by Frank Rich
I didn't get to sleep until four in the morning. It wasn't so much the abject uncomfortableness of the chair as the tireless thoughts running laps in my head. I had taken in a monstrous amount of raw data and I'd have to refine it into a practical and productive plan of action.
A ruthless little voice in the back of my head said to take Tanya and what was left of Crawley's money and get out of town before the big hammer came down and crushed me like the rest. The punch that was coming seemed too big to duck, even for an accomplished ducker like myself.
My sense of duty and pride got a vicious hammerlock on the little voice and throttled it into submission. I had an obligation to Britt and the City. If I hadn't killed Crawley, they might have got a strong enough machine built to derail or at least stall the oncoming holocaust. With him dead and Britt's organization crushed, it looked as if it were up to humble me to reach inside my bag of tricks and pull out something more than a miserable rodent. All by my lonesome. One cheap bogeyman against the big ugly machine. The odds didn't look real hot.
25
I ran up a sandy ridge. A railroad track snaked out across the top of the ridge. Tied to the track were a long line of people. Starting from the middle of the ridge, their numbers disappeared into the left horizon. Two hundred meters down the track from the first victim, steadily closing the distance, chugged a monstrous black locomotive, belching thick black smoke from a towering stack.
For every three steps I took in the loose sand, I slipped back two. My legs pumped like pistons, but my progress was agonizingly slow. In the ravine behind me I could hear voices calling my name, telling me to come back. I didn't have to look back to know that at the bottom of the ravine was a troop of one-handed corpses and a battalion of long-dead rangers.
The train picked up speed. I leaned into the ridge and hammered my feet into the sand. I had to make it; people were depending on me. Figures clung to the locomotive, Hill citizens dressed in party smocks, laughing drunkenly, bottles of champagne swinging from their hands. I dropped to all fours and crawled like an animal, sobbing with frustration.
"I'm gonna make it!" I wailed. "I'm gonna goddamn make it!" I clawed at the loose grit, swam in it like a salamander. I crawled on my belly until I was within ten meters of the top of the ridge.
The Hill people spotted me and began shouting. Dash sat astraddle the fanged cattle catcher, virtuously talking about the ends justifying the means, and Babs stood beside him, holding his hand and nodding proudly. Marlene sat on Robert's lap and shrugged her shoulders. Joe squeezed from between two babushkas and shook a monstrous hash pipe at me, his face twisted with fear and loathing. "Don't ruin my meal ticket!" he screamed over the roar of the engine. "Don't you ruin my goddamn meal ticket!"
I heaved up the slope and crested the ridge. On the other side of the track, next to the first victim, stood a big iron lever, and I knew if I pulled the lever the train would derail and plunge into the ravine behind me.
The engineer stuck his head out the window, and an ugly face looked straight at me and laughed like a maniac. "Too fooking late, asshole! Too fooking late!" He shoved the throttle forward, and the locomotive surged ahead, doubling its velocity. He rolled back his eyes and howled with laughter.
I looked at the first victim on the track. It was Britt, struggling violently against the ropes that held her. Tanya was second in line. In a split second my mind bounced a dozen times between two options. I could try to pull the switch to save everyone, but that meant I'd have to throw myself across the track into the path of the train. Or I could hang back and untie Britt and Tanya.
I lunged. If I could reach the switch, I'd pull it; if I couldn't, I'd at least drag Britt and Tanya out of the way.
Something grabbed my ankle, and I fell short of both. I looked behind me and screamed. It was Crawley. "Didn't you hear the man?" he said. "It's too late."
I stretched my hands to Britt and Tanya, but couldn't reach their bonds. The black shadow of the train fell on them, and Tanya smiled sadly. "It's okay," she consoled. "You tried, Jake. You tried very hard."
"Obviously not hard enough," Britt snapped from beside her. I sobbed, kicked at Crawley and stretched every millimeter of length out of my joints, and the iron wheels rolled over Britt and my right hand.
I awoke bolt upright, hyperventilating and shivering at once, my skin icy with sweat. I stumbled and wheezed through the dark to the kitchen sink. I tried to turn on the water but couldn't get the fingers of my right hand to work the faucet; the hand was a useless and numb claw. I wrenched the faucet with my left hand, splashed warm water in my face, then ran warm water over my right hand until it thawed out. After a moment hunched over the sink, I regained control of my breathing and my hand returned to life.
I leaned back against the sink, shivering and half-delirious. I thought I needed a drink, but the idea of drinking made me want to vomit.
The first sickly rays of dawn illuminated the bedroom window, and I remembered the last time I'd woken up in the same room. From the bottom of the abyss I now wallowed in, that morning in retrospect seemed incredibly beautiful and full of life. Now I looked out the window and all I could see was a stillborn sun and death creeping over the horizon in its place.
Britt and Tanya slept on the bed, head to foot. I stared at each, feeling a stirring in my heart. This is what I believe in, I thought. It's people I'm loyal to, not gleaming ideals, not dead comrades, not the City, not some angry deaf-mute god. It's them — there is nothing else.
I found a stim-cola in the fridge and sat down at the kitchen table. I drank the cola and thought very hard about what I would have to do to keep them alive. By the time real dawn squeezed through the window, I knew what had to be done.
* * *
I told them my plan over breakfast.
"I have a plan," I said between mouthfuls of soy sausage.
"Oh, really?" Britt said cynically. "Does it involve killing someone?"
I looked at her blankly. "Well, yes, of course."
"I thought so. It's the only thing you know how to do."
"Not the only thing," Tanya said, leering over a glass of soy milk. I leered back, and Britt turned her head away from the spectacle.
I looked to Britt. "I have to meet with your father."
"So you can kill him?" Britt asked. She didn't seem particularly offended by the idea.
"Would killing him stop the holocaust?"
She looked thoughtful for a moment. "I doubt it. It was his plan originally, but it's in the hands of others now. My father's a talker, not a doer. His death might slow it down, though."
I nodded. "Well, that's something. Maybe he knows the names of those directing the action, or a weakness in the plan."
"Maybe. It's a gamble."
"It's the only crapshoot in town."
Britt lit a cigarette. "The only problem is my father isn't going to come within ten miles of you."
"He might if I appeal to his higher emotions."
"And how do you propose to do that?"
"By threatening to kill you," I said.
She didn't even flinch. We stared at each other for a moment.
"That might work," she said.
"So you think he still loves you, after all this."
Britt looked introspective. "Yeah, he probably does. I always was daddy's little girl. I know it was him who arranged for Joe to draw me out before the Close Court raid."
I choked on my toast. "Crawley's friend who called you before the raid, his name was Joe? Joe 'the Incredible Weasel' Drake?"
"Yes," Britt said, fixing me with suspicious eyes. "Why do you know all the bad guys?"
"It's the crowd I run with. That evil bastard." I sat back and tried to grasp the depth of his treachery. Judas and Brutus had nothing on Joe.
"He's a friend of yours?" Tanya asked.
"Not anymore, he ain't. Why didn't I kill him? He's on the Hill now, staying with Dash."
Britt looked surprised. "He's a fool, then. He's usel
ess to them now, and they'll get rid of him."
"I told him that." I looked at my watch. It was nine o'clock. "Let's give your father a ring."
Instead of using the phone on the corner, we walked to Hayward.
The sun brooded from behind a screen of smog, and I could almost feel a black wind sweeping through the City. Yet I found a reassuring serenity in the fact that at least Hayward remained constant: Hookers still smoked and joked in front of bars, hornbugs still came out of porn shops looking guilty and hunted, pimps still stared impassively from their pimpmobiles, and junkies still panhandled for fix money. The only difference was that there were more winos than usual. Gangs of them were drifting in from other boroughs for the fifth great wino crusade taking place that afternoon. I wondered what Dash's plan had in store for Hayward. It looked too evil to kill.
The girls ate their breakfast on the steps of Claudia's Speakeasy and Gambling Parlor, and I quizzed winos about the whereabouts of Moses. All were willing to lie, but none were sure.
We found a phone in working order outside an alcohol station. Britt fed me numbers and I dialed. We reached Dash at his office.
"I have your daughter," I grated menacingly.
"Strait?" Dash croaked.
"That's right, back from the grave. I wasn't the well-done charbroil job in my car." I paused for a maniacal laugh. "I have your sweet little daughter and I'll mutilate, kill and have my way with her in that order unless you give me one hundred thousand creds — used, unmarked and in no denomination bigger than a twenty."
"How do I know you have my daughter?" Dash croaked, his voice beginning to sound unraveled, like that of a man not firmly in control of his destiny.
"I'll let you speak with her." I pulled the phone from my mouth and said, "Okay, you. No tricks, see? Or you'll get it, see?"
Britt frowned and grabbed the phone, squeezing into the booth with me. I noticed she was wearing light perfume, and her proximity affected my breathing.
Her performance was impressive and sinister. Her voice pleaded and whined like a scared little girl on the verge of tears, but her expression was hard and cold, making for a very eerie effect.
"Oh Daddy, help me!" she cried. "He says he's going to kill me! Please, help me, he hurts me, he's horrible and mean and a boor and…"
"That's enough," I said, grabbing the phone back. She was having too good of a time. "There's your proof, Chamberlain. Cooperate, and maybe you'll get her back in one piece."
"Yes, of course," he said with unfeigned desperation. "Bring her up to the house and you'll get your money."
I whacked the receiver like a hammer against the coin-return knob three times. Dash had somehow managed to convince himself I was the consummate moron. "I am not a moron," I informed him, the punished receiver back against my ear. "We meet down here or not at all."
"Why, why, you'll kill me," Dash said matter-of-factly.
"I promise I won't. All I want is the money and your guarantee that you'll call the heat off me."
"I see," Dash said, apparently believing I was the type to go for that kind of deal. A week ago he might have been right.
"There's an underground parking garage under what's left of the Sundowner Hotel on the corner of Dostoyevski and Hay ward," I said. "Drive your car down to the fourth level. There's an elevator shaft in the farthest corner from the entry ramp, on the north wall. I'll meet you there at four o'clock this afternoon. Come alone. No tricks, no guns, no problems. Got it?"
"Yes."
I hung up. I felt good, like a gangster. Maybe I'd missed my calling.
"You know he'll just use the meeting as an opportunity to capture me and murder you," Britt said.
"Yes," I said, smiling at her. "I'm counting on it."
26
I escorted the girls back to the flat, then walked to Phreaky Phil's Secondhand Car Lot on Hayward. There were two dozen used-car lots on Hayward to choose from, but I'd dealt with Phreaky Phil before. He'd talked me into the Caddy three years ago, and I needed that same kind of magic. I stood in his office for a few minutes before he wandered over and grabbed my hand.
"How's the Cadillac?" he said, his eyes drifting over my shoulder. I looked behind me, but there was nothing there but oak paneling. Phil was that way. He was a casualty of the great acid-house love revival of the late 1990s.
"It blew up," I said.
Phil raised his eyebrows. "The radiator? The engine?"
"All of it. I think I forgot to put water in the battery. I need some new wheels."
We took a walk out to his gravel lot. All the cars were coated with a thick layer of dust even though it'd rained yesterday. He took my hand and pressed it onto each car, one at a time. I didn't say a word. After I'd left a palm print on every hood in the lot, Phil threw his hands helplessly into the air.
"I'm afraid there isn't a car here that aligns with you karmically." His sad eyes told me that it was out of his hands and bigger powers were at work. "I'm very sorry, Jake."
"What about the primer-black Olds convertible," I asked, "with the skull and crossbones painted on the hood?"
Phil cocked an eyebrow, then floated over to the convertible, laying both hands on the hood. He signaled me over with an urgent wave, grabbed my hand and pressed it to the hood with his. "Yes," Phil whispered, rubbing the dust off the skull with our palms. "Yes! You're right! This rude machine spiritually meshes with your aura! I was going by your old aural alignment, but I see now your karma has realigned! You knew it was the righteous machine, and now I can see it!"
I looked under the hood and drove it around the lot twice to make sure we meshed on a more practical level. It was a monstrous old brute dating from 98, built during the early years of the corporate era. The engine had a mean spirit and wore the hardware of a recent boost job. The brakes were fine, and the tires had enough rubber for another three thousand kilometers. The corporationists might have been the greedy bastards the history books made them out to be, but they knew how to build machines. The limp-wristed plastic the Party factories turned out couldn't compare in sheer weight and raw, brutal power.
I haggled him down to four hundred creds. I got a discount because it didn't have plates, title or registration. But none of that was necessary as long as the City stayed in the hands of the people. I pulled up to one of Phil's pumps for a free fill up. That was his motto: Free Fill Up When You Buy From Phreaky Philip. I was putting the nozzle away when Phil came over with the bill of sale.
"Here they come," Phil said, gesturing down Hayward.
And there they were. Shoulder to shoulder, waving rags and sticks, shouting like lunatics they came, throwing bottles and singing hymns. I spotted Moses Perry at the front, waving his great pool-cue staff, howling righteously. The fifth great wino crusade was underway.
Phil and I stood and watched them go by. There were gaps in the shambled formation, but it kept coming.
"Big turnout for this one," Phil noted.
I nodded. "Sign of the times." Like the rats and flies, the wino population bloated every year.
"Wonder how far they'll get this time," Phil wondered.
"All the way to the promised land," I told him, and climbed behind the wheel. Phil gave me one of his disoriented looks. I waved goodbye and pulled out of the lot.
I took a back exit onto Marshall so my new wheels wouldn't get scratched by bottle-throwing winos. It was their day of glory and it was best to stay out of their way.
Britt was showing Tanya how to put on makeup when I got back. They both stood in front of the bathroom mirror.
"That's a sure path to sin," I pointed out.
"You can't look until we're finished!" Tanya yelled, and threw a towel at me.
I retreated to the kitchen. I emptied my duffel onto the kitchen table, took a step back and stared at all the weaponry. I drew a breath, then let it out with a sigh. So much firepower. So much fun.
I tested the radio detonator first, exploding a primer in the sink from across the room. I chec
ked the action of each pistol, rifle and shotgun, making certain every moving part had a little oil, then wiped them down with an oily lint-free cloth. If you treated a weapon right, it wouldn't let you down, so unlike people.
"Well, what do you think?" Britt said. I put the Uzi down and turned around. Britt stood behind Tanya like a proud parent. "Isn't she lovely?"
She was. Subtle colors and shadings contoured Tanya's young features into something more elegant, more sophisticated. The black sequined gown she wore set off her snow-white hair and baby blue eyes perfectly. In a word, she was stunning.
I got up and walked around her slowly, her eyes nervously following me.
"Uh-huh," I finally said, nodding.
"Uh-huh what?" Tanya asked.
"Uh-huh, I'm going to have to go out and buy you a big pink dress with ribbons and bows, and a big, matching, silly-looking hat."
She laughed shyly and did a twirl. "Right now?"
"Of course, right now. You must have it!"
"But what about the revolution?"
"Revolution?" I shouted, lifting her by her hips high in the air. "Fuck the revolution, baby, we're going out dancin'!" She giggled wildly, and I spun her over my head, faster and faster, laughing insanely at her squeals demanding I put her down, until the world swam and I got dizzy and collided with Britt. We collapsed in a tangle onto the carpet, laughing deliriously until tears ran down our faces, which seemed even more hilarious. We laughed until our stomachs hurt and all the fear and tension melted away. When the last tear dried, we got to our feet, glancing sideways at each other, embarrassed at the previous moment's emotion. At that instant, with the sum of all my heart, I wanted to take them both and run, run far, far away from the City, from the Party, from the horrors that were coming. To save just them seemed enough.
Britt must have seen it in my eyes because she looked to the guns on the table and said, "I guess we better start getting ready."
"Yes," I agreed. I ran my fingers through my hair, feeling the stubble on the sides of my head. I'd have to shave soon.