Terminal

by Andrew Vachss

  “Please,” I said, respectfully.

  He removed a tube of metal, pulled on the underside with both hands, and hoisted it to his shoulder. “It is not so heavy—maybe twenty kilos—for what it can do. But you understand, it must be aimed at least ten meters off the ground to be effective. More is better.”

  I nodded. He went through a lot of stuff about “target acquisition” and “passive infrared.”

  He watched my face as he spoke. “Unless you are experienced, this is not what you want,” he finally said. “An RPG would be much more effective. And much cheaper.” He never glanced at Yitzhak—this guy was all about the work.

  “We’re not looking at an armored car,” I told him.

  “A helicopter?”

  “Maybe,” I said. Then, realizing he’d take that for craftiness, I explained: “It’s just for backup. The people we…might have a dispute with, they have access to one.”

  “Altitude?” the military guy said. Not so much a question as data-gathering.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “But low, real low.”

  “No, no, no!” he said, disgusted. “The surface-to-air you asked for, it requires an experienced hand.”

  “I can—”

  “What? Practice, you think? On what? Where? With what?”

  I just stood there, listening to him put my lame idea through the Cuisinart of his professional’s mind.

  “The SAM is a heat-seeker,” he finally said. “It acquires the target, not the operator. But an RPG, it’s just a shoulder-fired rocket. Like a tiny bazooka—does that help you understand?”

  “I think so.”

  “It weighs less than half of the Igla. And you aim it like a rifle. Your eye finds the target, hot or cold.”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “Yes.” He sighed, almost bored. “It will bring down a bird, if it comes in low enough. And that’s even without our modifications.”

  I said nothing. I already felt like an idiot; I wasn’t going to make it worse.

  “I never understand him, either,” Yitzhak said, kindly.

  “The warhead, that is custom work,” the unnamed man said, as matter-of-factly as a hardware-store guy explaining a power drill. “The one we have, it will totally destroy whatever it hits. And burn whatever is left.”

  “That does sound better,” I admitted.

  “It is actually cheaper,” Yitzhak reminded me.

  “What do I have to—?”

  “I have it with us,” the military man said.

  “The building is in Upper Westchester,” Reedy said. “I own it. By midnight, it will be completely empty, except for invitees. I’m giving you the address in advance, so you can put anyone you want in place. Good faith.”

  “Good faith,” I echoed the lie.

  “You know I can drive,” Michelle said, just a fingernail’s distance from the detonator to her temper.

  “We’ve already got—”

  “I’m not saying I’ll be the driver. I’m saying I can drive. Things happen. You could need me.”

  “My sister—”

  “You don’t say a word to me.” She wheeled on Clarence. “I was doing work before you were—” Michelle cut herself off. She wasn’t afraid of dying, but she’d rather die than admit she was older than Clarence.

  “Sweetheart, you too pretty to be—”

  “Spare me,” she sneered at the Prof. “Only one man gets to pat me on the ass, and he couldn’t honey-talk a woman if his life depended on it.”

  “You’re in on the sin,” the little man said, surrendering on behalf of us all.

  “Really should have a rifleman for this, boss. That kind of distance…”

  “We don’t know the distance yet, Gate. May not be any distance, if they play it square.”

  “What’s the odds?”

  “Fifty-fifty.”

  “You looked over the scene?”

  “Not me personally, but it was done,” I said, showing him the aerial photos.

  “I don’t like that long alley, boss. You got high ground on both sides.”

  “Cleared ground,” I said. “They put anyone up there, they’re still going to be there when the cops show up. Nobody’ll have to read them their rights, either.”

  It was a three-story building, looked like the management office for what had once been an industrial park, now in the process of being converted to condos. Land in this part of the country is more valuable than any business conducted on it.

  The place looked deserted. Only the third floor had lights showing.

  Clarence pulled up to the front door. I stepped out of my Plymouth. Gigi’s panel van was close by, a probably still-fuming Michelle sitting next to the monster. Gateman was checking through the gun-slit openings in the steel plates lining the van, spinning freely in his wheelchair.

  Max was in the shadows, somewhere. I didn’t know where the Blood Shadows were, either. Or the Prof.

  I pulled back on the unlocked doors, saw the elevator lights were out, and started up the stairs. My mind started to take me places I didn’t want to go: Maybe the only threat they see is me. If that’s so, I’m about to solve their problem. In fact, I guess I already did. So I went back to that place I found every time I had to walk into an enemy’s darkness. Some people have faith. Me, I had the born-to-lose career criminal’s mantra: Fuck it!

  The conference room was big enough for a twenty-person table, with plenty of space surrounding it. The double doors were standing open. Behind the table, facing me, were three men. Reedy was in the middle, Bender to his left, Henricks on his right. Three rich, privileged, glossy lumps of necrotic flesh.

  Behind them: a huge pane of glass, black night for a curtain. As I stepped forward, I deliberately scanned the men in the corners, and along the walls. I’d seen them all before. In Africa. Not these same men, but from the same tribe.

  Wolfe had once called me a mercenary trying to pass for a patriot. She wasn’t talking about national loyalty.

  I knew what I was. What I’d done. I’d told Wolfe I was back to being myself.

  I wasn’t lying when I’d said that. And now I was back in the same swamp, wondering if I could find my way home.

  I took off the shoulder strap to the canvas pouch I had slung over one shoulder, put the pouch on the desk across from the three men facing me.

  None of the hired guns moved.

  I put the briefcase I’d been carrying on the table, too.

  “Want to do it?” I asked, starting to pull my jacket off.

  Reedy waved it off. His silent gesture said it all: if I was wired, it wasn’t going to do me any good—nobody on their side was going to speak out loud.

  “This,” I said, taking out the Mole’s phone, “is the transmitter. The signal is cellular, not cyber. Scrambled at both ends. I have to dial in the encryption codes for it to work. When the connect is made, you’ll be able to see it all, live, on this screen.

  “That’s what’s in here,” I told them, pointing at the briefcase. “Just a magnifier, so you can all watch at once—the pickup screen’s pretty small, but the sound is adjustable. There’s also a couple of tripods to set the whole thing up, so you don’t need to hand-hold it. What you’re going to see could take a while.”

  Reedy nodded assent. They all slid their chairs back so I had room to set up the apparatus.

  “There’s something I have to show you first,” I told them, holding up a quarter-inch-thick stack of paper, my back deliberately to the hired guns. “Now’s not the time, but soon, if everything goes the way it’s supposed to. Ready?”

  When I got the silent nod, I punched in the number of the phone Claw would be holding, the one with the red tape on the back. Then I added a string of numbers, fake-dialing the nonexistent encryption.

  I stepped back. And the magnified screen popped into life.

  I moved back to the door. Not to be closer to it—I was sure the staircase would be blanketed by then—but to watch their faces.

&nb
sp; Reedy stayed flat. Maybe his eyes narrowed a little. Henricks was a beefy slab. But Bender’s complexion picked up a greenish hue, and his mouth was dry enough so that he broke ranks and took a drink of something from the iced glass on his left.

  The voice that came over the micro-speakers was as clear as if Thornton was in the room.

  My name is Thornton, Percival K. Thornton. Back in the day, I went by “Thorn.” Now, I go by “Terminal.” Because that’s me, now: terminal. I’m just about done. But there’s something I have to do first.

  One night in August of 1975, a girl was killed. Her name was Melissa. Melissa Turnbridge. They never caught who did it. I don’t think they ever had any real suspects. That’s the part I can’t fix—the wrong I can’t make right.

  But there’s one part of it I can fix, and that’s why I’m doing this. There’s someone—or maybe even more than one; I’m not saying—who’ve been blaming themselves for what happened. More than thirty years of carrying that around. Not the fear of the knock on the door—that’s never going to happen, not now. But there’s something worse. Something I found out for myself. The guilt.

  The speaker took an audible breath. Then:

  Here’s the truth. The truth the cops never knew. The one they may never know—that part’s not up to me. Melissa was my girlfriend. Yeah, I know what you’re thinking. How could a grown man have a thirteen-year-old girlfriend?

  It’s not what you think. You didn’t know her; I did. You’ve heard about “natural-born killers,” right? I didn’t believe there was any such thing until I went to prison. Then I saw it for myself. They weren’t abused as kids; that’s all bullshit. They were just born to be what they are, same as a rattlesnake.

  Slimeball probably believes what he just said, I thought. “Natural-born” is how people always account for what they don’t understand…or don’t want to.

  Well, that was her, Melissa. Not a born killer, a born whore. And not just a whore, a dirty little slut who loved what she did. Loved it. Not the money—oh, she liked money, but she already had so much, from her parents and all, that it didn’t have much of a jolt for her. For her, money was like…tribute or something. The only thing that really got that little cunt wet was power. That’s what made her come, making people crawl.

  Before her, I was a normal guy. Better than normal. I was a good-looking man—ask anyone who knew me back then. I had a sweet ride, my own place, plenty of spending money. All the pussy anyone could ever want, and I never paid a dime for any of it.

  Melissa came on to me, not the other way around. What did I want with some junior-high kid? I’m just sitting in my car, near the school, when she jumps in. Before I could say a word, she pulls up her skirt, right to her panties. “Turn left at the light,” she tells me. I’m, like, in a trance. This is broad daylight, okay? And suddenly we’re in this…forestlike place. And she’s kneeling on the front seat, sucking my cock. Not just sucking it: she’s got her fingernail under my balls, twirling her tongue, making all these noises. I’ve had—this was years later—five-hundred-dollar-an-hour hookers, and none of them could do it like Melissa. Like I said, a natural.

  This is all happening, and I’m, like, frozen. And I don’t mean my cock. I couldn’t move. She reaches back and pulls her skirt up, so I can watch her ass wiggle. I explode in her mouth. She makes these “yum, yum” sounds, like she just had a bowl of ice cream. Licks her lips. Tells me, don’t worry about anything—where we are, it’s on her property. Not her father’s, hers, the way she says it.

  I’m dead. I know I’m dead, but I can’t do anything about it. She reaches in her purse, takes out a tube of something. “You’ll need this, for next time,” she says. “Your cock’s so big, it won’t fit, otherwise.”

  I already know there’s never going to be any next time with this one. All I want to do is get out of there. But she can see this. “Tomorrow, we can use the cabin,” she says. Not asking me, telling me.

  It gets worse after that. I was never in charge. Not for a minute. Once she made me…get down on my knees and…It was…degrading. She made me say things. Do things. She even took pictures of me, and I couldn’t stop her.

  I hated her more every day. But she held the whip. From the very first time, she kept telling me what was going to happen to me if she told her daddy. That’s what she called him. She knew more about the law than any lawyer. “Where do you think I learned all this?” I remember her saying. “I’ve been in charge since I was nine years old.”

  She never thought I had the balls to stop her. I don’t think she was afraid of anything. She was like some devil-girl.

  Well, she was wrong. Maybe I didn’t have the balls to kill her, but I had one thing nobody ever gave me credit for: brains. Not school brains, street brains.

  Once she made me into a…It doesn’t matter, but that’s when I started. I knew it would take time, and I’d have to be careful. But I also knew where I had to look for what I needed.

  These three spineless little nothings. Always hung out together…if you call circle-jerking hanging out. They had nothing going for them but money. Only, where we lived, just about everyone had money, so that didn’t get them anything. A guy like me, a guy they thought had it all, they fucking worshiped me.

  So when I invited them over one day—they knew who I was, knew I dealt to some of the older guys, so they weren’t surprised to see my car around the school—it was like they died and went to heaven.

  I started them slow. First, just talk. Advice, like.

  I showed them stuff. Cards, dice. Let them hear me place a few bets. Like a big brother.

  The marijuana mellowed them, but I didn’t want them too mellow.

  It was the tapes that got them going. I started them off on lightweight porn, so I could see if they had the taste. For all I knew, they could have been queer.

  By the time I was up to the heavy stuff—you had to know where to get hard S&M in those days, not like now—that’s all they wanted to see. The more the girls had to take it, the more those punks liked it. Because, on the tapes, the girls liked it, see?

  In the stuff I showed them, no matter what got done to them, the bitches always begged for more. Fuck them in the ass, come all over their faces, make them eat shit—they’d love you for it.

  It was like I showed the little punks a special secret. The girls who were always blowing them off, what they really wanted was a man to make them take it. That arrogant stuff was just a front—inside, they’re all the same.

  That’s when I started feeding Melissa into the picture. Got them to see her for the fuck-princess she could be if she was only handled right. By the right guys.

  I got them into keeping a journal. Just a fantasy thing. Told them all men did that, planned out what they were going to do to a certain bitch to teach her a few lessons. Showed them a couple of mine, in fact.

  I kept working on them, waiting for everything to come together. When they were ready, totally committed, I even had the place for them to do it. I knew the house would be empty, because the owners were paying me to keep an eye on it while they were on some cruise. They were planning on doing all this redecorating when they got back, so the front rooms were right down to the bare floor, no furniture. I’m the one who put the rug there…and the plastic underneath.

  The plan was perfect. I knew where Melissa would be that night. Summertime, she could stay out until…Ah, for all I knew, she didn’t even have a curfew. I sure as hell knew I wasn’t the first guy she had turned into a…

  Anyway, the reason I knew where she’d be was she thought she was going to meet me.

  That bitch had a mouth on her like a thousand razors, but she didn’t have any physical strength. Besides, I had these punks so pumped up on what studs they were going to turn into after doing the job on her. I mean, they were absolutely convinced she’d take it every way they gave it to her, then she’d be their girlfriend—all three of them—forever. Just to make sure, I had them all a little wired on speed. They t
hought they could do anything.

  He paused for a second. Reached out of camera view for something. I heard the distinct sound of exhaled cigarette smoke. I knew what this was all about. What Thornton was all about. Power. He could smoke; Claw couldn’t—not without revealing his presence. And Claw really needed a smoke. That’s the reason we’d never rehearsed; it would have detracted from the freak’s perfect-truth performance.

  The docs say these things can kill you. Well, they won’t kill me. You’ll see.

  Anyway, I’m just kicking back, waiting for those stupid little tools to show up with the photos I told them to take. I knew Melissa wouldn’t go to the cops about other kids, but those pictures would be my proof, in case she ever went to them about me. Like she was always saying she might do, every time I tried to…make her stop.

  And then it went haywire. The stupid punks run into my house, babbling about how they killed her. They didn’t mean to—Christ, they must of said that a million times—but it happened. So I did what I had to do—if anything at the scene connected back to those wimps, they’d be spilling their guts to the cops in ten seconds. And I’d be in it.

  Only thing is, when I get there, she’s not dead. Not fucking close to it. Oh, she’s beat up pretty good, bleeding a little bit. Maybe she even was unconscious for a while. Must of been, actually, since she was still there when I showed up. That’s probably why they thought they’d croaked her.

  But there she is. Just been tied up, gang-fucked, pissed on…and she’s threatening me!

  That’s when I knew how it had to end. I punched her right in the mouth—man, I had been wanting to do that for so long—and that’s when she knew, too. I could see it in her eyes. The one thing I’d never thought I’d see there: fear. Because she knew it was finally going to happen. She’d gone too far.

  She didn’t even try and fight when I used the handcuffs and the gag. I wrapped her in the rug and the plastic, and I drove her out to this spot I know.