by Jason Frost
One of Rhino's crew snatched an arrow up and laid it into his bow, pivoting toward Eric.
BeBop nodded at his young sidekick, who immediately plucked one of the hat pins from his fishing cap, thumbed it into the end of the hollow tube he was carrying, pointed it at Rhino's man, and blew sharply into the end. The hat pin launched out of the end of the tube and dove into the neck of the crewman. The man dropped his bow with a howl and grabbed his neck. Blood braided down his throat as he swooned to the floor.
The crowd watched silently.
"I warned you that violence wouldn't be tolerated. It's bad for business. Nothing personal, Rhino."
Angel quickly nudged Rhino's elbow, guiding him through the crowd. "Of course we understand," she said politely. "We apologize for our friend's rashness."
"No problem," BeBop said. "Tsetse needed the practice anyway."
Angel led Rhino out of the room, stepping over the twitching body of their wounded crew member. Kelly Furst, the black ex-army nurse, and Rilke stopped to pick up their fallen comrade.
"I wouldn't bother," BeBop smiled. "Tsetse dips those suckers in something nasty that Blackjack helped him cook up. That guy'll be dead meat in a couple minutes. We can use the body to feed the hogs."
Kelly Furst and Rilke exchanged looks, dropped the body, and quickly trotted after the others.
When they were gone and the crowd was loudly discussing the events just past, BeBop waved Eric, Tracy, and Blackjack over. "That Rhino's getting worse and worse, man. Acts like a junkie speed freak on Angel Dust. I don't know what your beef is, but I know he's out for your asses. Personally, I don't care one way or the other who does what to who, but I don't want it done here. You know the rules, folks. I'd hate to end up feeding you guys to the hogs too. Blackjack and me done too much business together for that." He paused, let the light flicker off his braces. "And he knows me well enough to know I'll kill all three of you if I have to."
16.
"It's like Times Square," Tracy complained. "Don't they ever go to bed around here?"
"They save that for Casa del Sol," Blackjack said. "There you can buy a bed and some company in it for anywhere between a loaded cartridge and a bunch of fresh spinach."
They were walking casually through the lower lobby of Casa del Mar, picking their way past the endless throngs of people. Around them loomed the ancient artworks of centuries past. The ceilings, pilasters, and doorways were gilt decorated. On the wall near the heavy wooden hand-carved door was a polychrome stucco relief of the Madonna and Child by Mino da Fiesole, a fifteenth-century Florentine sculptor. Pushed against one wall was a gilt wood, marble-topped eighteenth-century table from Italy. A couple of rough-hewn men were snoring in a drunken stupor on top of the table, their heavy boots having already scraped long furrows of gilt from the legs.
"Don't you think we should go back and get the rest of my crew?" Blackjack asked. "I mean, now that Rhino knows we're here, they're sure to be extra cautious."
"What for? They don't know why we're here. Rhino doesn't know that Angel double-crossed him with Alabaster. And Angel doesn't know that we know. If anything, they'll be out looking for us, afraid that we've already turned tail and run." Eric glanced up at Blackjack. "As long as the information you bought is accurate, we should be in pretty good shape."
"The information is good. Like the newspapers used to say, 'a reliable source.' Actually I got it from one of BeBop's security people. He doesn't discourage them from accepting bribes as long as it doesn't interfere with his percentage. He has a very pragmatic philosophy."
"He's nuts," Tracy said.
"Yes," Blackjack agreed. "There is that too."
"Okay, we know this place is so crowded they had to put Rhino and his people all on different floors. Angel's room is on the third floor, Rhino's is on the first, and in between, Griffin and the rest of the crew are sharing a room on the second floor. That spreads them out adequately for our purposes. It's too bad they couldn't split them up and send a few over to Casa del Monte, but this arrangement will have to do."
As they walked up the wooden stairs, Eric couldn't help but marvel at his surroundings. Even in the shambles these animals were making of it, the building's regal beauty was dominating. Hearst had been possessed when he'd built it, overseeing every detail with architect Julia Morgan, from imported tiles to bathroom fixtures. A massive construction job that contributed to the $125,000,000 debt that eventually destroyed Hearst. The bitter irony: four years before his death, his bad heart forced him to leave his Enchanted Hill to be nearer medical attention.
It was his fantasy, Eric thought, like Blackjack's fantasy of becoming a pirate. Now in California anyone could live out their fantasies; anyone could be a William Randolph Hearst. BeBop could go from part-time musician to ruler of a feudal city-state. Apparently no one had learned from Hearst's mistakes. Without controls, fantasies are closer to nightmares than dreams.
When they reached the third floor, they picked their way cautiously past the people sleeping in the hallway or haggling over a deal or telling raunchy jokes over a Mason jar of BeBop's Brew. It looked like the corridors of a Las Vegas hotel during a Teamsters' convention.
"Recognize anybody?" Eric asked.
Tracy shook her head. "I don't remember them from The Centurion."
"Me neither," Blackjack said.
"Okay, let's do it. As long as they aren't around, this shouldn't be too difficult."
Eric gripped his bow with one hand, the arrow already nocked into place, and cupped his other hand around the door knob to Angel's room. He rocked backward as if to smash his shoulder into the door. Blackjack laid a restraining hand on his shoulder. "The locks have been removed," he whispered. "BeBop's house rules."
Eric pushed the door open.
***
"Come on," Rhino snapped at Griffin. "Grab your new toy and let's go."
Griffin hefted Eric's Barnett Commando crossbow from his bed and leaned it against his shoulder. There were only two beds in the room, one a sixteenth-century fourposter, the other a copy. Griffin had one, the Peterson brothers shared the other. The rest of the crew flopped out on the floor.
"What's up, Cap?" Griffin said a little too loudly. He'd had too much of BeBop's Brew, but didn't want Rhino to know.
"I want you and a few of the others to go upstairs and escort Angel down to my room."
"Can do, Cap," Griffin said, but moaned to himself. That bitch would put up a fight about it. Oh, she'd come all right-no one refused a request by Rhino-but she'd make them all miserable the whole way down. And his head was already throbbing from the booze. He stuffed a few bolts for the crossbow in his belt. "Kelly, Danton," he pointed, snapping his fingers at them, "you come with me."
Kelly Furst was naked, sitting cross-legged on her blanket reading a year-old issue of Cosmopolitan she'd bought from a vendor in the courtyard. He'd wanted her to come to his room that night, but had settled for a hand job, which she'd performed right there in his booth in the middle of the flowing crowd. She'd opened his fly, reached in, and nodded. No one paid any attention while he thrust his skinny pelvis against her hand. It hadn't taken long. She took a copy of Redbook too, which wasn't part of the bargain, but he didn't bother arguing with her.
She bent the corner of the page to mark her place in the article entitled "Barspeak: The Art of Conversation at Singles Bars," stood up, pulled on her shorts and sleeveless T-shirt, and grabbed her bow.
Richard Danton did ten rapid-fire pushups before leaping to his feet with a crooked grin. At eighteen, he was always ready for something to do. He was one of the new recruits they'd just taken on today and he was looking forward to proving himself. The biggest shock in young Danton's life so far hadn't been the quakes or the subsequent death of his parents, but the fact that he didn't feel bad when he killed people. The discovery that his parents had been all wrong about that had set him free. He'd killed twelve people since, each represented by a notch on the handle of the axe he carried.
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"I want her in my room in five minutes," Rhino said, pacing. In the past couple of days he'd lost the ability to stand still at all. His body had to keep moving, constantly rocking, pacing, fidgeting. Even inside he felt like everything was moving, the organs vibrating, shifting uncomfortably, jockeying against each other for a more comfortable position. If you stopped and thought about it, you could go crazy…
"We'll be back faster than a cat can bury his shit," Griffin said, cocking the crossbow and sliding a bolt into the groove. Kelly and Danton followed him out, their weapons clutched at their chests, ready.
***
Angel was already moving.
Wearing only blue panties and a white sweat shirt, she did a handspring over the bed, somersaulting lightly onto her feet next to her pile of weapons. Her hand passed over the pile and suddenly she was holding a stack of sharpened throwing stars.
Eric and Blackjack flanked toward her in separate arcs, like a wishbone. Eric held the bow string taut, but didn't yet draw it back. Blackjack drew his saber, holding the hilt with both hands like a Jimmy Connors backhand. Tracy leaned against the closed door, guarding it with her thick cane.
Angel's eyes darted back and forth among the three of them, her back slightly arched. Eric could see her mind flipping through strategies, countermoves, options, like a Go player rubbing a black stone before making the winning move. When her eyes finally settled on Tracy, he knew she planned to go straight for the door.
"Duck, Trace," Eric shouted, echoing his plea from a couple days ago when they were still happily on their canoe.
Only this time she didn't argue. Tracy twisted away from the door just as Angel's wrist snapped, flicking a spinning star across the room like a tiny buzz-saw blade gone berserk. The star thudded into the oak door, splintering the carved face of an English hunter chasing a fox. A second star followed almost immediately, this one pinning a lock of Tracy's hair to the door. The metal points fanned out just two inches from her left eye.
"Enough, Angel," Eric said, drawing the bow string back to his cheek. The tip of the arrow quivered slightly as it pointed at her small body.
Angel's smile was faint. A dare, he thought. She had more confidence in her perfect body's agility than she did fear of Eric's arrow. Suddenly she grabbed the ragged blanket from the bed and flipped it into the air toward Eric. He'd hesitated, not wanting to kill her until she'd reproduced Alabaster's map, but the ghosting blanket startled him into releasing his grip. The arrow plunged into the blanket like a missile, pulling the whole thing high over their heads, finally nailing the blanket to the wall.
But Angel had already cartwheeled over the bed, bouncing to her feet in time to fling two more stars. The first took a glancing bite out of Eric's thigh, chewing off a hunk of denim and skin before dropping tiredly to the floor. The second plunked below Blackjack's collarbone, lodging between bones.
"Damn," he yelled, more from anger than pain, struggling to pluck it out of his body. It wouldn't give.
Angel's hand found the door knob.
Whoomp!
Tracy whirled around with her cane and smacked Angel in the lower spine. She was off balance because of her hip, so she wasn't able to put much power behind the blow. But the effort yanked her hair free, leaving a lock of her hair still stuck to the door under the throwing star.
Angel's body arced backward from the impact. She dropped to the floor, her hands still clutching the door knob. Weakly she tried to pull herself back up. Too late. Eric grabbed a handful of her long black hair and jerked her backward onto the floor.
Blackjack pressed the saber against the hollow of her throat, denting the skin slightly.
"At last, Eric, you have come to finish your assignment of so long ago." Tears of pain spilled from Angel's eyes, but otherwise she showed no emotion.
"That was another planet, another man," Eric said, kneeling beside her.
"Yes," she said, squinting into his eyes, studying him. "You are changed. I see something of our old friend in you now. Something dark behind the eyes. A tint of Fallows, perhaps." She smiled. "He bragged to me that he would turn you or kill you. I see he has succeeded."
Eric smiled. "If that's true, Angel, you have much to fear from me. N'est-ce pas?"
***
"Out of the way, asshole," Griffin said, shoving the large drunk out of his way. The big man bounced into the wall, scraping his nose on the Italian Renaissance tempura-on-wood painting. In his stupor, he thought the woman in the painting resembled Betty, his ex-wife, as he furiously snatched it from the wall and spun around to clobber Griffin with it. Griffin swung the heavy metal butt of the crossbow around, clipping the drunk on the temple. The skin didn't break, but a discolored splotch of blood pooled into a dark full moon on his forehead as he sank to the floor, unconscious. Kelly Furst stepped over the body as if nothing had happened. Richard Danton kicked the unconscious man in the crotch as he passed by and giggled.
Few in the crowded corridor seemed to notice. And those that did notice, didn't care.
Somebody reached out and touched Kelly's dreadlocks as she walked by. White people were always doing that, so she ignored it and kept walking.
When they finally bullied their way to Angel's door, Griffin took a deep breath, rolled his eyes in expectation, and knocked.
There was a pause, so he knocked again, using the butt of the crossbow. A chip of carved wood with a fox's tail flew off.
"Who is it?" Angel asked.
"Benny and the Jets, who'd ya think?" Griffin answered. "Cap wants you down in his room, pronto."
"Okay," she said. "Come in."
"How about that?" Griffin said to the others as he turned the knob. "For once she doesn't bite my head off."
***
"On the floor. Move!"
Griffin stood paralyzed for a moment, taking it all in. There was more time in a crisis than people realized. Like when he used to quarterback, fading back with the ball, looking for an opening to run through or a free man to pass to. He'd look at the line and see about eight tons of padded beef charging at him, those black antiglare semicircles under their eyes making them look like zombies. Their hands would be groping toward him like claws. But he didn't panic. He waited, looked around, made his move.
And that's what he did now. He saw that Ravensmith bastard yelling at them, his hand anchored at his chin with an arrow riding the drawn bowstring. He saw the fucking nigger giant with a dumb sword in one hand and a.38 Dan Wesson Model 15-2 VH in the other. He saw the pretty bitch kneeling on the floor next to Angel, a knife pressing into her throat. Three of them against four of us. But the nigger had the gun.
He felt the adrenaline swirling through him. Just like the state championship game against Clayton. All they needed now was fucking cheerleaders. He thought of how angry Rhino would be and what he was like when he was angry. Then a funny image popped into his mind from nowhere. It was a picture of Sylvester Stallone in the ring facing another nigger. Sly was giving him the cold stare and saying, "Go for it!"
So that's what Griffin did.
He nudged the safety on the crossbow as he zagged off to the side, hearing Kelly and Danton following his lead. He pivoted toward Blackjack, wanting to take out the gun first. But even as his finger tensed around the trigger, he heard the loud popping sound and the tugging at his chest as the bullet burrowed through his heart. The last thing he saw was his arrow whacking into the ceiling. Then he felt his sphincter muscles weaken and his bladder open, his pants filling with warm liquids. He knew he was dying and wanted to say something memorable as his last words, but all he could manage was, "Shit." It didn't matter. No one heard him anyway.
Danton was giggling as he hefted his spear, not sure who to throw it at. Before he decided, Eric planted an arrow in his chest. Danton dropped heavily to the floor, his eyes open and still startled at the suddenness of death.
Just as Eric released his arrow, Kelly Furst snatched the Remington.41-caliber rim-fire derringer from her pocket a
nd squeezed off a round at Eric. The bullet chopped through the bow before whizzing past Eric's ear. Before she could fire the second round, Blackjack's gun jumped in his hand again and Kelly was flipped off her feet and into the wall, her head thudding with a dull echo.
Angel didn't struggle, didn't make a move. Tracy kept the blade's edge snug against the windpipe, discouraging any involvement.
"Let's go," Blackjack said urgently. "Security will be here in a couple minutes to investigate the gunshot. You remember what BeBop said?"
Eric ignored him, walking quickly to Griffin's prone body, prying the stiff fingers from his crossbow. He grabbed the arrows too. "Okay. Now we can go."
***
" 'Hold the pickles, hold the lettuce, special orders don't upset us…' " Tracy was lying on the 400-year-old bed, her hands clasped behind her head, trying to remember jingles from television commercials. If she closed her eyes, she could clearly see the happy teenage faces marching behind the counter of a Burger King.
She opened her eyes, awkwardly adjusting herself to sit up more, afraid she might drift off to sleep. This would be the worst possible time for sleep.
" 'Bud-weiser,' " she sang softly. " 'This Bud's for you.' " She looked at her watch again. It was still a 5:23 A.M. Through the window she could see the morning light starting to freckle the Halo. Abruptly she stopped singing about Budweiser and sang, "Somewherrre, over the Halo." The cane Eric had made for her was stretched out on the bed next to her. She pulled it closer. "Come here, Toto."
She studied her watch again. 5:24. What could be keeping them? The longer they waited, the more danger they were in. Surely, they knew that.
After they'd snatched Angel from her room, Blackjack had convinced Eric to let him take her back to the ship. "I can make her talk there, man," he'd said, his smooth black face shining with sweat. "And talk she will."