bank to deposit the check, but instead he’d taken half out in cash. He planned on giving it to the joker who’d helped him out. He wasn’t the kind of person who was big on gratitude, but maybe that was because nobody ever did anything for him. People did shitty things to him pretty regularly. Not that they got a chance to do much else after that. Nobody actually helped him out, though. He’d felt strange, having some kind of obligation to another person, even if it was accidental. He didn’t much like the feeling and was happy to buy his way out of it.

  He was wearing his bird mask when he knocked on the door to the joker’s place. If there was no answer that was fine, he’d have tried to do something and that was good enough. “Anybody home?”

  “Just a minute, minute, minute.”

  The joker opened the door; Spector saw his rescuer for the first time. It was big, half again the size of a normal person, and its skin was dark and moist. The face was a cross between a human and a newt, with slitted yellow eyes. Its arms and legs were long and muscular, with knobby tips at the end of the fingers.

  “You got my pizza?” it asked, then looked with disappointment at his empty hands. “Who are you?”

  “It’s me, from yesterday. You saved my life when I fell out of the building.”

  The joker blinked its eyes rapidly, then cocked its head. “Oh right. The paper said you were dead, Mr. DiCiccio, so I was confused. I hadn’t made clear how big I am, so I was going to do my bodyguarding from outside the building.” He stared off into space for a moment. “Kind of muddled right now anyway.”

  The dime dropped for Spector. DiCiccio, his mark, must have gotten word there was a contract on him. So he hired Mr. Big-and-Ugly, who showed up just in time to save Spector’s hash. What fucking luck. Spector would have felt warm and fuzzy if he were able to. “Yeah, I’m supposed to be dead, safer that way. That’s why I’m wearing the mask. Can I come in?”

  “Sure, sure.”

  He was uncomfortable and wanted to get this over with as quickly as possible. Didn’t want to know t
he joker’s name or anything else about him. He fished in his pocket for a wad of hundreds. “What you did yesterday was kind of above the call, so I figured a bonus was in order.” He peeled off several bills and placed them in the palm of the joker’s hand. Spector didn’t really want to know his benefactor’s name, on the remote chance he had to kill him at some point.

  “Hey, great. Much appreciated.” The joker tucked the money into the pocket of a coat hanging on a rack in the corner. “After I have some pizza we should go out for a few drinks.”

  “That’s okay, thanks.”

  “No, no, no, really. It’ll be fun. I don’t have anything on for tonight. I know a place where you can wear your mask, no problem. They serve drinks with straws if you want. I’ve seen people do it plenty of times.” The words streamed out of its mouth like a sibilant auctioneer.

  Spector sighed and pressed his thin lips together. He could always use a drink or three. “What the hell,” he said. The pizza came soon enough, and Spector waited, fighting off second thoughts, as the joker quickly consumed a sizable portion before wiping his face with a napkin and both went outside.

  “I can’t exactly use a car, and people on the subway just freak out, so climb aboard,” the joker said, pointing to his neck and shoulders.

  Spector clambered up the joker’s broad back. The skin was actually pleasant to the touch, soft and not slimy. He’d expected it to feel weird. He grabbed its shoulders on either side of the neck. “Ready whenever you are.”

  The joker took off with a jolt. His bounding stride took Spector awhile to adjust to, but soon he was bobbing his body up and down in sync with his amphibian carrier. Spector had never done any horseback riding, so he didn’t have anything else to compare it to, but imagined it to be similar. He felt strange, though, and couldn’t place the sensation. Then he realized he was having fun. It had been a long time since he’d felt this good without killing someone. He might even be smiling. More likely it was just the icy December night numbing his lips under his mask.