The Devil Knocks

by Frank Rich

  "We'd like to hear your plan," she said quietly, avoiding my eyes.

  "So," I said, "human life has intrinsic value after all, if only in death. Or maybe no one else wanted the job."

  "You are completely devoid of any taint of humanity," Marlene said.

  "That's why you hired me in the first place. Where's my advance?"

  "Not until we hear your plan," Rob said.

  "I'm not telling you anything until I see the plastic."

  "Screw you. You tell us how you're going to kill…"

  "Show him the stupid money!" Marlene screamed, springing to her feet.

  Visibly alarmed at his sister's outburst, Rob pulled a wallet-sized satchel from a drawer and tossed it to me. "One hundred thousand credits."

  I opened the satchel and started counting. "I'd have preferred something smaller than k-notes."

  "It's all we could come up with on short notice," Marlene explained.

  "How do we know you won't just take off with our money?" Rob asked.

  "You'll just have to trust me." I finished counting and looked up. "Just like I have to trust you. This is two grand short."

  "What?" Marlene said. Rob didn't seem nearly as surprised as his sister.

  "It's two bills light," I said. "There's only ninety-eight thousand here."

  Rob reached into his desk and came up with a fat stack of plastic. He peeled off two and passed them to me.

  "Cash shortage, eh?" I said. I put the bills in the satchel and the satchel in my pocket.

  "Hey!" Rob said, pointing at the pocket. "We don't know if we like your plan yet."

  "You'll like it."

  "How do you know?" he sneered.

  "Because I don't think you could find someone else to do the job." I lit a vitacig and leaned back. "I go in as an SPF inspector, like you said. Once inside, I take care of Remi."

  "That sounds a lot like my plan," Rob said. "How do you intend to kill him?"

  "Let me worry about that. The greatest weakness of your plan was my escape. Frankly I'm troubled about your obvious lack of concern for my safety, but I'm willing to overlook that. After terminating Remi, I'll make my way to the rooftop, by whatever means possible. The skimmer that dropped me off will be hovering out of sight nearby. I'll alert the pilot with an electronic signaling device disguised as a beeper. The skimmer picks me up, and we scamper away."

  "What about the roof defenses?" Marlene said. "If the skimmer lands or even hovers, it will get blown up."

  "I've that figured," I said. "During the wars we used an elastic extraction system to pull us out of zones too hot for skimmers or helos to land in."

  "Elastic extraction system?" Marlene said.

  "It's a ten-yard length of superelastic bungee cord. At one end is a yard-diameter hoop. The extractee attaches the hoop to the end of a pole and the other end of the cord to his waist. He holds up the loop with the pole, and the skimmer comes in low and fast, minimizing his risk. He catches the hoop with a skid and pulls up, jerking the extractee from the ground, and away they go."

  "Won't it hurt getting jerked like that?" Marlene asked.

  "Not really. The band is so elastic it absorbs the jerk. It'll be like a carnival ride."

  "How are you going to sneak the cord and pole in?"

  "I'll wrap the cord around my waist like a belt. I'll use one of the antennae on the roof as a pole. All you need to do is come up with a signal transmitter that looks like a beeper. Think you can handle that?"

  "It should be no problem for our techs," Rob said. "Is that it?"

  "I'll need your most experienced pilot for the trick. One with combat experience, if possible. He'll have only two seconds to pick me up and get out of range of the radar, so he'll have to come in extremely fast."

  "You're going to trust one of our personnel this time?" Marlene asked.

  "I don't want to risk mine."

  "Well, you'll have the best," Marlene promised.

  "Good." I rose. "I've things to do. I'll meet you here tomorrow at two. Make sure the pilot's ready."

  Rob stood up, reached a hand across the desk and smiled. "Don't you want to shake on this one?"

  I looked at his hand. "Naw, it won't be necessary. I'm not as sentimental as I used to be. I'd feel just as good about killing you with or without a handshake."

  Rob drew back his hand and looked aghast. I let myself out.

  Marlene caught me in the hall. "I'll give you a ride back."

  "Suit yourself."

  We sat in the back of the limo. She stared at me, and I stared out the window.

  "I'm worried about you, Jake," she said. "You've changed."

  I glanced at her. "Don't worry about me, baby. I'm still on the side of the angels."

  "But I think the Devil is your best friend."

  "Naw, we just go out for drinks sometimes."

  She inspected her manicured nails. "I wish it hadn't come down to this. You being a paid mercenary instead of an idealist."

  "Mercenaries seem to draw a bigger paycheck."

  "Is that all this means to you? Money?"

  I looked at her. "To tell you the truth, I couldn't give a damn about the money."

  "Then why are you asking so much?"

  "Because I want Rob to pay. Because I don't like being used for free. It's not what I'm getting that interests me, it's what I'm taking away."

  "But we're all on the same side, Jake. Can't you see that?"

  "What side is that?"

  "The side of the people."

  "Which people?"

  She appeared bewildered. "You know, the people. The masses. The man on the street."

  I looked out the window at the foot traffic on East Colfax. "Point these people out for me. The ones you're going to give the power to."

  She looked out the window but didn't point.

  "Can't find anyone suitable?" I asked. "What about him?" I pointed at an old man on the corner. "Is he part of the masses?"

  "Well, yes."

  "He's a wino. You gonna have a wino run your new government? What about him?" I pointed at a young man coming out of a betting booth. "Is he one of these people?"

  "As much as anyone else, I guess."

  "Look at his neck. He's a junkie. You gonna hand over the reins of power to a junkie?"

  She shook her head, and I picked out a slim, dark-eyed man creeping down the sidewalk. "What about that guy? Is he deserving? He's a street hustler. He'd pimp his own mother for twenty creds."

  "They're the exceptions," Marlene cried out. "They're not the norm."

  "Look around, baby! This is the twenty-first century — the exceptions have become the norm. There are no masses of deserving innocents."

  "What's your point?"

  The cruiser stopped in front of Dante's. "The point is, it doesn't matter who runs the big machine. The decadent rich, the criminal poor, the soulless intellectuals, the corrupt bureaucrats, it all adds up to the same thing." I got out and slammed the door.

  She leaned over and powered the window down. "You're wrong about that, Jake. We can make it better. Us. I know you have human compassion, you just don't like to show it."

  "Goodbye, Marlene."

  She called my name as I walked away, and the wind hustled her words away.

  * * *

  I drove to the band house. I found them in the practice room poring over maps, planning stratagems to liberate the city.

  "Jake!" George called out. "Where have you been?"

  "Talking to Marlene and Rob," I said.

  "Who are they?" Kerry asked.

  "His former employers," George said. "They sent him here to stage a revolution. Until things changed."

  "Things haven't changed," I said. "I'm going to kill Remi tomorrow."

  "What?" Kerry said. "Already?"

  "The time is right."

  Tomas frowned. "I don't know if we're ready yet."

  "We don't have to be ready," George said. "Because we're not part of it. Are we, Jake?"

>   "What's he talking about, Jake?" Kerry asked.

  I tried to face their shocked stares. "George is right. I'm working for them now."

  Cries of dismay went up. "What about our revolution?" Kerry shouted. "What about all the speeches and training? What was all that for? Why are you suddenly joining their team?"

  "Team?" I snarled. "There aren't any teams. This was never meant to be a goddamn competition. It's all about bringing down Remi."

  "Who's going to end up with the power?" Mack asked.

  "The people," I said with much less conviction than Marlene.

  "Which people?" Kerry snarled.

  "I don't know. I thought you'd be relieved. Why are you all so eager to die?"

  "He's doing it for the money," George said.

  Silence gripped the room. Their angry stares burned into my eyes, making them itch and water. Kerry corrupted the silence with a whisper. "That right, Jake? You getting paid to kill Remi?"

  "It doesn't matter." I looked at my watch, eager to leave the suffocating room. "I have to go." I started for the door. I wanted to say goodbye but didn't know how.

  "Tell us, Judas," Mack said. "How many pieces of silver did it take to sell us out?"

  I opened the door and looked back. "You don't understand."

  "Oh, we understand all right," Mack continued. "Go on, go get your money, bogeyman. We don't need you."

  "No, you don't." I went outside, my soul once again on the rack. I relished the pain all the way to a sporting-goods store.

  * * *

  I sat on the bed and began weaving the pencil-thick cord into the shape of a belt. I used a mountaineer's release weave so it would unravel when one of the tails was tugged.

  The door opened and Monique walked in. "How'd they take it?"

  "Not so well," I said, attentive to my weaving. "They think I'm selling them out."

  "Aren't you?"

  "Not entirely. There's reasons even I don't understand." I finished the belt and tossed it on the bed. I went to the kitchen and pulled a bottle of rum from beneath the sink.

  "What are you doing now?" Monique asked.

  "I'm gonna feed the Devil," I said, pouring rum into a cup. "So he'll let me sleep."

  * * *

  I awoke at 7:55 a.m., five minutes before the alarm would go off. I sat on the edge of the bed and held my numb and heavy head.

  Monique sat up beside me, holding the blankets over her bare breasts. "How do you feel?"

  "Like getting drunk," I said. Two bottles sat on the bed stand, one empty, one half-full. I found my cup and started working on making them match. "What are you doing in my bed, by the way?"

  "I thought we'd spend the last night together."

  "Did we make love?"

  "Would you have forgotten if we had?"

  "Possibly." I refilled my glass.

  "I don't think it's wise to get drunk now."

  "How long have I seemed wise to you?" I said.

  I took a long, cold shower. After drying off, I strapped a thick canvas belt around my bare waist, then put on a conservative gray jumper. I stepped into the elastic belt and pulled it up around my middle, tying one tail to the canvas belt under the jumper and fashioning the other into a hoop. I tucked the hoop under the belt and went to the bureau to take a look. It would pass as fashion.

  Monique came out of the bathroom in a bathrobe. I went to the closet and took the satchel from my jacket pocket. I tossed it to Monique.

  "What's this?"

  "My down payment for murdering Remi. If I don't come back, I want you and George to have it."

  She looked down at the satchel. "You don't think you'll come back?"

  "I'm not sentimental enough to worry about it" I lifted my pistol from the bed stand and held it for a moment, admiring its weight and balance, reveling in the security it gave me. I put it back on the bed stand, picked up the bottle of rum and went to the door. "Well, I guess I'll be going, then."

  "Listen," she said suddenly. "If there's something you want to say, say it."

  I looked at her. "What makes you think I want to say something?"

  She looked away. "It'd be the normal thing."

  "We have to keep our eyes on the horizon."

  "I suppose so." She wandered toward the kitchen. "Isn't it strange?"

  "That we've never made love?"

  "Yes."

  "It wasn't because I didn't want to," I said, facing her. Her eyes fell from mine to the floor. I took the necessary three steps, and she fell into my arms, burying her face in my chest. A sob caught in her throat, and I squeezed her tight, tighter still.

  "You don't have to do this, Jake. You don't owe it to anyone."

  "I know that. I'm doing it for myself."

  She swallowed her sobs and pulled back. "You're going to die up there," she said.

  I lifted her head with a thumb until her shining eyes met mine. "You sound certain of that. Is there something you want to tell me?"

  "Don't trust anyone, Jake, ever."

  I kissed her tear-welled eyes, her smooth cheeks, her soft lips. I looked into the abyss of my soul for a token stirring, for the slightest hint of emotion, and found nothing but the abyss.

  I let her go and went outside, ashamed at the emptiness in my heart. By the time I flagged down a cab, the bottle in my hand was leaning toward empty.

  "Let's find a liquor store," I told the driver.

  We pulled away. "Kinda early to get crocked, ain't it?"

  "Yeah, but it could be my last chance. I understand Hell is a dry county."

  20

  "Your inspection was supposed to be a surprise, but we've let it leak to Remi, so he'll be expecting you."

  I followed Rob from the front door, trying not to stagger. "Why? Maybe surprise would be better."

  "We have to make sure he'll be there to meet you. He likes dealing with visiting Party officials personally. Besides, he thinks you're an inspector, not an assassin."

  Rob led me to the study. Next to the desk stood an obese gray-haired man wearing old-fashioned bifocals. What looked like a portable computer sat on the desk.

  "This is Mr. Heinz, one of our techs," Rob said. Heinz bowed with a curtness and formality that spoke of a lifetime of regimentation. "Mr. Heinz is going to give you a new identity. Mr. Heinz?"

  "Place your hand under the head of the machine," Mr. Heinz said in a clipped German accent.

  I did as I was told. "What's this?"

  "It's a scan-data transmitter," he explained. "This device introduces an electronic entity into your identity chip that masks the real data and gives out false signals."

  I nodded. "I thought these machines were impossible to get, guarded like neutron warheads."

  Heinz smiled. "They are. We borrowed this one temporarily."

  "Mr. Heinz is an agent of ours," Rob explained. "He works under the guise of a high-level Party tech."

  "I see." The machine hummed and clicked. "Who'll I be?"

  "You'll have the same name, the same birth data, the same medical information," the old man said. "Even the same military history. The only difference will be that instead of becoming a bogeyman after your military service, you went into the Party corps of inspectors."

  Marlene looked in the room, and Rob went to confer with her. I leaned toward Heinz and whispered, "What's in it for you?"

  He shot me a hard glance. "What do you mean?"

  "Why'd you join the rebels?"

  He flinched at the word. "For freedom, of course. To overturn the tyranny of the Party." He spoke as if pronouncing alien words whose meanings eluded him. "Why did you join, Herr Strait?" he snapped. "Bogeymen aren't usually so idealistic."

  "I joined for the money and free booze."

  He didn't like my answer. "Is this so?"

  "Can you think of a better reason?"

  "Do you always execute your contracts in such a drunken condition?"

  "Of course. It's the only way to keep from laughing."

  "There
," he said. "Finished. Remove your hand."

  I took back my hand and rubbed it. "How long will this last?"

  "Forty-eight hours, more or less. It depends how many times you are scanned. Each scan drains away some of the phantom signal's energy."

  I thought about that as Rob returned.

  "Here's your transmitter and inspection orders," Rob said, handing me a sheaf of papers and a black box with a belt clip. "To transmit the pickup signal, you have to flip the cover and push the red button. Because of all the electronic activity and the insulated nature of the tower, the entire charge of the battery will be expended on one signal. So make sure that you push the button only when you're ready."

  "It's bigger than I expected."

  "You gave us extremely short notice. It'll pass as a beeper."

  "I guess I'll find out, won't I?"

  "There's also been a small change in plans. We've decided that the pilot will return to base instead of hovering near the tower."

  "Why?"

  "Because there's too good a chance he'll draw suspicion. Or run out of fuel."

  "It won't take me that long."

  "You don't know that. Remi is notoriously rude with Party inspectors. You may sit in a waiting room for hours before seeing him."

  "How long will it take the pilot to reach the tower?"

  "Six minutes if he pushes it. Which means you should push the button as soon as you get near Remi. That'll give you six minutes to kill him and get on the roof."

  I nodded, weighing the transmitter in my hand.

  "Well," Rob said. "It looks as if you're ready." He glanced at his watch. "And it's getting near the time of your appointment with Mr. Jonson. Your appointment with destiny."

  "Yep. Here, hold this for a minute," I said, and tossed Rob the transmitter.

  A look of terror gripped his face as he juggled the box. He finally caught it with bloodless hands. "You fool! I could have dropped it and…"

  "And what?"

  "…and…and broken the delicate circuitry."

  "Oh, sorry," I said. I folded my orders and tucked them in my breast pocket. I reached out, and Rob handed back the transmitter. The black box was slimy with sweat. "I'm glad to see you're so concerned about my escape."

  Rob said nothing, and Marlene led me to the backyard. We stood in the wash of the skimmer's engine and faced each other.