“Dammit,” Klaus said. “Do not say things like that.”
“I gotta check this out,” Bob said, excited by the possibility of success.
“Are you mad?” Klaus asked. “Have you simply lost your mind? If the Nigerian saw us come in here, we have a serious problem. We will be dead.”
“Just give me thirty seconds,” Bob pleaded.
“We don’t have thirty—” But it was too late, Bob ran up the stairway. Incredulous, Klaus followed.
In a large, windowed room on the second floor—a room that would probably rent for $3,500 a month when it was renovated—Bob stood on a crate trying to pry a ceiling panel loose.
Klaus watched nervously until he heard a noise behind him. Instinctually, he spun and fired two silenced shots. FWAP! FWAP! It was a rat. A dead rat now.
Bob looked down. “Nice shot. I bet you could get steady work doing that for the city.” After another moment futzing with the ceiling panel, Bob got it loose and peeked inside. As he lifted the panel, several roaches and some hybrids spilled onto the floor below.
“Holy cow!” Bob had never in his life seen anything like this. “What the hell happened here?”
He could hardly believe his eyes. Writhing within the crawl space as far as he could see was a four-inch-thick black mat of roaches and hybrids slithering over one another in some sort of Caligulian orgy of insects. There appeared to be a third type of bug in the mix, but its phylum was at that moment unknown to Bob.
From what he could see, Bob figured that Strain Two, with its unrelenting sex drive, had been so busy mating that it had not taken the time to be an assassin. This resulted in a stunning and grotesque population explosion of both cockroaches and the Strain Two hybrid.
As that much became clear, Bob put it all together. The third insect must be a fourth-generation cross of the cockroaches and Strain Two—a hybrid whose DNA told the bug it was both a roach and a roach killer. An insect so full of self-loathing that it killed itself and became food for Strain Two.
“I’m such an idiot,” Bob mumbled.
Accepting failure, Bob pushed the ceiling panel back into its original position. Suddenly, one of the windows exploded in a spray of glass and the Nigerian crashed into the room, knocking Klaus down and sending his gun spinning off to lodge against the dead rat. The Nigerian quickly rolled away toward the deceased rodent and retrieved Klaus’ gun.
Bob was still on the crate, his hands up, holding the ceiling panel. The tall Nigerian smiled, one gun on Bob, the other on Klaus. He ordered Bob to keep his hands up. Then to Klaus, “My friend, you are getting soft.”
“Not soft,” Klaus said, “just tired. Very tired.”
“Regardless,” the Nigerian said, “I must kill you both.” He sidestepped over to Bob and cocked both guns. “But first, I must ask why you are protecting this one?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Klaus said.
Even if it didn’t matter, Bob wished Klaus had at least come up with some long-winded explanation to buy some time.
The Nigerian shrugged. “Very well.” He turned to kill Bob.
“Wait a second,” Bob pleaded. “It does matter, Klaus. I mean, since he brought it up, you may as well tell him.”
The moment the Nigerian looked to Klaus, Bob dropped the ceiling panel spilling thousands of cockroaches, Strain Two hybrids, and the fourth-generation mutants onto the Nigerian.
The black assassin screamed and, in his panic, threw one of the guns out the window. He fired the other gun aimlessly as buckets of flat-bodied invertebrates swarmed over him. The Assassin Bugs inflicted their painful bites on the Nigerian’s neck and face while the roaches scurried for the nearest darkness, finding their way into the Nigerian’s shirt and up his pants leg. His skin crawled and tickled as the pointy legs and probing antennae searched for warmth. The Nigerian was so panicked and repulsed as thousands of tickling digits worked their way toward his crotch, that for a moment he considered suicide. But the thought of ten million dollars pulled him through his crisis.
As the tormented Nigerian pressed his hands hard against his clothes in an attempt to crush the filthy little bugs, he saw Klaus and Bob race out the back door and hit the street sprinting. A moment later the Nigerian raced after them, removing his pants on the run.
Down a nearby alley, Bob and Klaus huddled behind a large green dumpster, gasping for breath.
“That was brilliant!” Klaus exclaimed as he gasped for air. “I would not have bet that man could be distracted, but you did it.”
“Oh yeah, real brilliant. Did you see all those bugs, for chrissakes?! I’ve only got two strains left! I’m never gonna get this right.”
“If we live, you will have time to correct your errors. Let’s worry about staying alive right now. He is on our tail and we are unarmed.”
As Klaus peeked out to see if the pants-less Nigerian was coming, Bob thought about what Klaus had said. Unarmed? In New York?
Something floated around the periphery of Bob’s consciousness, an idea that answered the question. Unarmed? A weapon? Synapses fired wildly and neurons sucked in neurotransmitters as Bob struggled to capture the thought. Finally an electro-chemical surge hit him like he had jammed a wet fork into a toaster and he captured the thought.
Klaus saw Bob suddenly steel, filled with a new determination.
“This is fantastic,” Bob said in a tone that suggested great inner peace. “We’re not unarmed, not at all.” Bob’s voice was growing more excited. “As a matter of fact we have the most dangerous goddamn weapon on the face of the planet at our fingertips!”
Klaus had the uneasy feeling that Bob was no longer plugged in correctly. “Bob, what are you talking about?” he asked gently.
Bob spread his arms wide as if to say, “Look around.” Klaus looked, but he did not see.
“This city—New York—is an immense killing machine,” Bob said with the assurance of one who knew the truth. “It’s our weapon. It kills dozens each day without breaking a sweat. It’s a loaded gun on a bedside table waiting to be fired by a curious toddler. All we have to do use it. C’mon!”
Bob darted from behind the dumpster and Klaus followed, sucked into the wake of Bob’s tremendous conviction. They raced down Broome to Bowery and headed south.
Looking back they saw the Nigerian in hot pursuit, a hundred yards back, his gun in full view. Passersby moved casually aside as the assassin sprinted powerfully up the streets of Little Italy. The fact that he wore no pants struck no one as particularly unusual.
“What are we doing?” Klaus huffed as he ran. “He is going to kill us!”
“Trust me,” Bob said, “I know what I’m doing.”
Klaus followed Bob as he turned first onto Grand, then onto Mulberry Street and suddenly into Cafe Palermo. They raced passed the maitre d’ without so much as a reservation and continued through the dining room, past a plate of peperonata and into the kitchen where the aroma from a simmering saucepan of bagna cauda called like a Siren, singing a sweet song of hot anchovy and garlic. But Bob and Klaus refused to listen and dashed out the back, never breaking stride.
A moment later the Nigerian sped through the bistro, his gun drawn. A woman spit an olive across the room when she saw the large, armed black man in his all-cotton briefs. Another patron screamed when the olive splashed into her minestrone.
Bob and Klaus raced down the alley behind the restaurant, emerging on Hester Street. Bob paused to scan the scene. “What the hell are we doing?” Klaus asked again.
“There!” Bob said, pointing across the street. “Follow me!”
Bob raced toward La Bella Ferrara. Klaus followed. The same thing happened; Bob and Klaus raced through the dining room, resisting the trotelle alla savoia and the parmigiana di melanzane, though the waiters had been recommending both all day.
T
he Nigerian was following, like an entree after antipasto.
Again, out the alley onto Mulberry Street, searching. And again, across the way, Bob led Klaus to yet another restaurant, this time Angelo’s (since 1902).
Having worked up an appetite from all the running, Klaus thought he might like a bite to eat before he died—a last supper, as it were. As they streaked through Angelo’s, thick with the perfume of braised veal with black olives, Klaus noticed the patrons there looked significantly tougher, like extras from Goodfellas.
“What are we doing?” Klaus gasped one last time. “He is going to catch us and we will die…hungry!”
“Trust me,” Bob yelled confidently as he ran toward the back of the restaurant.
Racing through the kitchen, Klaus finally surrendered to his hunger and grabbed a slice of pizza, disappearing out the back door behind Bob.
The Nigerian entered Angelo’s sweating and wheezing from the chase, his gun, and now his abundant manhood, in full view.
An alert wiseguy stood abruptly and pointed. “It’s a hit!” he yelled.
Mafia dons were thrown to the ground. Button men pulled their guns. And before the Nigerian realized what had hit him, he was face down in a plate of fegato alla veneziana, his own liver stuffed with lead and as useless as the one on the plate.
In the alley Bob and Klaus heard the gunfire. Lots of it. They stopped and, after catching his breath, Bob took a bite from Klaus’ slice of pizza.
“Mmmm, that’s good,” Bob said with his mouth full. “Is that cilantro? That’s unusual, but I like it.” He took another bite.
Inside, the gunmen calmly sat down and returned to their fettuccine al burro as if nothing had happened. The restaurant’s owner snapped his fingers and waiters dragged the Nigerian away and prepared him for a slow sail to the bottom of the Hudson.
Klaus, still trying to catch his breath, shared the pizza with Bob as they walked down the alley and onto Baxter Street, out of danger for the moment. Bob picked at a bit of pepperoni lodged between his teeth.
“That was impressive,” Klaus wheezed. “I assume you knew that would happen?”
Feeling cocky, Bob answered in his best Edward G. Robinson, “Listen, pal, everybody knows the joints where you can get lead poisoning around here.” He hunched his shoulders the way he thought they did in old gangster movies.
Klaus smiled, then pointed at Bob. “Humphrey Bogart?”
“Close enough,” Bob said with a smile.
Chapter Fifty-nine
Mike Wolfe was alone his office, worrying. Ever since he’d seen Bob in the coffee shop, something had been bothering him, something Bob had said. “Hi to the wife,” wasn’t it? Wolfe didn’t have a wife, and if Bob was the thorough professional everyone said he was, he’d have known that.
One tape at a time, Wolfe absentmindedly sifted through the pile of cassettes stacked on his credenza. Blonde on Blonde, John Wesley Harding, Highway 61 Revisited. The titles brought back memories of counterintelligence operations the Agency had executed in cooperation with Hoover’s Bureau during the sixties. Many had been named after various Bob Dylan albums.
In that period, Hoover had himself liked to be called “Quinn, the Eskimo” or “The Mighty Quinn” and had once summarily fired an agent he thought had called him “The Mighty Queen.” Hoover would never stand for that sort of slander from his underlings, so for 15 of the most uncomfortable minutes in Bureau history a dozen embarrassed agents had listened to Hoover as he ranted about how all homosexuals were communists and wore dresses and did filthy things in dark places.
Hoover’s eyes had bugged even farther out of his puffy red face as he gave an elaborate demonstration of how they lisped and swished and flopped their wrists. He also swore that if called before a Senate subcommittee he could produce photographs of himself “in action” with various women to prove his heterosexuality.
Then suddenly realizing he was, perhaps, protesting too much, Hoover deemed the entire harangue classified and offered to reassign all those present to the duties of their choice in hopes of buying their silence.
Those were the days, Wolfe thought. He randomly choose one of the tapes and popped it into the cassette player. He then returned to what he had been doing for the past several days; namely, sorting through the massive pile of documents that comprised the file on Bob Dillon.
He studied one document, then another, then he looked away, furrowing his brow. Something was wrong, but what? The cassette played and sang, “Yes, and how many times can a man turn his head and pretend that he just doesn’t see?”
Wolfe looked again at Bob’s banking records, his tax returns, his unpaid parking tickets. What was it? Had he missed something? What were his instincts telling him?
“…the answer, my friend…is blowin’ in the wind…”
Chapter Sixty
Klaus looked over his shoulder for the hundredth time that afternoon, keeping a wary eye peeled as Bob led the way, east on West Houston, heading toward the NotSoHot restaurant.
“This is foolishness,” Klaus said finally. “We must get Mary and Katy and go to the airport now. Forget your damn bugs and this absurd experiment. Do you not want to live?”
Bob turned on Klaus with an intense stare.
“Listen, Mr. Swivel-Headed-World-Famous-Assassin-Boy, you might not understand this since you’re considered the best in the world at what you do, but see, I’m not even considered very good in my own goddamn neighborhood! I’ve worked damn hard all my life, but I’ve never been able to provide very well for my family. Hell, I’ve never had any real success doing anything.
“But right now, with every professional-goddamn-killer in the world after my hairy little butt, I may be close to a victory—maybe the only one I’ll ever have. So if you want me to quit, you’ll just have to shoot me yourself. I’m not gonna do it on my own. Understand?”
“Your family is your success,” said Klaus.
“Yeah, maybe,” Bob said, “and if that’s the only thing I ever do, I suppose I should be happy. But I’m sick and tired of being broke and being called a crackpot or a loser. And I’m tired as hell of eating shit in this town. I just want to succeed with something of my own, just one goddamn time.”
“Even if it means getting killed?” Klaus asked.
“Maybe. ‘Cause I’ll be damned if I’m going to quit before I find out whether or not my idea works. If nothing else, they can write ‘At least he tried’ on my headstone.”
Moved by Bob’s tone, if not the speech itself, Klaus followed Bob toward Thompson Street.
As soon as they rounded the corner onto Thompson, five men leveled their weapons and opened fire in their direction. Klaus was blinded almost immediately as the door frame to Bob’s right exploded into splinters and the plate glass window to Klaus’ left shattered.
Bob and Klaus knew they were good as dead and there was nothing either of them could do about it.
Then, from behind the five gunmen, a short black man sporting a goatee and an attitude began shouting angrily, “Cut! I said cut, goddammit!” And the shooting stopped as suddenly as it had begun.
Klaus shaded his eyes from the blinding glare of the klieg lights, regaining some of his sight. The dolly tracks and the cherry picker were oddities from a world he knew nothing of. The bystanders, steeped in indifference, milled about with arms folded. They seemed remarkably unfazed, even for New Yorkers who witnessed shootings with some regularity.
Bob, on the other hand, understood. He recovered from the shock of the ambush and pointed enthusiastically at the angry black man who was approaching them with a scowl. “Hey, Klaus, lookit. That’s Spike Lee!”
“What?” Klaus said.
“The director,” Bob said. “You know, Crooklyn, She’s Gotta Have It, those old Nike commercials with Michael Jordan.”
“Oh
hhh yeah,” Klaus said. “It’s gotta be the shoes!”
After being escorted off the set, Bob and Klaus headed a few blocks farther down Thompson Street to the NotSoHot restaurant, which was currently occupied by Strain Three, the Bee Assassin/Western Corsair hybrid.
Klaus wrinkled his nose as they entered the building. The smell of tobacco, rotted lung, tumors, and phlegm filled the air. “Pheww!” he exhaled as he looked out the window, watching for anyone following them. Bob poked around in the wall spaces, making a hopeful inspection of his work.
As he scanned the street, Klaus wondered why the hell he was doing this. Why was he protecting an eccentric entomologist from a legion of highly motivated mercenaries? Maybe the theories were true, maybe he did have a death wish.
“How could I have been so stupid?” Bob said after a moment of inspection.
“What is it now?”
“Come see for yourself.”
Bob gestured disgustedly at an ashtray containing several cigarette butts submerged in a putrid brown liquid. There were seven or eight peculiar looking insects lying feet-up in and around the ashtray. The bugs were black with a deep red ring around their abdomens and all their appendages were fringed with thin fuzzy hair.
“Those,” Bob said flatly, “are my Strain Three hybrids.”
“What’s wrong with them?” Klaus asked.
“What’s wrong is they’re dead as the Kennedys!” Bob answered not so democratically. “The water in the ashtray extracted the nicotine from the tobacco and they drank it.”
Klaus stared at Bob. “So why are they dead?” he asked.
Bob rolled his eyes like an exasperated science teacher. “Nicotine is a poisonous, water soluble alkaloid for chrissakes! In the aqueous solution of its sulfate, it’s used as an insecticide! Any idiot knows that! Look…see that sticky brown stuff on the walls? It’s nicotine! It’s a highly addictive poison and this place is painted with it!”
“So why didn’t it kill the roaches?”
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