Night Raider

by Mike Barry

  He went to the building and reconnoitered briefly. Then he went to the empty lot, squatted in the place where the blues had shown him the line rested, and went to work, ripping up the soft dirt with his hands.

  The line was there. He tracked it downrange to the side of the building where it fed directly into the basement.

  Risky. Very risky of course, all of it was. He was up against the house now, so tight to the wall that they might not see him except by leaning through a window and peering, but how close did he want to come to Peter Vincent? But then again, Wulff told himself, even if the guards did take to scrambling around the windows which probably wasn’t in their employment contracts, what would they make of a man in faded army fatigues working obscurely against the building? Who could he be? He could only be a maintenance man, someone from the gas company, checking out the lines. Of course. Men like this were invisible in New York. They were and were not there like the filthy river and the darkening sunsets. Nobody made anything of them at all.

  All right. Take the chance. Up and down the block he might be noticed but no one was going to call the cops on a faceless maintenance man. The Peter Vincents and their employees, generally speaking, liked as little to do with the cops as possible. They were not going to call cops to the site unless they had something they clearly could not handle themselves. What was a maintenance man? As a general rule the Vincents were great citizens, they wanted to co-exist with the cops and you certainly did nothing if you could to offend them but you didn’t call police to investigate maintenance men even if they were starting to poke around your walls. Who would try to get into a fortress? If his luck held he’d be all right, Wulff thought. Otherwise forget it. He kept his shoulders hunched, dug in the suitcase for the cutter and folded into himself. Fuck being observed. He just couldn’t worry about it; he had work to do.

  He began to work on the basement wall, at the point where he was sure the gas line entered. The saw made little chattering noises in the night; he held it steady. The wall was concrete which crumbled rather easily; all in all it was easier to cut this than it had been during the dry runs. Vincent had everything protected but way down below the walls were falling apart. Vincent would not think of that It was like the cities themselves; at the bottom they were rotten.

  He cut a ragged hole into the basement wall large enough to get his arm through.

  He should have brought a flashlight, he realized that now. He hadn’t because he was afraid of the beam but the angle of thrust would have been invisible to anyone not actually in the basement. So be it. He took his arm out and carefully, letting the little light drifting in from the west to work over his shoulder and into the hole, he peered into the basement.

  He was in the meter room. Looking across he could see the meter on the wall opposite, letting go cheerful little ticking noises. The gas line that he had tracked ran about two feet off the floor, right into that meter. It was well within reaching distance.

  For the first time Wulff smiled.

  He took the metal cutter again, backing out to get it and at the same time a patrol car whipped around the corner, sirens dead but streamers on. It came by him fast. He thought for a moment that it was for him but the car had a downtown disaster in mind. At the intersection, finding traffic, the car cut on the siren and churned out of there, bellowing.

  Nothing to worry about there.

  He went to work on the gas line itself.

  This was a different deal altogether and Wulff thought for a few moments that he was beyond his depth. The line was tough steel, ancient of course and rust spattered which meant that there were weak spots around the joint if you could only get into them but he was working blind, in a cramped position, bunched up against that wall and the line would not yield. The cutter worked on it for a long time without any feeling of progress, once he thought that he had dropped an inch but then again it just could have been an illusion. His arm was exhausted. This line was tough; it was not for nothing that it had been shielded like this for inside that line circulated pure death.

  Then he heard a hiss.

  It was a pure, high sound, a sound like the ecstatic gasps of a young girl and Wulff found himself more excited by it than he ever had been by any girl but there was no time for calculations of triumph now. He was working on a very, very short margin. The pipe snaffled and wheezed away, pouring gas into the air. Even outside, shielded by concrete, Wulff could smell it. He took his arm out slowly, letting the metal cutter drop with a ping! into the basement, now the meter. It would never make any difference now.

  He had lost track of time he knew. He gripped the shoulder of the working arm, grunted, worked the stiffness out. His concentration had been so intense that all sense of time had fled. It could be midnight. The gas line had been a son of a bitch in the cutting; he must have been on it for hours. His arm was numb enough. He gritted his teeth with the pain of returning circulation, inhaled raggedly, felt wisps of gas clot his lungs. The basement was filling up fast now.

  Now for the heater. He went back for it.

  And as he stood over the suitcase yards downrange he dived, held shuddering to the ground as a big cornering car came fast, hit the brakes and then, headlights fading, lay inert across the street. A door thunked and a man came out of the car and looking only casually to either side sprinted up the four steps and hit the knocker of six-eighteen.

  Shit, Wulff said, shit.

  The man took no notice of Wulff at all which was to be expected but how could he not notice the gas? It was already beginning to fill the air with those fine fibers of odor and surely, although the wind was carrying it this way, it would only be a matter of time until the occupants of the house smelled it as well. Lying pinned to the ground in the low-crawl combat position, Wulff had a sudden insight staring at the man: this had nothing to do with him. Peter Vincent had a visitor, that was all. Atrocious bad luck but at least impersonal. He raised his head barely off the ground and squinting through the darkness examined the man. He could not do anything further until he was inside the house, that was for sure. Short heavy frame on this one, thick features glinting with excitement in the pale light. He was armed. He kept on fondling the inside of his jacket.

  It sure was taking Vincent a hell of a long time to answer. The man waited and waited, hit the knocker again. The sound of his curses drifted across the lot. Wulff could not get the words but the sense was all there: Peter Vincent was a dirty son of a bitch. Yes he was. He could agree with the guest on that one point.

  Wulff stayed on the ground, hoping that the man would be let in. If he wasn’t, then Vincent was probably not at home and this was going to complicate matters. Did he really want to do this if the house was unoccupied by the rat? It had never even occurred to him. Shit, again.

  The door opened. A thin streak of light poured into the street. There was muffled dialogue at the door. Could they smell the gas? Apparently not. After a time the visitor went inside holding himself rather stiffly. Wulff felt his bowels tighten a little. The door closed.

  He was alone again on East Eighty-Third Street. Nobody had noticed him at all.

  He picked the heater off the ground, fumbled in the darkness to make sure that the battery connections were tight and then having done that, loosened them. He didn’t want the thing going off until he had time to get away.

  Well, then. Add one more to the equation within the house he thought. From the length of time it had taken that door to be opened and from the way the man at the door had been holding onto his concealed gun, this was an unexpected visit for Peter Vincent. And not a social one for the visitor. Probably it had something to do with Marasco’s death: one of Marasco’s lieutenants, probably, resolved to assert his influence with Vincent as quickly as possible. A stupid man Wulff suspected: any man who thought that he could call upon Peter Vincent unexpectedly with nothing but a revolver for security had not analyzed the situation properly.

  Fuck it. That was Vincent’s problem. Wulff picked up the heate
r and the batteries two-handed and went back to the basement

  It would be easier this time. No delicate work, just suture in the power source, toss it and run. He felt, standing there, however, a strange reluctance. Even up until this moment he supposed he could still have gotten out of this. Gas was in the air, choking him, still he could get out of it. The boys surrounding Vincent, Vincent himself, now knew who Wulff was and after a while would come after him but there was margin, decent margin: he had days at least until things got really close again and there was a chance that they might not come after him at all. They were going to smell that gas soon. Essentially the Marascos and the Vincents believed in de-complicating things. They had gotten where they were by making as little trouble as possible. Hell, there was a good chance that if Wulff didn’t go looking for them they would return the compliment. Even. Everything evened out.

  Fuck it. He fumbled with the batteries and heater, made the splices, his eyes streaming from the odors. It was too late to get out of it. He could slide underground again but the man that he had become wouldn’t stand for it. It might be hopeless, in fact it was hopeless. What could one man do against the seas of poison being craftily allowed to stream through outlets into all the spaces of the country? Would it make any difference whatsoever? What could Burt Wulff do?

  Except get himself killed. He finished the splices, gasping in the reeking air. Being killed was all right though. He had died in a furnished room on West 93rd a few months ago and since then, thank you very much, he had really got it on. There was, in fact, less pain in being dead than alive. The thing about getting himself killed was in itself pointless.

  But he could take a lot of people down.

  He smiled at this finally. He had been deluding himself, all the way up to this moment. There were no more lies now. There were no furnished rooms in his future in this city, there was no more underground. Like it or not, Wulff was committed. In the chain of circumstances the first action implied the last.

  The moment that he had stepped into the Rikker’s Eldorado it had all been sealed, right up to this moment.

  If nothing else they were going to know that the Wolf was around.

  He held the batteries-and-heater in his hand, just a little instant coffee heater, forty-nine cents with cord, and he tossed it through the hole into the basement which was filling rapidly with gas.

  And then he ran like hell.

  A minute, minute and a half until that heater attained radiance. If it did. If it hadn’t all come apart on the floor. A minute and a half was enough. Longer than that and he knew he would have failed.

  He ran through the gas fumes through the lot like a wild beast, looking for ground. At the far edge of the lot he hurled himself to the Earth, doubled himself over in the protective position and then, rolling once and putting his face to ground, he waited.

  He had done everything that he could do. Nothing more. It either would or would not work, his forty-nine cent incendiary kit and then he would see where he went from there.

  He had faith. He had faith.

  He should have. Six-eighteen East Eighty-Third Street blew up like china on a stove.

  XX

  Walls flew outward. It was like being under flak except that flak never made this kind of noise. The noise was intense, unbearable, the high whining squeal of ignition followed by a seemingly endless pulsating roar as piece by piece the house went down. Dust rose and fell, hit him with such force that it felt like pebbles. And even behind closed eyes Wulff could see the flash that made it day.

  He could not wait too long. He counted off ten seconds, twenty, thirty, when the barrage eased, then stopped, he was already on his feet, running, staggering toward the remains of the house. Six-eighteen looked like the cartoon house that had been huffed and puffed and blown to death by the big bad wolf. Some of it hung in dangling pieces from itself. Other parts were scattered streetside. The parked Buick Electra was covered by debris and on fire.

  But otherwise there was not much fire at all. A controlled explosion, it had done its job on detonation, not explosion. Limping, staggering, Wulff held his face against the heat and walked into the wreckage. How long did he have? As isolated as the residents of East eighty-third Street might be, they could not ignore this one. The entire block had shaken although the damage had been restricted to six-eighteen. Right into the feeder cables. Maybe he had five minutes to get out of here. At the first sound of a siren he would have to run. He gasped, choked, inhaled gases, weeping. He tripped over a body, that of the short, fat man who had been at the door. This one had been killed instantly, probably by impact. Hurled against something. He moved through foundation matter, little crackling pimples of flame. What had been the first floor was a parody of itself; grotesquely enough it looked like a living room that might have been imagined by a drunk. Another body here, this one twitching and talking to itself in a wedge between two chairs. Broken arm, scars through the forehead. Vaguely oriental cast.

  Not Peter Vincent. Wulff took out his revolver and without bothering to consider it, shot the houseman in the head. He probed deeper through the wreckage.

  What had been the stairs dangled and twirled in the winds. Some of the supporting beams had held however, there was still a definable upstairs. With no access. Something hit him in the back. Wulff whirled, saw another oriental scrambling feebly to rise and deliver another kick. The attempted death-blow must have unbalanced him. He still had the revolver. He shot this one too. The oriental fell, flapping his arms like wings. Ascending toward death.

  He looked toward the street. Inside, he was yet outside. The ventilated home. A new concept in urban design. The fire was out now except for small mean crackles and flickers in isolated areas. Hopefully it would stay out. Of course if one of those gas lines got open again and added a swift breath of fuel to the situation….

  Wulff stumbled against a wall. He tripped, fell on his hands and knees, shaking his head. More had been taken out of him than he wanted to conceive. He found himself looking into the eyes of a man.

  The man was standing at the second level of the house, poised over a parapet. He was a slender man who ten minutes ago might have been thought of as elegantly dressed. Now his clothing hung in stripes and filaments. Black marks were all over his body. His eyes were round and desperate. He held a revolver, pointed it at Wulff and fired.

  Wulff dodged. The bullet went past him, buried itself in ash. The man fired again. This one tore through a sleeve. Another bullet passed above his head. His luck was holding but he was pushing it. He went for his own revolver, toppling sideways.

  He got his hand on the revolver, hitting the floor, just as the man deposited another shot next to him. Wulff rolled in the ash, feeling splinters of decomposed wood and metal digging themselves into him. No matter. He came out of it fast in a crouch and shot the man.

  The man screamed and dropped his revolver. The hit had been in the hand. Perfect. A rose of blood appeared on the man’s hand as he staggered and wept. Wulff levelled the revolver for another shot, watched instead as the man leaned over the parapet, burst through and fell heavily to ground level, landing on his hands and knees. He gasped, tried to get to his feet, flopped, laid still.

  Wulff got over to him fast. Breezes darted through the wreckage bringing tears to his eyes. He seized the man by the throat, pulled him half-erect. He looked into Peter Vincent’s eyes.

  “Who’s next?” he said in a perfectly level voice.

  The man’s eyes bulged. He hung like a pendulum in Wulff’s eyes. His tongue went over his lips, retracted. In extremis. But this had been the man from whom Albert Marasco took orders.

  “Who’s next?” he said again.

  “What—” the man said and paused, gasped, tried to find breath. The fire must have seared his lungs. “What—?”

  “You’re part of a chain, Vincent. You’re just another link in a long, long connecting chain. Who’s the next one? Who do you take your orders from?”

  Vincent
fainted in his grasp. That was easily taken care of. He hit the man in the mouth, skittering him sideways. Released him. Vincent fell into ashes, weeping.

  “What have you done?” he said, face to the floor, “what have you done?”

  “I’ve blown up your fucking palace, Vincent, and that’s just the beginning.”

  “You killed Marasco,” the man said, “you killed the others.”

  “That’s right.”

  “You’re crazy. You’ve got to be crazy.”

  Wulff heard sirens rising in the distance. Not much time now. Not much time at all. He kicked the man in the ribs. Vincent let out a strangled cry, fainted again. Wulff revived him with another kick.

  “Who do you talk to?” he said, “where do your orders come from? Who’s the next man on the list?”

  “I’m dying.”

  “Everybody’s dying. You’re killing them all, Vincent. Come on,” Wulff said, “I don’t have much time.”

  He knelt next to the man, seized his throat, took out his revolver and levelled it. “One last time,” he said, “tell me where the orders come from.”

  Intelligence seemed to flare in the man’s eyes for the first time. “I’m dead anyway,” he said.

  “That’s right.”

  “Why tell you anything?”

  Sirens were closer. Wulff, in the fading gases, could smell the river now. The explosion was over. The scavengers, the enforcers were about to come.

  “Because you can die peacefully or painfully, Vincent,” Wulff said and put the gun to the man’s forehead. “I can take you out quickly and cleanly or I can just skewer little holes in you and leave you to the police. They’ll get you out. They’ll put you in a ward somewhere and after five years of suffering you’ll be ready to stand trial.”

  The man looked at him. “Gerald,” he said, “I talk to a man named Gerald.”

  “Where?”

  Vincent told him, struggling with the syllables. Wulff held the revolver steady.