Joe Haldeman

by The Coming

  “Where you guys at?” he said. “Five minutes, then. Runnin’ behind and we ain’t even started.” There was no anger in his voice, though. He selected a joint from his wallet and lit up, smiling, and walked into the trees to his left, away from the rising sun.

  There was still a little mist close to the ground. The woods were dark, but he didn’t need the flashlight he’d used coming in. He followed a path of pine needles, an exercise trail for the staff and a few trusted inmates.

  In front of him, the darkness rustled, and he was down on one knee, pistol out. Shit! In the woods without a bodyguard. He hustled sideways, to crouch behind a fat twisted oak.

  Silence. Just a squirrel or a bird. If someone was after him, he wouldn’t make no noise, just wait.

  You never hear the one that gets you. But he strained to see down the dark path, looking for motion.

  Too many people knew he was here, alone. Maybe that was not too bright. But you got to trust somebody. Or do you? His knee was getting wet. Noiselessly, he switched to a squatting position, still staring down along the barrel into the darkness. Come on, bright boy.

  He heard the high-pitched hum of the car whine down as it approached, and the crunch on gravel when it parked on the shoulder a couple of hundred yards away.

  He worried the phone out of its pocket, clumsy with his left hand, punched one number with his thumb, and whispered. “Car … Bobby, we might have a situation here. You and Solo get out of the car, get ready to cover me. It probably ain’t nothin’.”

  He winced when the car doors slammed. Maybe that was good, though. He stepped into the open and walked down the trail, at first holding the pistol out. A squirrel scampered across the path, about where the noise had come from. He tracked it, leading just a hair, and then relaxed. He was holding the pistol loosely at his side when he came into the clearing and saw the big Westinghouse. He waved at Bobby the Bad and Solo, and pressed the pistol back into its holster. It clicked into place and he straightened his jacket.

  “Problems, boss?” Bobby said. He had the partygun with its big snail clip of buckshot, ready to gun down an angry mob.

  “Heard something. Guess it ain’t nothin’. Darker ‘n I figured.” He opened the car door. “Let’s get a move on. Fuckin’ ATC.” He was usually in and out of Nick’s before the traffic control switched on.

  The Westinghouse scattered gravel in a fishtailing U-turn and surged up the hill. “Get what you’re after, boss?” Bobby said.

  “Yeah. Had to pop him, though.”

  “What, the lawyer?”

  “Fuck, no. The junkie.” He carefully stubbed the joint in the ashtray. “He knew stuff. Can’t trust a junkie.” He studied Solo when he said that; no reaction. Could he really think that Willy Joe didn’t know about him and his ice?

  Most skaters don’t think they’re addicted. Let ‘em go a couple of weeks without. Might be a fun experiment with Solo. Lock him up in that cabin in Georgia for about a month. Then come scrape him off the walls and see what he’ll do for an icicle.

  Almost twenty years’ dealing and clean as a nun’s butt. Marijuana and booze, that’s nothing.

  Dropped heroin and cocaine cold turkey at the age of nineteen, when he started dealing for the Franzias.

  There was no traffic until the Archer ring. As they went up the ramp they got the ATC warning chime. Solo let go of the wheel and punched in the four-digit code for Nick’s restaurant, then two digits for “drop-off.” Then he unfolded a Miami newspaper and resumed reading in the middle of the entertainment section.

  The traffic wasn’t too heavy, but this far out in the country, more than half the cars were gas or LP.

  The trees nearest the road were spindly and yellowish with pollution. Car owners inside the city limits had to pay an annual “green” tax if their vehicles weren’t electric or pure hydrogen, so on still days the city could become an island of relatively clean air inside a doughnut of haze.

  “So how’d you do him?” Bobby said conversationally.

  “Did himself, fuckin’ junkie. He gave me what I wanted, so I give him what he wanted. What he thought he wanted.”

  “You said he was Jose y Maria, right? He didn’t overdose on a DD, did he?”

  “Nah. There was some kind of mix-up.” Willy Joe took the ampoule out of his pocket and held it up to the light. “These are his colors, but it wasn’t his DNA. Can’t trust nobody these days.”

  “Bet that was pretty.”

  Willy Joe shrugged and looked out at the scenery. Maybe it was overkill. No, he was a wild card.

  Blackmail’s worth shit if you got too many people in on the secret. So now it would be just the three of them, and Moore would be doing most of the dirty work, anyhow.

  “Wake me when we get there.” He pulled his cap down and settled back into the cushions, shifting a little to the left so the holster didn’t press into the small of his back.

  He replayed the Ybor business in his mind. This might be really good. Maybe put the squeeze on both the queer and his wife? She’s gotta know—hell, she paid off the cops—but maybe they don’t talk about it. Shit like that happens with girlfriends all the time. Wouldn’t hurt to try. Have Moore find out if they got separate bank accounts. Money come from her side or his?

  Shouldn’t’ve had that joint. Got to concentrate. Relax, then concentrate. He pulled up the armrest to his right and fished out the crystal Scotch decanter. Poured an ounce into a shot glass, took a sip, then knocked it back.

  He closed his eyes and fell into a familiar dream, where he was sitting on a bench in a police station, naked from the waist down, handcuffed. People came and went and took no notice of him. Some of them were people he had killed, including the latest, Ybor, and the first, his father. He woke up as the limo surged left into the parking lot beside the Athens, the ATC guiding it through a hole in traffic just inches wide enough.

  He blinked at the traffic gliding by. “What the fuck?”

  “We’re here, boss,” Solo said. “Park or cruise?”

  “You keep movin’.” He opened the door. “I’ll be on the curb, five or ten minutes.”

  “I should call Mario’s?” he said. “Tell him we’ll be a little late?”

  “Huh-uh. I mean it, five or ten minutes. We’ll be there on the button.” Smart-ass. It was true he was used to spending some time in Nick’s, have a drink and go through the horse papers, dog papers. But he liked to hit Mario right on time.

  Odd to smell garlic instead of pastry, walking into the Athens in the morning. Three tourists at a front table, eating breakfast. Big omelettes with that Greek cheese.

  And look who else. ” Que pasa, Professor?”

  “Same old,” the professor said, and went back to his book. You’re in for an interesting day, old man. Willy Joe waved at Nick, busy behind the bar, and dropped a dollar for the sports page.

  He sat down at the bar and took out his notebook. Checked the trifectas first, no action. But there were two long shots that came in, ten across—over a thousand each! Nothing on the dogs.

  Nick set down his coffee, pastry, retsina, and five-hundred-dollar bill. Willy Joe looked up. “Hey, Nick. Let me buy you one.”

  “What?”

  He held up the retsina. “Eye-opener. Just hit two long shots for a grand apiece.”

  “Oh, hey. Thanks, Willy Joe.” He poured a small one and went back to unloading the dishwasher.

  It didn’t take long to map out the day’s bets. He wrote them down in neat columns and sipped the coffee and wine, ignoring the food. The way the guy died had kind of killed his appetite. He could still smell it.

  He watched the limo go by twice—make ‘em sweat a little—and then called his bookie with the bets and got up.

  The professor gestured at him on the way out. ” Buena suerte.” Yeah, good luck to you, too. You’ll need it, mariposa.

  Norman Bell

  The little crook never came in except on the first of the month, Norman had noticed. Not an early-mor
ning person; he always looked as if he’d been up all night. This morning he looked especially tense, even though he’d evidently come out ahead on his horses.

  What could his world be like? Up all night partying? Hanging out with the other hoods in some pool hall or after-hours bar. He was so macho, maybe he was gay. There were still clubs, Norman knew, though he hadn’t been into one in eight years, not since the federal law got pushed through. It was being tested for constitutionality in a dozen states—but not Florida, which had its own sodomy laws. Norman was not the crusader type, anyhow. And the clubs were for young people, alas. He’d feel like an old pervert.

  They’d had a raid on one in downtown Southeast a couple of weeks ago. Norman had studied the coverage to see whether there was anyone he knew, and in fact there had been, but not among the men and boys arrested. One of the cops, Qabil Rabin. The one he’d been with when Rory found out. Though of course she hadn’t been surprised.

  Qabil was a strange and beautiful man, just a year or two out of the army when they’d met. He’d been an enemy POW, captured in Desert Wind. But the army found out he’d been pressed into the Iraqi force against his will, going along with it just to protect his family in Kurdistan. When they were liberated, Qabil wound up in the American army, a three-way interpreter.

  He came to UF for political science, police-department scholarship, but he minored in music, and Norman met him in a cross-cultural composition workshop. One thing led to another. They’d been together for over a year, when Rory came home unexpectedly and found them—in the kitchen, of all places.

  Norman had seen him now and then over the years, and they exchanged careful signals of recognition. He had a wife and at least two children now, and a uniform that probably restricted his sex life. He hoped things were going well with him. There had been something like love between them, despite the differences in age and culture.

  Thinking of him brought an interesting melody back to mind, a Middle Eastern thing in a Phrygian mode. He jotted down a pattern of notes on the back page of the mystery he was reading (trying not to read who done it) and went up to pay Nick.

  Nick poured a plastic bowl of soup for Rory and sealed the top. “Things quietin’ down over there?”

  “Not lately, anyhow. There’s a news special tonight, a one-month update. All the networks, crazy.”

  “Yeah. Like a war ain’t enough news for ‘em.”

  “Not as long as we’re not in it.” Greece was, now.

  Nick said something in Greek. “Grace a’ God,” he explained. “You say hi to the professor for me.”

  “Sure thing.” Norman carried the soup out and secured it in his front basket, which had an adjustable holder for such things, and pedaled off.

  He went a few blocks out of his way, to avoid traffic. Rory wouldn’t be in the office till eight, anyhow. He passed Rabin’s house without looking over at it.

  Rory’s car was in its spot at eight-oh-one. Norman locked his bike in the rack by three spots that had “Permanent Press” signs. He was not quite old enough for that to make him think of trousers.

  There was nobody in the office. He put the soup container in the fridge with a note—”Albondigas—no avgolemono today”—and hurried back to his bike. He wasn’t avoiding Rory, but he wanted to get home and work on this Phrygian theme. While he pedaled, he searched his memory for a source besides the Middle East folk tune. Once he’d spent almost a week on a composition, and when he played it for Rory, she pointed out that it was a jingle from a beer commercial.

  Home, he splashed some cold water on his face while the coffee § reheated. Then he sat with the cello and played the theme in E f and G and then settled on D. |

  He snapped on the Roland and keyboarded it, and worked out I a preliminary pattern of chords and dischords. Then he set it to t repeat, and played the cello along with it a few times. He turned ’” off the machine and improvised for most of an hour, the coffee growing cold again while he was lost in thought.

  ;

  He put the coffee back in to reheat again and with two fingers sketched out the elaborated theme, looking back and forth between the screen and the keyboard. He could midi it in straight from the cello, but knew from experience that it saved time to go through the Roland, since a note’s duration was recorded more precisely, and you didn’t have to clean up harmonics.

  Sipping coffee, he played the twenty-four bars over and over, using a light pen to isolate four voices.

  He set the Roland to try different instrumentations, reluctantly admitting that the solo voice couldn’t be a cello. Clarinet or even oboe. He played with the phrasing of the oboe and turned it into a parody of Rimsky-Korsakov, which he saved as “Joke 1.” Then he returned to the original phrasing, dropped the solo an octave, and tried it with bassoon, and then bass clarinet. Odd but good. He saved it as “BC 1”

  and got up to stretch and walk around.

  Tense. He locked himself in his office, undressed, and gave himself an erection. From a locked drawer he took a VR girdle and goggles and gloves, and a highly illegal, because it was homosexual, compact ring. It was called “Scherherazade”; he’d bought it because the boys reminded him of Qabil Rabin.

  He set the CR on the stereo spindle and hurriedly fitted the girdle over his genitals, around his waist, and between his legs. He rolled on the gloves and slipped the goggles over his head. Put the earplugs in and said, “Go!”

  It was a harem scene, seven young men lounging naked on silken pillows, chatting, sipping coffee from small cups.

  There was a random function that determined which boy would show interest; if the customer wanted a different one, he could say “reset.” Norman liked them all.

  One of them looked at him and smiled, and said something in Arabic. He set down his coffee and gracefully uncoiled from his supine position, becoming erect as he walked toward Norman.

  A part of his mind always marveled at the technology. The boy gently took hold of his penis and cradled his testicles, and drifted to his knees.

  Norman stared at the top of the boy’s close-cropped head as he gently fellated him. With a couple of words he could switch to anal sex, active or passive, but this was enough for him. He watched the other boys, having fun with each other while they watched him and his virtual partner. (That part felt fake, or at least too staged, since it was always the same, a kind of moving erotic wallpaper.) After a few minutes, he knew he couldn’t delay any longer, or his body would lose the illusion and melt, so he pushed a couple of times and ejaculated. The boy stood up while the whole scene faded into gray mist.

  He walked into the bathroom with his silly-looking garb and carefully unwrapped the girdle, everted, and scrubbed it. Then he patted it dry with a towel, folded everything together, and returned it to his hiding place. He lay down on the couch and asked the room for Rimsky-Korsakov, and closed his eyes for a few minutes.

  He only half slept, thinking about the composition. If a bass clarinet was going to take the melody, he wanted another line, a bass viol in a slow pedal. Doubled with one of the violins here and there. A quiet percussion rattle, like a distant woodpecker, signaling the measures where the two came together, two octaves apart. And a metallic tapping, like a muted triangle, doing 5:4 against their 4:4.

  He got up and dressed, running through the changes in his mind. He went back to the great room and snapped on the Roland, but then saw that the phone was blinking. The call hadn’t come in while he was napping, thank goodness; he would have lost his train of thought. It had come while he had the earplugs in, getting blown by a ghost. Probably a middle-aged man by now, like Rabin.

  He keyed in the bass viol and adjusted the second violin. He couldn’t get quite the percussion he wanted, so he left it off and wrote a note over the staff. He’d call Billy Kaye this evening and have him send something over; he stocked a cube of foreign percussion effects. After he was satisfied that he’d written everything down, he went to the phone.

  Two calls. The first was a
man he didn’t recognize. Row upon row of paper books behind him, matched leather bindings identifying them as Florida statutes. A rich lawyer, couldn’t be good news.

  It was worse than he could have imagined. He smiled politely and nodded. “Professor Bell, I have a client who has something of value to you: silence. About you and a certain policeman. We will be having lunch at the rear table at Alice’s Tea Room at noon today. Noon. If you’re not there, we’ll go to the police.

  “You’ve met my client, Guilliame Capra.” That slimeball Willy Joe. “Surprisingly, he has many friends on the police force.”

  The man disappeared. Norman played it back and it didn’t improve. He erased it and sat back to think, but nothing came. Nothing but rising panic.

  He went to the kitchen and got a wineglass, then opened the wine cabinet and closed it again.

  Instead, he poured an inch of brandy. He sat at the breakfast table and took one sip. Then he poured it out and rinsed the glass. No answer there.

  What a lovely world this was.

  Maybe they were only going to threaten to expose him to Rory. Big surprise. It would take some playacting, but they could simulate an outraged wife and penitant husband.

  But no. Not in this day and age. They would threaten his career and Rory’s, too.

  Could Qabil be behind it? No; he’d lose even more than them. His fellow officers would not be amused.

  He’d talk to Rory after work. First find out what the blackmailer wanted. He realized he couldn’t say within a million dollars either way, how much money they had. Better find out before lunch. He checked his watch; two hours.

  He went to call the bank and remembered the second message. It was Rory, asking him to call. He punched index-1.

  Aurora

  Her personal line rang and she punched it. Norman returning her call.

  “Company tonight, sweetheart. You remember the Slidells, from Yale?” He nodded and rubbed his chin. “Vegetarians?”