Avenging Angel

by Frank Rich

  On the way back to the office I stopped for a soy dog and a beer. I leaned on the counter and thought about what the street had told me. Tumblers were turning in my head, but nothing seemed certain except some very evil things were about to happen. What, I wasn't sure. It was like feeling around in the dark for a mute grizzly bear: I wanted to know where he was but I hated the idea of finding him. I finished my beer and dog and walked to the Caddy. It was time to find my truelove.

  21

  I was playing a hunch. I sat in my car across the street from the rear entrance of the Close Court Apartments. The double doors opened onto a path that wound through a tiny rock garden with plastic flowers and a dry Cupid fountain on its way to the street. Love's messenger wore a gaudy coat of graffiti and lacked an arm and nose. He didn't look too thrilled about the current state of romantic love, either.

  I'd parked in front for the first hour and was amazed at how few people bustled about compared to Monday. I followed an instinct and drove around back and presto, it was Grand Central Station.

  People came and went through the back door at roughly thirty-second intervals, and their furtive movements told me it wasn't because they wanted to admire the garden. There was a desperate urgency in their stride, and most of them carried packages. The outgoing packages looked like bundles of fliers, which meant they probably had a printing press in the basement. The packages going in looked like rifles wrapped in blankets.

  An overloaded gothic struggled out and dropped a double armload of bound fliers into a basket strapped to the back of his motorcycle. The sweat from his labor made his heavy eyeliner run and his black spiky hair wilt. I got out of the Caddy and walked over.

  "I'm supposed to hand out half of those," I said.

  He smiled and handed me half. "You can take all of them if you want. Where you going to blanket?"

  "I was thinking Hayward."

  He laughed and got on his bike. "Good luck getting those animals to believe. You're better off sticking to Barridales, Colfax or Riverside." He kicked the bike to life and roared off.

  I carried the thirty pounds of leaflets to the Caddy. I opened the trunk and put the bundle inside after slipping a leaflet from the bindings. I climbed behind the wheel and read.

  Attention, citizens! The day has come! The Party is starting its genocidal war against the people and we must resist or be slaughtered! Rise up!

  Gather weapons, stock food, form militias and get ready for the war coming soon to your neighborhood. The wolf is loose!

  Fight now or die later! Rise up against the murderous tyrants! Rise up!

  The People's Resistance Front.

  Crude illustrations on the back of the flier explained how to make a Molotov cocktail, then how to turn the cocktail into a very basic antivehicle weapon by adding a shotgun and broomstick. The contraption was fine for stopping your neighbor's subcompact but completely useless against Party tanks and APCs. The People's Resistance Group seemed in dire need of professional technical advice.

  The low growl of powerful engines made me look up. A caravan of vans approached from the west, stopping two blocks short of the apartment building. I counted six of them. They were all different: different colors, different makes, different models, yet they were all the same. All had tinted windows, side-mounted spotlights and a ponderous look heavy-duty suspensions couldn't hide; they were armored.

  Britt stepped out the back door of the apartment building, wearing the same wrap and sunglasses she wore the day I shot Crawley. She looked to be in a hurry. She turned up the sidewalk toward the vans.

  I trained binoculars on the first van in line. The tinted glass made it difficult, but I could just make out the driver and passenger. Both had crewcuts and thick necks.

  The side and back doors of the vans flew open, and black-suited troopers stormed out. They wore body armor and carried gleaming late-model assault rifles. They were also all skinheads. They formed up into two columns and began jogging down the sidewalk, fifty strong.

  Britt froze on the sidewalk, wavering before the descending columns of armed skinheads, and I hit the ignition button. Just when I thought she was going to make a run for it, she locked her head forward and continued down the sidewalk toward the skins as if they weren't there.

  "That is one smart, gutsy broad," I murmured, and watched the skins file past her toward the Close Court Apartments. The vans turned around and retreated the way they'd come, all except one. A low black street rod remained in place, engine rumbling. I pulled away from the curb and began moving slowly toward Britt and the van.

  Five meters from the van Britt hesitated, eyeing the tinted glass suspiciously. The same instant, the cargo door of the van burst open and three skins jumped to the street and started toward Britt.

  I stomped on the accelerator, the engine screamed and I pointed the hood ornament at the trio of skins. They froze before the onrushing Caddy, which was their mistake. I jumped the sidewalk, and with a sickening series of thuds their combined weight cut the speed of the Caddy in half. Two went over and one under as I slammed on the brakes and twisted the wheel violently to the right, throwing the car into a gut-wrenching slide. The Caddy executed a tight, howling turn around the rear of the van and I ended up facing the way I'd come. I gunned the engine, rocketed past the van and came to a screeching halt beside Britt. She was crouching on the sidewalk and digging in her purse. I leaned over and threw the passenger door open. She didn't jump in, so I leaped out my door and yelled at her over the roof.

  "Get in the goddamn car!"

  She pointed a revolver at me.

  "Jesus Christ!" I yelled.

  Fifteen meters away the passenger door of the van popped open and I pulled my pistol. A tall man stepped out, a man I knew. He wore body armor instead of a SPF captain's uniform but it was him. A pistol hung on his hip; his hands were empty.

  "There's room for ex-servicemen in the new order, Sergeant Strait!" he shouted. "Things are changing, Houston wasn't for nothing. The Rangers can live again!"

  An explosion jumped from the direction of the Close Court Apartments, followed closely by the angry chatter of assault rifles. The sounds excited me.

  "I was in Special Forces, Seventh Group," the SPF officer continued. "We got ours in L. A. and Rio, almost wiped out to the man. But these are new times. They need elite soldiers again. Things are going back to the way they were. We can go back to what we were."

  I pointed the gyra at him, but against every instinct, I didn't pull the trigger.

  "Don't throw your life away for that whore." The captain began walking toward me. "Look at her."

  I glanced at Britt. She held the revolver in both hands, pointing it at my head. Her eyes flashed between me and the captain.

  "She wants to kill you." He showed me his empty hands. "I want to save you."

  The pistol in my hand became heavier and heavier. "Go back?" I asked. "Go back to what?"

  "Oh, you remember. That perfect sense of violent purpose, knowing you were doing the right thing, surrounded by brothers who would lay down their lives to save your own. How many so-called friends would do that for you now? Do you think she understands that like we do? How long are you going to stand alone, hounded by the souls of all your fallen comrades? How long can one man stand against all the shit and horror out there?"

  Yes, how long, I wondered, the pistol dropping to my side. "Jesus Christ, I really am alone," I said, looking inside myself. "How insignificant I am. Why didn't I lay down with them? How could 1 have left all my brothers behind to die? They all went to hell without me. Now I have to go alone. What the hell am I doing here?"

  "You have a purpose!" the captain cried out, moving closer. "We are great knights, Strait — our destinies are huge. If you knew of the coming days of power, you wouldn't hesitate." He smiled and spread his hands. "With all the power of the Party behind us, we will be as gods."

  "The Party?" I snarled, jolting out of my reverie. "The Party killed us. The Party sent us to the c
hopping block!"

  He smiled grimly and continued to move slowly closer. "Mistakes were made, Strait. They're willing to admit that now. But things have changed. They need us again."

  "Not me," I said. "Not for them."

  He stopped four meters in front of me. "You don't understand, Jake. You're either with us or you're with them."

  "Then I'm with them."

  His eyes flashed to Britt. "She'll kill you."

  "She already has."

  Our eyes locked and we fell silent. An electricity crackled between us, and our souls met on a narrow bridge, knowing only one could pass. His hand blurred to the holster and his pistol flashed up. I crouched and fired from the hip. The whoosh of the gyra muffled the crack of his automatic, and a bullet whispered past my ear. The captain collapsed in the street, his belly ruptured. He writhed on his back and pawed at his stomach, trying to keep his intestines from spilling out.

  "Oh, fuck, I'm really sorry," I said, meaning it, crouching to help him, knowing I couldn't. "I didn't want to shoot you. I really didn't."

  He looked up at me, his eyes full of fate. "Finish me, bogeyman," he whispered, cringing with pain. "This is a mean game — losers don't get to live."

  I straightened up and aimed at his head. His face squinched up to receive the jet.

  I lowered the gyra. "I can't risk it," I said. "My soul isn't safe."

  Suddenly the captain's face caved in, his perplexed expression lost in a spray of blood. I looked at the smoking gun in Britt's hand.

  "This is a war, you idiot." She pointed the revolver back at me. "There isn't any room for sentimentality."

  An engine roared and rubber screamed. The van surged forward, rushing at the rear of the Caddy. I thumbed the selector lever to automatic and sprayed the van's windshield with jets. Plexiglas and driver disintegrated in the barrage of explosive jets, but the van came on like an enraged elephant, the brain dead and the body bent on vengeance. I yelled unintelligibly at Britt, dived into the driver's seat, slammed the gear shift into Drive and jumped on the accelerator. The tires and engine howled in chorus and the van loomed in the rearview mirror. That's okay! my mind screamed, things always look closer than they really are in rearview mirrors! Or was it the other way around?

  The Caddy lurched with the impact of the van's front bumper and I felt the frame give in a half-dozen places. Metal grinded and groaned and I fought the wheel for control. The bumpers of the grappling machines locked, and we careened down the narrow street, trading paint with parked cars. I jerked the wheel hard left then right, and the van veered off and slammed into a parked ice-cream truck with a horrible crunching of metal.

  That wouldn't sit well with the local kids, I thought, watching the blooming alcohol explosion in the rearview. I shook my fist at the image and whooped off the tension. I was invincible!

  The distinctive click of a hammer being thumbed back iced my elation. I looked over to find Britt had come along for the ride. Her pistol was pointed at my chest.

  "Ah, gratitude," I said sighing, "the most lovely of emotions."

  She glanced at the revolver self-consciously but didn't put it away. "Who are you working for now?"

  "The forces of good."

  "Who are they?" she asked shakily, casting a nervous glance behind us. She looked as if she hadn't slept in days, and the built-up tension was making the hand holding the pistol tremble. With the hammer back, it wouldn't take much pressure to make it go off, and that seemed a shame since it was pointing at my heart.

  "Why don't you point that somewhere else before you tremble me out of existence," I suggested.

  "I'm not so sure that would be a bad thing," she snapped.

  "You've already shattered my heart into a thousand pieces," I told her. "What's a lousy bullet going to do?"

  She looked at the gun in her shaking hand, then dropped it in her purse. She snuck out a handkerchief and began dabbing at her eyes. Her tough exterior was peeling off right in front of me.

  "So you're human after all," I said. She shot me a hard look, and I said, "Hey, there's nothing wrong with crying."

  She gave me a funny look, and I sensed I'd just blown what could have been a very touching scene.

  "Go to hell," she said, then laughed like glass breaking. "I don't have the time to cry." She laughed again, and the tears were long gone.

  I concentrated on my driving. I wasn't going in any particular direction, but I found myself subconsciously angling toward Hayward, my filthy security blanket. The oil light was getting my attention by winking at me, and the engine was making a lot of new noises. I had a hunch that new plugs and a change of oil weren't going to fix it this time. Its luck had run out, and mine didn't look to be too far behind.

  "Take me to East Harrow," Britt demanded.

  East Harrow was a new ghetto on the other side of the river. "Why there?"

  She looked at me sharply. "Why should I tell you?"

  "Because I saved your life."

  "Did you?"

  "I like to think so."

  After a moment of silence she said, "There's a safe house there." She looked out the window. "I have to get the resistance organized. They're using the fascists to attack us."

  "How do you know the safe house wasn't raided, too?"

  She thought about it, then said, "Take me to a phone booth."

  I took her to the one in front of the St. Chris. I parked in the shadow of the wino saint, and she got out. I didn't think she would make a break for it, at least not until after she made the call. I watched her from the car, obsessed and jumpy. Just looking at her, the curve of her face, the way she held the phone, her troubled frown, all made me feel insecure and mean. I knew it was that cruel pimp circumstance that prevented us from becoming perfect mates. I had to show her I was a good man, that I meant well, that I was tricked into killing her friend and stealing her money.

  After dialing and hanging up three times, she climbed back into the car, pale and frightened.

  "Well?" I asked, though her face said it all.

  "The lines are dead at two safe houses. A voice I didn't recognize answered the third." She pointed her head at the address book in her hand, but her eyes focused on something a million miles away. I'd seen the same look when I was in the army. They called it shell shock.

  "Who would have believed the fascists could have organized so fast?" she murmured.

  "They had help. The skinheads that raided Close Court were dropped off by unmarked SPF vehicles. The man we killed was a spif officer."

  She nodded as if the idea wasn't new to her.

  "That van was waiting for you," I said. "How'd they know you were coming out?"

  "I got a call from one of Crawley's friends just before the raid. A man who helped us sometimes. He said he needed to meet me in a giddylounge two blocks away, that it was an emergency. He set me up — he's working for them."

  "They wanted you alive. Why?"

  She shrugged.

  "Maybe your father had something to do with it," I said.

  "What do you know about him?"

  "He hired me to kill Crawley."

  Hate flashed across her face, then drowned in a sea of despair. "Of course he did. That bastard."

  "I know a safe place you can stay," I said. She nodded. She wasn't a teary-eyed little girl, but she wasn't the hard-assed professional, either. Right now she was a blank.

  I drove to Tanya's. I parked in the alley behind her tenement and we went in the back. I pounded on the door and hoped she was home.

  "It's finished," Britt whispered. "They've won, they've stopped us."

  "You can tell me about that when I get back."

  "You're leaving?" she said, startled.

  "Only for a little while. I have to get some things we'll need."

  "Who is it?" a muffled voice said from inside.

  "It's Jake."

  "Who?"

  I remembered I'd never told her my name. "It's the revolutionary agent you met last night." I
checked Britt for a snide look, but her mind was elsewhere. The door opened and Tanya peeked out.

  "Trouble," I said. "We need sanctuary. Like in the spy movies." The door opened and I ushered Britt in. I led her to the bedroom and sat her on the bed. I signaled Tanya to follow me to the kitchen.

  "We're on the run," I said quietly. "We're being hunted by a SPF-fascist coalition."

  She looked me straight in the eyes. "You're not kidding, are you?"

  "I wish I was. Can we hole up here for a while?"

  "Of course you can, silly." She looked over at Britt. "What's wrong with her?"

  "She just got her revolution crushed. You'd act that way, too."

  Tanya nodded. "She your girlfriend?"

  I laughed. "She nearly killed me twice."

  "Really?" She seemed heartened by the idea.

  "That's not even counting the hit team she sent after me. Listen, I'm going to be gone for a couple hours and I want you to keep an eye on Britt." I unclipped the .32 snubnose from my belt and handed it to her. "Do you know how to use one of these?"

  She popped the cylinder open, checked the load, then snapped it shut with a flick of her wrist. "Who doesn't?"

  "Mean times," I observed. "Don't answer the door for anyone except me. You'll know it's me because I'll knock three times, twice, then three times again. Got it?"

  "A secret knock?" She smiled. "Really?"

  "We don't cut corners in the revolution business, baby. If I'm not back by tomorrow morning, take this money and get yourself and Britt out of the City." I handed her my last three hundred. "Do you have friends in the burbs?"

  "My parents."

  "Stay with them. Tell them whatever you like, just get out of the City. Got me?"

  She said she would. I took her by the shoulders, kissed her goodbye, then slipped out the front door, making sure she locked it behind me.

  22

  I drove home. Since I'd left nothing but reclaimables at the rescue scene, I couldn't see how they could finger me, but I felt like a mouse in the shadow of an owl anyway. I crept up the stairs like a henpecked husband with whiskey on his breath and light on the horizon. I cleared each room of my flat with pistol drawn.