by Mick Farren
"This is Harry. You wanted me to call you."
The idea of distance quickly melted. "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine, although things have started to turn decidedly weird."
"What happened down there?"
"This guy tried to kill Proverb. We're questioning him now. He missed Proverb, but he wasted one of the bodyguards."
"We saw some of it on TV."
"Then you probably know as much as I do."
"Harry, there was this senior deacon here. Spencer. He was very angry."
"I had a run-in with him just now."
"He's really mad at you."
"I can imagine."
"I mean really mad."
There were voices in the background at his end.
"Listen, Cynthia, let me call you at home later. I'm really up to my ass in it right now."
"Harry?"
"Yeah."
"Be careful, will you?"
"I'll be careful."
He hung up. She put down the handset.
"Damn."
He would call her later, then he would probably come over, and she would not do anything to stop him.
Carlisle
"Goddamn it to hell! I don't believe this. Are you telling me we've got an Oswald here?"
Reeves looked extremely unhappy. "He checks out as the most perfect lone gunman you could imagine."
"It's not right," Carlisle said. "It's too convenient. It's too perfect. I hate the whole thing. It's like the Reichstag fire or the Ortega assassination. This guy's timing is too perfect for a lone nut."
"You can't build a conspiracy on nothing."
"That's exactly what a perfect conspiracy leaves behind. It's watertight." Carlisle stared angrily through the one-way glass. "Wallace Jay Bums. A ten-year history of mental problems but never previously violent. Hospitalized on four occasions. Dropped out of sight fourteen months ago. Told doctors he was going to hermit out in the wilderness to prepare for the coming of the Apocalypse. Shows up today showered and shaved, in a brand-new suit from Barney's and nothing in his pockets but a plastic .50 Sterling. Does that about sum it up?"
"The Reader's Digest version."
"It's like he was newly delivered."
"With a cannon like that, it was lucky that the slug didn't go right through the bodyguard and take out Proverb, as well."
"He had the right piece."
Reeves suddenly grinned. "There was one thing that wasn't perfect."
"Yeah, that's true. He didn't get his man."
On the other side of the one-way glass, Wallace Jay Burns faced the wall with a Norman Bates stare. When he had first been brought in, he had been howling and screaming, holy-rolling stuff about how Proverb was the Antichrist and how killing him would break the Master Lock and free the Motion of the Universe so the Rapture could begin. He had been yelling over and over.
"I am the designated of the Lord, the slayer of the Antichrist. I come with vengeance and a sword."
"Can somebody shut him up before we all go nuts?" someone had asked.
After the serious questioning had started, however, he not only shut up but suddenly came to a cosmic full stop. His eyeballs rolled up, and the lights went out. From that point on, no one was home in the mind of Wallace Jay Burns.
Reeves peered through the glass at Burns. There were blackening bruises down one side of the assassin's face, and his right eye was closing up. The men who had disarmed him had not been particularly gentle.
"Maybe we should play the tapes of him raving again."
"We've heard it all," Carlisle said. "That Damien stuff gives me the creeps."
"We could get Dr. Feelgood down here to try to wake him up chemically."
Carlisle shook his head. "I don't want to load any drugs into him yet. It could well be drugs that put him where he is now."
"Nothing showed on the bloodscan."
"Microdelics wouldn't show on a bloodscan. They could have used a binary or maybe some three-tier, precision time-release deal. First layer makes him calm and lucid so he can make the hit. The second, maybe triggered by his own natural adrenaline, starts him raving."
"And the third turns him into an eggplant."
"Can you think of a better scenario?"
Reeves shook his head. "I think you'd be better off if you stopped thinking of a mysterious 'them.' "
Carlisle rubbed his eyes. "Maybe. It just bugs me. It's too pat."
He knew that he was approaching exhaustion. He needed food, coffee, cigarettes, and most of all sleep. He stood up and stretched. "I don't know. Maybe I'm not thinking straight. Did we get anything on the gun yet?"
"It's clean as a whistle. It was part of a batch shipped to a Dallas gun store eighteen months ago. There's no record of the purchase."
"There wouldn't be in Texas. Guns come from God down there."
"So where do we go from here? We can't keep the deacons at bay forever."
"I suppose we can run some routine stuff on him. Hook him up to a polygraph and run the Schultz-Dixon Image Test on him, see if we get a response. After that, there's nothing left but to start with the drugs."
Reeves picked up the phone. "Get an S-D kit down here, will you?" He glanced at Carlisle. "I gotta tell you, Lieutenant, I think we've lost this one."
Carlisle leaned against the one-way glass. "I hate to admit it, but you're probably right."
The door opened and a technician wheeled in a steel trolley with the Schultz-Dixon polygraph kit on it.
"You want me to wire him?" the technician asked.
Reeves opened the connecting door that led to Burns' observation cell. "Yeah, go right ahead."
The technician went to work on Burns while Reeves and Carlisle watched from behind the glass. Burns did not react in any way as his shirt was pulled off and contact points stuck to his torso.
Carlisle turned away as if not expecting to get any results. Suddenly he clapped a hand to his forehead. "Goddamn it, I'm getting stupid."
"You thought of something."
"Not exactly. I've just been forgetting one of the first things I was taught. Deal with reality, not supposition."
Reeves blinked. "Say what?"
"So far we've been treating this as an attempted hit on Arlen Proverb."
"What else could it be? You're not saying that Burns had a beef with the bodyguard?"
"No, I'm not. I'm just saying that we ought to look at what we have. First question in any crime. Has anyone benefited by what happened?"
Reeves was starting to look concerned, as if he were worried that Carlisle was finally losing it.
"The bodyguard's dead and the shooter's a veggie. What benefit?"
The tech stuck his head around the connecting door. "I've run the preliminary. This Burns is a full-scale what-me-worry. It's just like something wiped his synapses. I ran the first set of shock images, sex, violence, religious symbols. Nothing but background motor functions. No response to concept that I can find. Do you want me to go on?"
Carlisle looked down at Burns. The man was festooned with wires attached to his head and body by contact clamps.
"Yeah, run the whole deal, if only for the record." He turned back to Reeves. "Did it occur to you that, as things stand, Arlen Proverb has had a very good day? Most of the TV images from today will get through, and he looks like the man they couldn't silence. Now he's the center of attention again."
Reeves put a hand on Carlisle's shoulder. "Listen to me, Lieutenant. If you're thinking in the deeply weird direction I think you're thinking, they are going to kill you. This is now, boss. They're not going to let you crack the world open with this case. They're just going to take you out and hang you."
NINE
Winters
WInters was coming back from the showers. the marks on his body had not completely faded, but after being buffeted around in front of the building all day, he needed to wash the smell of the mob off him. He had decided to drape a towel over himself and take the chance that n
o one would notice the welts. The new prudery had dictated individual shower stalls when the center had been designed, but a lot of the men were inclined to share a naked, towel-snapping camaraderie. Winters had never appreciated that kind of horseplay and tended to keep to himself. If anyone had noticed, they had not reacted. He had washed quickly, dried himself and dressed in his sweat suit with the logo of the Twenty-first Street Gun Club on the back and his English Reeboks and started out for a cup of coffee and something to eat. After his shower, he was in a considerably better mood and he was even looking forward to checking out the C As in the commissary.
The particular section of corridor was deserted. It was still as brightly lit as any other part of the complex, but the emptiness was eerie. So when the figure came around the corner like something supernatural, Winters was startled. For a fleeting instant, he thought he was confronting the Black Knight. The man was built like a defensive end and wore full assault armor and a command helmet with the neck ring computer. His visor was down, and not a single insignia or identifying symbol could be seen anywhere on his uniform or equipment. He was carrying a large and very elaborate hand weapon down by his side. As he came closer, Winters saw that it was one of the legendary, state-of-the-art Taidos, calibrated for heatseekers. Its plastic shielding gleamed as the figure walked by. It was in mint condition. Winter had not thought there was a piece like that outside the Japanese military.
He had walked about three paces when a voice called out from behind him.
"Hey, you!"
Winters froze. The voice was coming through one of the same distortion devices that had been used in the basement of the whorehouse. Winters slowly turned.
"Me?"
"You dropped this."
The figure was holding a small folded slip of paper in one of his thick armored gloves. Winters blinked.
"I did?"
The figure held out the slip of paper. "Take it, it's yours."
Winters took the paper. The figure turned on its steelshod heel and walked away. Winters stared after it. It made no more sense than a visitation from Mars. Without thinking, he unfolded the paper.
3333 2374 19886
Call from a pay phone.
Winters could feel the hairs on the back of his neck rise. It was the signal. The Magicians wanted him. He was not sure why it had been delivered with such a splendid show of force, but he was completely impressed and not a little scared. He quickly refolded the paper and, concealing it in his hand, hurried for the locker room and his street clothes.
He walked three blocks from Astor Place before he started looking for a pay phone. Somehow calling from right outside the CCC complex did not seem appropriate.
The first phone he came across was broken. It had been smashed by vandals. The slogan "There will be a cleansing of the temple " had been scrawled across the coin box. He walked on and found a pair that looked as if they were in working order by the entrance to the subway on Lafayette. A couple of drug-addict types were lurking by the phones. They seemed to be waiting for one or both of them to ring. As Winters walked up, they looked at him suspiciously, held a fast, muttered conversation, and moved off. Winters quickly keyed in the number. It rang four times and then a machine answered.
"Repeat this phrase for voice identification."
Winters waited for a few seconds before realizing that that was the phrase that he was supposed to repeat. He felt a little ridiculous as he mouthed the words into the mouthpiece. "Repeat this phrase for voice identification."
There were a series of pulses on the line. His voice must have passed the test, because a second tape was activated.
"Be on the corner of Broadway and Twenty-sixth Street at four forty-five a.m. tomorrow. Wear dark, serviceable clothes. You will be picked up."
The message repeated once and stopped. Winters slowly hung up. He was in. They were going to kill Carlisle, and he was to be part of the team.
Kline
It was five-fifteen in the morning and the phone was ringing. Cynthia Kline jerked awake with the reflexes of someone trained to expect trouble at all times. She snatched for the handset from inside the cocoon of blankets. Harry Carlisle muttered in his sleep.
"If it's for me, I'm not here."
"Hello." Her voice was neutral and tentative.
"Cynthia?"
"Who's this?"
"It's Laura at C86. We're having a panic here. Can you come in?"
Cynthia groaned. "Do you know what time it is?"
Laura did not sound too pleased with Cynthia's response. "I know what time it is. I've been here all night. This is important."
"Okay, okay. I'll get there as fast as I can."
She sat up in bed but hesitated before she turned on the light. She had to do something about Harry. She was not comfortable with the idea of leaving him alone in her apartment. She was confident that there was nothing glaring that would give her away in a routine search, but it was a different matter having a trained detective hanging around there. They got impressions from random patterns, things that other people did not even see. No matter what she felt about him, he was still a cop.
As she shook him gently by the shoulder to wake him she felt bad. He had looked so exhausted when he had finally showed up around one-thirty, and even now he had been asleep for less than two hours.
"Harry, wake up. The office called, and I have to go in."
Harry Carlisle blinked. He did not seem to be quite sure of where he was. "What office?"
"I just got a call from C86. They're having some sort of emergency and they want me to come in."
Harry yawned. "C86 doesn't have emergencies. It's just a bimbo pool for the deacon brass."
Cynthia glared at him. "That's a fucking sexist remark."
"That's probably the first time the phrase 'fucking sexist' has been heard south of the Canadian border in a coon's age. Besides, you told me yourself that it was a bimbo pool, or as good as. I think you were being a little more ladylike at the time."
Cynthia didn't know whether to blush or go white. She'd made a bad slip. Only someone who had recently been out of the country, where they still used phrases like that, would call something 'fucking sexist'. His mention of the Canadian border was too close to home. The best she could do was to give him a defiant look. "Sometimes I revert."
"I'm glad to hear it."
He did not seem to want to pursue it. She lit a cigarette.
"Listen, Harry, I guess I ought to get going."
"And you figure that I ought to get going, too?"
"I didn't say that. Really, if you – "
"Nobody wants someone else alone in their apartment."
The more he came awake, the more he seemed to grasp the situation. He started to climb wearily out of bed. Cynthia felt bad.
"You don't mind?"
"Hell, no. I need to go back and get a clean shirt."
"You want some coffee?"
Carlisle shook his head. "Just give me a cigarette. I'll go straight to bed when I get to my place and sleep until somebody demands that I get up."
He was gathering his clothes.
Winters
Winters was on the corner of Twenty-sixth and Broadway fifteen minutes before the appointed time. He was all but dressed for a commando raid in a black nylon windbreaker, a black rollneck, black sweat pants, and running shoes, not his expensive Reeboks but a pair of beat-up Converse All Stars. All he had in his pockets was a compact 9mm automatic and a hundred dollars. He had left all of his identification back in his room, just to be on the safe side.
There was a definite chill in the air, but the way that he jogged on the spot, like a fighter warming up for the ring, was more from nervous energy than cold. A helicopter – it sounded like a Cobra – rattled overhead. Winters stepped lightly back into a doorway. He did not want to be seen by any kind of authority. He looked too much as if he was on his way to commit a crime, which, in some respects, he was. As the sound of the chopper faded, he emerged onto th
e sidewalk again. He peered anxiously up Broadway, but the early-morning streets were deserted. There were just the cardboard boxes in which the vagrants nested. One had a small garbage fire going in front of it.
There was the tiptap of high heels behind him, coming down.Twenty-sixth Street. It was a woman, walking unsteadily. At first, he could only see her in silhouette, but when she came into the glow of a lighted street lamp, her spandex pants, sequined tube top, and exaggerated shoes told him immediately that she was a prostitute, probably one of the bottom-rung street women who tried to scratch a living among the cardboard-box people. Her makeup was smeared, and she was having trouble focusing her eyes. It was obviously the end of a long evening. When she saw Winters, she increased the swing in her walk.
"You're up late."
Something really had to be done about the number of whores in the city and the shamelessness of their behavior, Winters thought. It seemed that, each time he looked, there were more of them, in more blatant states of seminudity. A serious crackdown was needed.
"What's the matter? Lost your voice?" She stopped in front of him. "Feel like a blow job to go to bed with?"
Winters eyes bugged out of his head. "I – I'm not going to bed."
It had taken him a second to gird his moral authority around him.
The prostitute shrugged. "So call it breakfast. Only cost you fifty."
There was a car coming down Broadway. Winters hissed at the woman. "Go away."
She planted her hands on her hips and looked drunkenly belligerent. There was a flower painted on her right cheek. "It don't cost nothing to be polite."
The car was close. The headlights were just two blocks away.
"Will you get out of here!"
Still she did not move.
"Who in hell do you think you are?"
The car went straight past. It was the wrong one. The prostitute was on a roll, her voice rising in pitch and volume.
"Think you own the street or something? What gives you the right to tell me what to do?"
A couple of vagrants were peering from their boxes. Winters wanted to tell the whore that if she did not shut up, he would arrest her. Of course he could not do that. He considered pulling out his gun and shooting her, but that would create its own set of problems. With the Magicians due at any minute, he had to content himself with vague threats.