by Andy Hyland
A second’s pause. “She’ll be extracted as soon as it’s possible to do so without drawing his suspicions.”
That was the best I could hope for. I headed home. Amazing how a few hours spent standing up in a cupboard could take it out of you.
*
The next morning started bright and early. This whole working-during-daylight-hours thing was all fresh and new to me. I could see why people did it. There was a gap in my schedule before I was due to meet Ron and Kim for lunch, and a house call needed to be made. I shaved and dressed to look my smartest, which is still not all that smart, but the effort was there. It was as much about respect as anything else.
I walked down as far as the top end of Central Park before jumping in a cab and joining the traffic heading over into Queens. Rush hour had been and gone, but the tail-end effects were still being felt. We were stop-start most of the way. At one point I seriously considered getting out and walking, but sat back instead and told myself to be patient. If I could stand in a cupboard, I could sit in a cab. The driver was Marco, someone I’d never met before. I chatted him up a bit, got on good terms. You never know when you’re going to meet them again, or when they’ll turn out to be remarkably useful.
Jackson Heights was, to my eye, an endless succession of narrow detached homesteads, the paint fading and the wood chipped. Cars parked along narrow streets, and bikes stood outside doors, some chained up and some dumped, lying on their sides.
“Here you go,” said Marco, pulling up outside a pale blue house. “You want me to hang around? I can do you a deal on the ride back. I’ll see you right.”
I thought about it but shook my head. “Thanks for the offer, but I’ve got no idea how long this is going to take. Could be a couple of hours.” Or, possibly, ten minutes if he kicks my ass out the door.
The door was old but sturdy. I knocked hard, counted to fifteen, then knocked again. Faint footsteps sounded on the other side, coming my way down the hall. The chain slid across the door and it opened a crack. Short woman looking out at me. Gray hair. Pitbull in curlers. “And you want what?” she asked.
“This Larry’s place? Larry Dialgo?”
“Who are you?”
“Tell him Malachi English is here to see him. He’ll know the name.”
The door closed and the footsteps headed off. Couple of minutes later they reappeared, heavier now. The chain was taken off and the door opened all the way this time.
“Mr English. There’s a face I thought I wouldn’t have to see again.” The guy smiling out at me was in his late fifties, but time had beaten him with the stick of ill health since we’d last met. The skin around his cheeks was gray and sagging, and his white hair was noticeably thinner. Behind it, though, was still the man who could kick me across the street if he put his mind to it.
“Sorry to drop in on your retirement. Need some of your time.”
He looked at me, weighing things up. Then he nodded me in, and closed the door. We headed right into a small office. Cheap desk, two chairs and shelving that held a range of books, sporting trophies and photos.
“How’re you doing?” I asked. “Saw your son. He told me you’d had to step down.”
“Came on sudden. Doc said go now or die on the job. Didn’t want to do that. Figure I’ve earned some down time before I shuffle off. Drink?”
“Bit early for me.”
He ignored my refusal and poured two scotches. I sipped mine. Cheap. Tasted like battery acid. “Cheers. For a moment there I thought your secretary wasn’t going to let me in.”
“Maisy? Sister. Lives four doors down, but I can’t get rid of her these days. She says I need an eye kept on me. I tell her I need her to go away. But you didn’t come down here to catch up. What’s the news? That Ascension House work anything to do with you?” I nodded. “Figured as much.”
“That’s all done and dusted now. Onto something new. I asked Larry Junior for help but he’s shutting me out. I helped him out with some kiddy fiddlers, but even that’s irritating him.”
Larry nodded slowly. “Tell you what that is. Buyer’s remorse. He had an idea, sounded good at the time, all worked well, but now he’s looking in the mirror and wondering what he’s done. Give him time, he’s young. Still thinks he can get the job done by being a white knight. He stepped out on the dark side, the results were impressive, but he’s hating himself for it.”
“Complicated life.”
“You should know. What’s he shut you out of?”
“Missing kids. Recent. Several, and not your usual suspects. It’s happened before. You’ve probably seen it twice yourself.”
He swilled the scotch round in his glass, staring deeply into it. “Three times, actually. Four, if you count when I was a rookie and they had me handing out leaflets. And now it’s here again.”
“Slavers. They’re dragging the kids…elsewhere. Why isn’t this being blown up into an emergency?”
“Politics,” he spat. “The cases are separate, never get lumped together. No-one ever sounds the alarm because we know there’s nothing that could be done. We’ll look like crap and the kids’ll be gone anyway. So we do the bare minimum, watch our own kids, and lock the house up at night.”
“You live with that?”
He shrugged. “It started way before my time. It’s how the force copes. What can you do? Don’t take that as meaning I don’t care, but some things we can’t deal with. Too far above us. Or below. What are you planning to do? Broadcast it from the rooftops?”
“No. You do that, you spook them. They’ll take what they’ve got and disappear. This needs careful handling.”
“Scaring them off could be good, though. If it means they leave earlier, take fewer kids.”
“Not so good for the kids they’ve already taken. I’m not having that on my conscience.”
“You’ve got one of those things?”
“Touché. Some things I won’t live with. This is one of them.”
“So what do you want?”
“I want in. I want the details of who they’ve taken.”
He sat there for a moment, stroking his chin. “Tricky. You’ve got to understand. This is a conspiracy of silence. Goes way up the chain. Me, I was only ever a foot soldier. It’s not just police politics, you’ve got actual politicians running the show. Serious money gets thrown around. Nobody wants the applecart upset.”
“Larry. They’re holding kids right now that are never going to see their families again.”
A long pause. He was fighting the good fight, but it could swing either way. “Fine,” he said eventually. “I’ll talk to Larry. He’s not got dragged too far in yet. We’ll get the names and details to you. One thing, though, Malachi, and don’t take this personally.”
“Whatever you need.”
“Don’t come by again. I don’t reckon I’ve got that much time left, and I’d like to spend it in peace. I believe in you and what you do, but…I need to stop. I’m tired.”
“I understand. Thanks. For everything.”
New driver in the cab on the way back, but this was Rick, a brash southern wannabe football player from Houston. No idea how he ended up here, doing this, and he wasn’t the chattiest. He dropped me two blocks from the café in Hell’s Kitchen, and I counted out the exact change. No tip. I don’t do that lightly, but manners mean cash in the service industry. He could look on it as a life lesson. I hurried away, because he was big, and I’ve seen documentaries on what steroids can do to a man’s attitude.
My considerate hosts were already at the café. Ron was inside, sitting with the drinks, guarding the table and chairs jealously. Kim was by the door, almost hopping from foot to foot in anticipation. Part of me wanted to hang around another five minutes, see how hyped up she could get. But time was pressing, and there were other things I wanted to catch up with after this. I needed a way in with David, some kindling that would spark a brilliant plan into life. The restrictions that had been placed on me were rather cumbersome. L
eft to my own devices I’d be sorely tempted to put a bullet into the back of his head from a distance, but the fallout from an act like that would be too much to take.
“Hi you,” I said, strolling up as casually as possible.
She squealed. Squealed. “Fred! I was so worried. I thought you’d had a change of heart. We would have been crushed.”
“Hey, I’m three minutes late. Calm down.”
“Three minutes? It seemed so long.”
“Anyway, looks like the drinks are lined up. Let’s join Ron, shall we?”
Ron didn’t squeal but seemed equally happy that I’d arrived. “We get so many,” he whispered across the table, “that never come back or turn up. You have to wonder about that sort of person, don’t you?”
I nodded, sympathizing deeply with all those that this little duo had tried to get their claws into over the past few weeks. “Hey Kim, are you okay?” I asked. “You look a little peaky.” That was putting it mildly. The acne swarm had invaded in force. Some of them, around her ears, were looking dangerously like sores. She smiled, shaking off the question, and I saw blood on her front teeth. Bloody hell, if I didn’t act soon, she wasn’t going to make it.
“The work can be tough,” Ron said seriously, nodding to himself, oblivious to his partner falling apart right in front of his eyes. He looked alright himself, but there’s more than one way for someone’s body to get wrecked. Inside out is equally horrific, come the end.
“Anyway, the plan was, today, to go over some of the basics with you,” Kim said, pulling out a stack of thin booklets. Study guides, by the looks of it. The top one showed a dark cloud over the statue of liberty and bore the title ‘What is the World Really Like?’
“What are the basics?” I asked.
“The problems of the world, and the underlying forces that create those problems. Each particular problem is linked to a destructive element in society.”
“Like witches?” I asked, hoping I wasn’t being too forward. I didn’t want to waste time on whatever pet theories David was throwing out to his disciples.
Kim nodded vigorously, causing a spot near her eyebrow to start leaking puss. “Witches are a good example. The economic turmoil we’ve experienced, the cause of so many repossessions and job losses, is due to witches polluting the system of free trade by selling their noxious services.”
I looked at her and blinked twice. “Wow,” was all I could manage, hoping that I sounded sincere.
“But anyway, that,” she said, smiling widely and displaying more blood on her teeth, “is not what is going to happen today. It’s a really special treat. He doesn’t normally see people as early in the process, but we’ve had such trouble getting new members lately, that he’s decided – here he is!”
They jumped to their feet, excited as small children on Christmas morning. You’d think Bono had walked in the door, but it was just David. Smart-casual goatee-faced David, smiling humbly at them as he entered, motioning them to sit back down.
“Now you must be Fr-” he began, taking my hand in a firm shake, but stopped dead, looking into my eyes. “Let’s sit, shall we?”
We sat, David right next to me, invading my personal space and inspecting me closely. I surreptitiously felt around inside my pocket, hoping against hope that I had a silvian knot in there somewhere, but luck wasn’t on my side. “Tell me about yourself, Fred.”
And how I wanted to. How I wanted to suddenly tell him my life story, all that I’d been and used to be. My hopes, my dreams, my friends, my fears, my bank account details and PIN numbers. I blinked it back, shocked at how quickly I’d nearly fallen. The mesmer had come over me like a wave. He gave no sign of having cast anything – it was as if his very pores were exuding the command to obey, to trust, to become.
“Well, I’m Fred Pringle,” I said, making up the last name on the fly, not caring how it sounded. At that moment I couldn’t have drawn on any magical reserves even if I’d dared to. There was David, and only David, and a thin line of willpower that separated me from total surrender.
“Well, Fred Pringle,” he said. “Let’s talk about you, shall we?”
Chapter fourteen
“I get the feeling, Fred, and correct me if I’m wrong here, brother, that you know, that you truly understand on a deep level, the type of things we’re fighting against in Trueflame.”
Kim and Ron were nodding along happily. They genuinely had no idea of what was happening. Maybe their own submission to the constant mesmer that David was churning out was so instant, so total, that they never noticed. That explained the happiness, I suppose. But for me, at that moment, it was torment. Part of the pull, the lure of a well-crafted mesmer is the promise of peace on the other side, the relief that comes with the laying down of your weapons and surrendering. Personally, I’ve never smoked a cigarette, but I’d imagine that for the quitter tempted by one last drag, the feeling is much the same.
I held out, gritting my teeth so hard that I expected one of them to crack at any moment, sending enamel spitting out across the table.
“I think you’ve got me wrong, David,” I said, trying to smile.
He laid a hand on my shoulder and the pressure intensified. “No, I don’t think I have, Malachi.”
I mentally checked my defenses, and felt the tendrils creeping past into my mind. Damn it. The full-on frontal assault had taken so much of my attention that the sneaking in round the side hadn’t even registered. “Keep your distance,” Benny had said. “Keep your distance,” Julie had told me. Now, finally, I got why. The guy was insanely strong, but it was utterly natural – he wasn’t casting or forcing anything, just doing what came so easily to him. Did he even register that other people were different?
I pictured solid, brick walls going out around my brain, a trick I’d pulled from watching Christopher Reeve in Village of the Damned. But like those monstrous little alien children that he faced, David was a match for the technique. It was only a matter of time before the wall was knocked down and he could rummage through my brain like a filing cabinet.
With everything I’d got left I threw myself backwards, up and away from the table, scrambling back across the floor of the café trying to keep my balance. It was enough, for now. The bond had been temporarily broken. But he’d got something out of me, something that had turned his eyes crazy, his face red, his hands clenching into fists.
“I loved her,” he yelled at me, oblivious to the looks we were getting from everyone else around. Ron and Kim were clutching their heads, clearly in pain. “I wanted her. I wanted her and now you’re trying to take her away.”
He ran for the door and I jumped backwards out of his way, terrified of any further physical contact. The door slammed behind him, and a few seconds later a black BMW screamed past, skidding round the corner.
I sank to my knees, breathing hard. From across the café came the sound of sobbing. It was Ron and Kim, both in floods of tears, faces contorted in pain. “He loved her,” said Kim, staring accusingly at me. “He would do anything for her. He wanted to keep her safe. But look what you’ve made him have to do now.”
Suddenly it was all clear, and I knew exactly what David’s probing had dragged from me. I pulled myself to my feet using the nearest table, sending coffee spilling onto the lap of the old guy who was sitting there. He wasn’t happy and started ranting. The owner came across, bawling demands. I lurched for the door, shoving it open and falling through, barely staying on my feet.
Pedestrians skirted widely around me, not daring to come too close. The first two cabs I tried to wave down drove straight past without stopping. That was when I took two minutes to get myself together, stop my heart racing, and wipe the sweat from my face. It must have done the trip, because the third cab pulled over and I jumped in.
“Where to?”
“310 Central Park West. And the quicker we get there, the more you get paid. Serious cash.”
He was enthusiastic but ultimately thwarted by the traffic. A minor
accident north of Central Park had sent the tailbacks threading back down southwards as far as Times Square. I swore, threw some notes at him, and sprinted the final four hundred meters. No, I’ll be honest. I sprinted the best part of two hundred meters, jogged the next hundred, and walked or stumbled the rest of the way. But don’t mistake my lack of physical fitness for a lack of dedication or care.
Greg, the doorman, was in the lobby, smiling politely. “Greg, it’s me, Malachi. Malachi English. I was here with Julie Fairchild, remember? Greg?”
Greg carried on smiling benignly as a trickle of blood ran down from his nose. I pushed him back against the wall and forced him to sit down against it. Other than that, there was nothing I could do. Clearly David got here first, but had he also left? I stepped back outside. No sign of the BMW.
The elevator seemed to take forever. I kicked the door but that only seemed to annoy it into further lethargy, so I waited it out, pumping my fists, until, with a ping, it deposited me out on Julie’s floor.
The apartment door was gone. Not broken, not swinging from the hinges, not even lying flat inside the hallway. Gone. A few splinters remained, and the blast had taken apart much of the doorframe as well. “Julie?” I called out, not caring if David was there or not. Inside, the place was a wreck. The books were everywhere, the sofas upturned and torn to shreds, cupboards open and empty, the contents scattered across the floor, walls and ceiling.
“Julie!” Still nothing. No, not quite nothing. I rolled out my senses. The last vestiges, the final black swirls of a shadow, were dissipating in the corner. Well that explained how the room got so thoroughly trashed. David’s little assassin monster had been let loose. Suddenly I found myself slightly thankful that I hadn’t made it here earlier. But then the guilt crashed in. Had he taken Julie? And how would I ever know?
The air popped behind me. I span on my hells. Julie stood behind me, clutching something on a chain round her neck. “Is he here?” she hissed, glancing round. I shook my head. “Great. Come on, let’s get out of here.” She took my hand, the world shifted, and we slid.