The Devil Knocks

by Frank Rich

  Annotation

  HELL IS FOR THE LIVING!

  It is 2031, and beyond the lawless inner city lie the badlands where chemical and biological cesspools have driven nature to delirium and disorder. Massive superhighways crisscross the ruined countryside, promising a one-way ticket to anybody's worst nightmare.

  Denver is a police state — and a revolution waiting to happen. Jake Strait's job runs more to knocking off killers, not toppling cities. But things get hot enough in his particular corner of hell that hurtling across a toxic wasteland against an impregnable fortress looks good.

  NOW JAKE IS THE CHOSEN HERO OF THE HOUR IN A FLAT-OUT RACE FOR THE FINISH LINE, WHERE EVEN VICTORY WILL PLACE HIM IN DOUBLE JEOPARDY.

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  Frank Rich1

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  Epilogue

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  Frank Rich

  The Devil Knocks

  1

  The gyrapistol shuddered in my hand, and Joshua Cassady did the wild jig of death, the gyrajets exploding in his chest with dull, wet thuds. He flopped behind the bookstore's counter, and the customer he'd just sold a book to backed away.

  "Don't shoot me," he said, holding up a thick volume of philosophy as if to ward off gyrajets. "Please don't shoot me."

  I ignored him, vaulting the counter. I stepped over Joshua and kicked open the door behind the counter. I went in low and fast, spraying gyrajets in a wide arc. Boxes of books ruptured into confetti, but nothing else stirred. I thumbed out the empty magazine and slid in a full one, then checked the door to the back alley. The dead bolt was in place. I went back to the counter. The customer was standing where I'd left him, his joints apparently seized up.

  "Where is she?" I whispered.

  His tongue flapped around in his mouth, but his jaw was stuck. His eyes flashed toward the four dim aisles between the ceiling-high bookcases.

  A shadow moved at the end of aisle three, and I dropped to my belly. A volley of bullets ripped at the counter like a chain saw, showering me with chips of fiberboard.

  "Come get me, bogeyman!" Marta Cassady screamed. There was the metallic clang of a magazine dropping to the floor and the click of another being slapped into place. I peeked through one of the bullet holes in the counter. The only aisle I could see down was three and it was empty except for a floating haze of cordite smoke. Now the big question was, was she in aisle one, two or four?

  I came around the counter in a slow crouch, pausing to listen between steps, keeping the gyrapistol pointed down aisle three. I hopped over the customer's bullet-riddled body and put my back to the shelves between aisles two and three. I held my breath and listened. Nothing, then there was a padding sound, too quiet to tell from which direction it came. I sank low, took a deep breath and spun into aisle two, firing.

  "Wrong number, handchopper!" Marta shrieked, then laughed. I put my back to the shelves between aisles one and two, changing magazines. Did the voice come from one or four? I couldn't tell. It had a melodic carrying quality to it and spoke from every corner. But it sounded close, close enough to be in aisle one. I swung the corner and sprayed gyrajets into the shadows.

  "You're getting colder," she cackled. "You're getting very cold, bogeyman." Her voice sank to a seductive whisper. "I'm waiting for you, dear. I've something to give you."

  "Maybe I don't want it," I called back, slapping in my last magazine.

  "You're going to get it anyway," she snarled.

  I moved down aisle one slowly, wiping the sweat from my eyes with the back of my sleeve. With one magazine left it was time for a very shrewd plan. If only I could think of one, I thought.

  "Your husband's dead, Marta," I shouted, my voice hoarse. "The jig's up."

  Silence.

  "Josh has gone to Hell," I continued, taunting her atheist sympathies. "Probably putting the moves on some demon chick right now."

  "There is no Hell!" she snapped. I could almost place her voice. The rear of aisle three or four.

  "You don't know that, do you, Marta? But Josh knows. I'm sure he knows very well."

  "Screw you!" she screamed. The voice was moving forward, toward the counter. "Josh is in a martyr's paradise now, in our God's Heaven."

  I braced my back against the wall with my feet against the center of the long bookcase. "Ha!" I said. "Too late to kiss up to God now. You've bombed too many of his churches. Josh is burning in Hell with all the other evil, murderous scum."

  She howled vindictively, and I bunched my thigh muscles and heaved with all my strength. The huge case tipped a bit but didn't fall. I let it rock back toward me, then heaved again. I clenched my teeth and pushed until I heard the sinews of my thighs popping. With a sighing creak the case tipped over and crashed into the next, and that into the next, like enormous dominoes. Her howl became a cry of alarm as the last case crashed to the floor. I leapt atop the mountain of spilled books, pistol ready.

  She'd almost made it. She lay on her back near the counter, her ankle pinned beneath the last fallen bookcase. She swung the machine pistol up and I fired. A gyrajet furrowed her shoulder, and the machine pistol flew from her hand. She screamed and stretched her good arm toward the weapon, just a bare inch out of reach.

  I moved closer, ready to finish her off. She stopped screaming and stared at the barrel of the gyra, her distended belly heaving. I began squeezing the trigger just as a realization jolted me. I felt as if waking from a long dream.

  "You're pregnant," I said.

  She sighed and stopped reaching for the machine pistol. I could see in her eyes she had given up. "Kill me," she whispered.

  Somewhere a clock was ticking. I figured it was getting near dinnertime. Her belly was hugely round; she was perhaps a month from being due.

  "Kill me," she snarled. "You killed my husband, now kill me."

  "Jesus, I'm sorry," I said. "I didn't know you're going to have a baby."

  "Shoot him, too!" she shrieked. "Massacre the whole family. Make the kill, fulfill the contract. I'm guilty, I've killed hundreds! Priests, rabbis, nuns, children. Kill me, you bastard, I want to die."

  I stared at the belly swollen with innocence, then at the face contorted with hate and evil. I stepped back. There didn't seem to be any way to separate the two.

  "Shoot me, you coward! Do your job! Let me live and I'll kill again!"

  "Shut up!" I shouted, stumbling mechanically over to her husband. I took a miniature battery-powered saw from my leather jacket and lifted Joshua's right hand by the fingers, the hand in which his ID chip was implanted. The whirring blade ripped angrily through his wrist.

  "Yes, take your trophies!" Marta screamed hysterically. "You monster!"

  "I'm not listening to you," I retorted. I took out a small black Ziploc bag and sealed the hand inside. I put the bag in my jacket pocket and stood.

  "Take my hand, too," Marta cried, reaching toward me with her right hand. "Take it. They'll give as much for mine as his."

  I backed to the counter, picked up the phone and dialed a three-digit number.

  "Reclamation service!" a cheery female voice said.

  "Bodies," I said. "I want to report some goddamn bodies."

  "Location?"

  "Mao-Mao Books. Sixth and Celine."

  "Number of reclaimables?"

  I glanced at Cassady and the custo
mer. "Two. There's also an ambulatory, wounded and pregnant."

  "We'll have a van over in ten minutes. Your name, sir?"

  "No name."

  "Are you sure? For every ten pounds of reclamated protein, the reclamation service will transfer one credit to your Party account."

  "Give it to the children," I said. "The Homeless War Orphans Hooked On Whack Relief Fund." I hung up. I wanted to call an ambulance, but I knew they wouldn't go near this part of town. But as long as there were reclaimable bodies on the scene, the reclamation service was happy to drop the wounded off at a hospital on the way to the protein vats.

  "Help is coming," I assured, backing toward the door. "You'll both be okay."

  "You're letting a mass murderer free!" she howled. "Do you realize that? I'll kill again, hundreds will die because of you."

  "I can't kill the child." I said, turning toward the door. A crowd of faces was staring through the glass, straining to see the carnage inside. I pulled open the door and faced the mob.

  The circle of eyes stared back at me with a silent, sinister fascination. No one wanted to get involved; they just wanted to watch.

  "Beat it," I whispered.

  No one moved.

  I fired a shot in the air. "Beat it!"

  They backed away but didn't disperse. I could hear them whispering "bogeyman" and "handchopper." I pointed the pistol at them and they stumbled back, melting away. I parted the crowd with a broad wave of the gyra and lurched to my car across the street. I climbed inside, and faces crowded the windows, peering in. My hands shook as I struggled to get the keys in the ignition. I swung the wheel, and the Oldsmobile lunged into traffic, away from the damning eyes of the mob.

  I accelerated down Celine until I hit Hayward, then took the corner in a sickening power slide, nearly side-swiping a double-parked delivery truck. Straightening the wheel, I stomped on the accelerator, whipping in and out of traffic.

  If the City was dying of a human cancer, then Hayward was the central tumor. Like a long maggot-infested wound, it stretched across the underbelly of the City, a magnet for all the sin and horror humanity could conjure up. My office was right on the main drag, two floors above Rex's Talent Agency. I skidded to a halt in front of the latter and cut the engine. At two in the morning Hayward was still alive with the decadence that fueled the local economy. Crowds of thrill-seekers hustled between the flashing neon like jaded moths, eager to find pleasure in the pain. I threw the door open, slamming it against something metallic.

  "Watch it, asshole!" a voice grated. "Don't you have any respect for the handicapped?"

  I climbed out and addressed the speaker. She wheeled her chair out of my way then spun to face me.

  "Didn't see you there," I said.

  She brought a cigarette to lipstick-smeared lips and teased her limp brown hair. Middle age had left her in ruin, death white skin stretched over gelatinous flesh sagging from misshapen bones. A solitary leg protruded from her tight red miniskirt.

  "Need a date?" she snarled, too accustomed to rejection.

  "Not tonight, angel."

  "Who needs you, then? I got plenty of regular johns."

  "I bet you do," I said, setting the car's alarms. I'd spent enough time on Hayward not to doubt her. There were those who would sweat her and her chair into their big cruisers.

  A tall, well-dressed man stepped out of Rex's Talent Agency and stood in front of the one-legged whore, bending low to speak. "I told you not to sell your wares around here, witch. You're scaring away the tourist trade."

  "I've been working Hayward since I was thirteen," she snarled, "and no pimp's gonna tell me where I can hook."

  Rex stood erect and turned his big head of hair to the black sky as if searching for a particular constellation. "I hope I'm not going to have to call the HPA in on this. That would be a damn shame."

  The whore squinted and tightened her voice. "You can't blackball me!"

  "I'm going to make the call right now." He made to turn around.

  "Okay, you no-good pimp! I'm going. You'd think there were still cops 'round here or something." Her wheelchair squeaked into motion, and she darted through traffic across the street.

  Rex watched her go. Once she got to the other side she spun the chair and stared back with spiteful eyes.

  "How you doing, Jake?" Rex said without looking at me.

  "The same."

  "I didn't want to threaten her, but I've an HPA charter to work this block."

  "Yeah. Being a member of the Hayward Pimp Association must have its advantages."

  He nodded and went back into his talent agency, greeting customers as he went. The garish neon sign in the window would have been more honest if it read Rex's Whorehouse, but that would have offended the delicate sensibilities of the suburban customers.

  I walked half a block to Raini's Discount Spirits and handscanned for a bottle of Party vodka.

  "Sorry, Jake," the old man behind the counter said. "The scanner says your account is empty."

  I stared into his rheumy eyes. "You know me, Raini. Just delay it for a day. I'll have it tomorrow. I just did a contract. I just have to drop by SPF central, and I'm two grand up. Here…" I began pulling Cassady's hand from my pocket"…I'll show you the goddamn hand."

  "No, no, put that thing away!" Raini shouted hoarsely, his eyes flickering to the customers behind me. "Jesus Christ, Jake, you can't just pull out a piece of somebody anywheres." He pushed the bottle toward me. "I know you're good for it. You're my best customer. Shit, Jake, you don't look so good, maybe you should slow down a little."

  I laughed. "Slow down? Man, I haven't even started yet."

  * * *

  A half block and two flights of stairs put me in front of my office door. I jabbed the keys at the locks, trying not to look at the legend painted on the office door: Jake Strait, Private Enforcer. Wrongs Righted, Injustices Avenged.

  Sometimes, usually when I was drunk, the sign appealed to a forgotten part of my ego. Other times, usually when I was sober, it made me want to vomit.

  The worn plaid sofa, the ugly metal desk, the peeling red velvet wallpaper, the tacky furnishings all said the same thing: here labored a man without taste or dignity.

  That's me all right, I thought, bolting the door behind me. In the light of the computer monitor flashing on the desk, I twisted off the bottle's scrawny neck, tilted my head back and showed the bottom of the bottle what the ceiling looked like. The raw alcohol burned down my throat, gagging me. I doubled over, gasping as the vodka hit my stomach like a nest of needle-toothed weasels.

  I lit a vitacig and regarded the monitor. It flashed with anonymous faces in rapid spurts, as fast as the computers of the World Party's Security and Protection Force could convict, condemn and post bounty on them. Here a pock-faced rapist who had struck twice in the past week. There a rooftop sniper with a penchant for gymnastic escapes. A mad bomber who bore a remarkable resemblance to Edgar Allan Poe. An eleven-year-old shooter for a street militia. A never-ending parade of fiends. It was here I had become acquainted with Marta and Joshua Cassady, atheist terrorists detected going into the Mao-Mao Bookstore by an SPF rotor conducting a random overflight scan.

  I walked the bottle to the window. On the street below, evil prowled. A group of Allah's Assassins moved in a wedge down the sidewalk, parting the thick traffic like sharks through a school of mackerel. Pimps and chicken hawks lurked in front of the bus station, waiting to lend their sinister comfort to the doe-eyed runaways arriving hourly from the suburbs. Pushers plied their trade openly, wending through the stalled lines of traffic, feeding their poisons to burbanites too terrified to leave the safety of their cruisers. I knew they were guilty, all of them; I didn't need any machine to tell me that. The only difference between them and the ones on the monitor was no one was willing to pay me to kill them.

  "Look up Cassady, Marta," I said to the monitor. Malta's face appeared on the screen, rotating in a circle, a sound bite of her voice repeating her name
and ED number. Below her face was the long list of murders and bombings of which the SPF had convicted her. She didn't look pregnant in the picture.

  The word "message" blinked at the bottom of the screen.

  "Run messages," I said.

  "Hello, Jake," Marlene Peterson said, her lovely face lighting up the screen. "I know it's been a while, but I need to talk to you. I'm at my parents' house on the Hill and I'll have a pass waiting for you at the gate." The polite smile faded, and a worried look shadowed, but did not diminish, her loveliness. "Please come tonight, Jake. I need your help."

  The screen went back to Marta, and I turned it off.

  "That's what it's supposed to be about," I told the ugly room. "A goddamn damsel in distress, in desperate need of my help. I'm not supposed to shoot pregnant killers — I'm supposed to rescue the lovely and rich Marlene Peterson from the forces of evil."

  I put away the bottle and loped to my car.

  2

  "So, you want me to overthrow the city of Denver," I said, hopeful they'd pick up on my sarcasm. "Is that all?"

  Marlene leaned back against the desk and blew out a cloud of smoke. Her brother Robert shifted slightly next to her, his birdlike features brought to stark relief by the single overhead track light. To their right stood a tall muscular man in a red-checked shirt, by all appearances an out-of-work lumberjack. He folded his arms and glared at me as if he had a high-powered blaster stuck in the back of his waistband. With the three of them posing like that, the study reminded me of the set of a cheap 1940s mystery. I wondered how long it had taken them to get the lighting right.

  "Basically, yes," Marlene said.

  I leaned back in the armchair and laughed harshly. "Do I seem that silly a dingbat?"

  "We thought you were an idealist."

  "Oh, worse than a dingbat, eh?"

  Marlene's bare shoulders fell, dropping the cleavage of her black velvet blouse a full inch. She stared at her painted toenails. "If it's money you want…"

  "No amount of money will convince me to get myself killed."