Avenging Angel

by Frank Rich

  "I should be so lucky."

  That put me off. I brooded for a while. I checked my chrono. It was three thirty-five. I sat for another minute, then said, "You can kiss me goodbye if you want."

  "You make quite a case out of being pathetic, Jake."

  "Imminent death always makes me bold. I might be a vat case in half an hour."

  "Promises, promises."

  "You really know how to string a guy along," I said, and shoved the door open, disappointed at another blown scene. I was halfway out when an invisible hand closed on my arm.

  "I'll kiss you when you come back, Jake."

  I stared into the black, afraid to answer, afraid of blowing it. The hand let go, and I hit the concrete with my heels. I slammed the door before she could take it back.

  I turned on the flashlight and floated toward the elevator, fantasizing about my promised kiss. The white glare of the flashlight muscled its way through the abject darkness, but it seemed a struggle.

  A blue VW Bug sat in front of the elevator. It didn't have any tires, and every time I saw it reminded me of a dead beetle. I shined my light inside. Empty vitabeer cans crowded the floor, and a wave of nostalgia rolled over me. Times were, when the ambiguous moralities of my job got me down, I'd come to this very spot and sit in the Bug and drink beer and stare at the darkness. Once I got so drunk I lost my flashlight and had to paw around in the black for three ugly hours before I found my car. After that episode I stopped coming.

  I sat on the hood of the Bug and turned out the flashlight. I massaged my neck muscles with one hand and imagined being married to Britt. Could we ever reconcile our differences? Sweep the Crawley thing under the rug of love? Could I cope with her career as a revolutionary leader? There were frankly a lot of unanswered questions, but my heart was home to mountains of faith. We could make it, if only that mean pimp Fate would give us half a goddamn chance.

  The silence was broken by a car engine growling from above.

  29

  I looked at my watch. Like a good father, Dash was ten minutes early.

  I waited for the rumble of an explosion but it never came. I breathed a sigh of relief. Okay, I told myself, Tanya was safe and everything would be just fine if I stuck to the plan. I walked five meters in front of the Bug and put the flashlight on the ground, pointing toward the ramp. Looking away from the light, I switched it on. I walked back behind the Bug and hunkered down, peeking over the hood.

  A minute later two beams of light dived down the ramp, followed hesitantly by a monster luxury cruiser. The big machine had a hard time maneuvering around the wrecks, but that was the price to pay if you wanted to attend ransom meetings in style and comfort. The cruiser homed in on the beacon of the flashlight and crept toward it like a cat sneaking up on a bird. The bright headlights engulfed the Bug, and I closed one eye to retain my night vision. Ten meters short of the flashlight, the cruiser turned and exposed its broadside. The engine died but the headlights stayed on. The driver's window hissed down.

  "Kill the headlights," I shouted. "The parking lights will do fine."

  The headlights cut out and the parking lights came on, surrounding the car with an eerie amber glow. The cruiser looked like a huge animal transfixed by the beam of the flashlight.

  I walked from behind the Bug and stood just behind the flashlight. With the glare in their eyes I would appear an indistinct, dark figure, mysterious and scary.

  Both front doors opened. Both, I thought — that was the key word. The word emphatically stated that Dash had not come alone as he'd promised. A short bodybuilder with a red crewcut came out the driver's door, and my old sparring pal Harry crawled out the other side. Each had the telltale bulge of body armor and concealed pistols. They walked toward me and neither of them looked mystified or scared.

  Red said, "Mr. Chamberlain won't negotiate until you've been frisked for weapons."

  "Oh," I said. "Just a little frisk."

  "Just a frisk," the redhead said, nodding his head vigorously. He held out his hands and smiled as if he wanted to give me a hug. Harry held out his meat hooks but didn't even try to fake a smile.

  I drew my pistol and shot them both in the head. I stepped over their twitching bodies and walked to the cruiser. It amazed me no end what a complete knave Dash thought me to be. Was it the way I dressed? My demeanor? I had to know.

  I reached inside the driver's window, pulled the keys from the ignition and threw them away. There was a pane of tinted glass between the front and rear seats, so I moved over to the right rear window. It was tinted, too, but I was willing to bet the shy devil was in there. I rapped on the glass with a knuckle. The window came down an inch.

  "You said no guns," a voice peeped.

  "I lied," I said. "Now come out of there. We need to talk."

  "You'll shoot me."

  "No, I won't. If I wanted to shoot you I'd have already done it Now come out or I'll come in."

  The door opened and Dash stepped shakily out. He sported a black exec suit with lots of chrome. It probably went over big at director meetings. He shut the door and trembled against the cruiser, staring at my pistol fearfully.

  "Where's the money?" I demanded.

  Dash stammered at me but didn't really say anything.

  I let my mouth gape. "Dash! Don't tell me you forgot the ransom money?" I shook my head sadly. "Oh, man. That casts tall shadows on the nature of your intentions concerning our rendezvous."

  "I, ah, think I forgot it," he stammered.

  I glared at him for a moment, then slapped him on the shoulder and grinned. "Ah, don't worry about it, ol' buddy. I'll just take it out of your hide."

  Dash gave my pistol a shaky look.

  "Well," I said, sighing. "With no money to count, we'll just have to socialize. Let's hear your side of it."

  "My side of what?" he screeched, his eyes still locked on the pistol. He was already going into hysterics, and the interrogation had just begun. I could see in his wild eyes that he was certain I was going to kill him. It struck me that he really did think me a homicidal maniac. But that was only because he always caught me at bad moments, I told myself.

  "You know," I prompted. "Your nifty plan to wipe out all the City's unhappy citizens."

  "I don't know what you're talking about."

  I sighed and shot out the window beside him.

  He yelped and tried to crawl up the side of the car on his back. "It has to be done!" he cried. "It's the only way the Party can survive. I could show you stacks and stacks of statistics and forecasts! If the Party collapses, everything collapses and anything is better than anarchy!" He acted as if he was talking to my pistol instead of me.

  "Oh, I don't know, anarchy might be fun. Sure beats dying of food poisoning or nerve gas." I gestured with my pistol, and his eyes followed it. I moved the pistol slowly to the left. Dash's eyes went to the left. I moved it to the right. His eyes went to the right. He's mesmerized, I thought. In a deep voice I said, "You're getting sleepy."

  "Huh?"

  "Nothing. So you justify taking hundreds of thousands of lives just to keep the Party afloat? Doesn't that seem just a trifle immoral?"

  "There is no other way. The Party must survive. Do you want the world divided into nations again, with flag worship and national wars? Better thousands now than millions later." He was settling into a practiced spiel, the Party idealogue haranguing for the cause.

  His eyes found mine, and they were the eyes of a fanatic. "Those people are animals, ungrateful leeches who take from the Party and give back nothing. Instead of gratitude for being fed and sheltered, they riot and try to subvert our efforts to better them. And they're getting worse every day. Pretty soon they won't just be content to riot in their slums, they'll organize and attack the Party itself!"

  "Maybe they'd be more grateful if they could live on the Hill and eat beef and chocolate," I suggested.

  Dash shook his head at me sadly, like a teacher at a child too horribly retarded to learn. "I don'
t expect you to understand. You're one of them. You see everything from the bottom of the gutter."

  "Yeah, I guess the view is a lot better from the Hill," I said. "You know, you and Joe use the same analogies, maybe you really are buddies."

  "Joseph understands the way things are."

  "Joe understands who has the money and power. How is Joe behaving, anyway? Is he an entertaining guest?"

  Dash didn't say anything; he just continued to shake his head at me as though I was the knave he always played me for. I felt like hitting him in the teeth.

  I heard a noise behind me. I dropped into a low crouch and whirled, aiming at the dark figure behind the lamp.

  It was Britt. She held a Colt .45 in her hands.

  "Britt!" Dash and I sang in chorus, him high, me low.

  "You murderous bastard," she snarled, stepping forward. "You fascist swine." I was almost positive she wasn't talking to me.

  "Britt!" Dash cried out again. "Don't you see it's all for you? You're on the wrong side! You should be with us, the Party!"

  Her face contorted into the mask of hate I'd seen before. "It's all for the Party — it's always been all for the Party. You'd send me and Mom both to the vats for your beloved Party." She caught a breath. "Well, now you can die for your Party."

  "No!" I shouted in a low, urgent voice. "We need more information. I haven't got the names or timetables out of him yet. Killing him now would be insane." I couldn't guess how many ounces of pressure were on the Colt's trigger, but I knew it was close to enough. "Let's be smart about this, Britt. Don't let your personal hatreds ruin our chance of stopping the holocaust. We need that information."

  For a moment I didn't think she heard me. Then her features began to smooth and the beast went back inside. Her arms dropped and her head followed, as if she had expended all her energy. "You're right," she whispered. "You're right."

  "I'm sorry, honey," Dash said, and a pistol shot echoed through the garage. Britt's head snapped back grotesquely, and she fell backward, arms flailing for balance. I whirled and fired without aiming. The jet ripped a chunk out of Dash's shoulder, and the little automatic fell to the concrete. Dash clutched his geysering wound and screamed, and I kicked his pistol out of the pool of light.

  I rushed to Britt and crouched beside her. She lay on her back, one arm at her side, the other above her head, as if she were waving goodbye. Her face was calm and unbothered, and there was maybe even the hint of a melancholy smile on her parted lips. Except for a small thumbnail-size hole between her closed eyes, she could have just been sleeping. She was beautiful, even in death.

  I got on my hands and knees and kissed her gently on the lips. My tears ran down her cheeks, and it almost seemed as if she were crying instead of me. I wanted to take her in my arms and hold her and tell her how much I loved her and that I'd never let her go but I couldn't. I couldn't because at that moment my soul left me, fleeing before a risen beast too monstrous to behold. I wiped the tears from my eyes and stood up.

  "I had to," Dash croaked. "She was unsalvageable. She betrayed the Party. She was trying to make it all fall down, all fall down." He slid down until he was sitting against the rear tire. He twisted his neck sideways, trying to look at his wound. "God, it hurts! It really hurts! Do you think I'm going to die?"

  "Oh, yes," I whispered slowly, moving toward him. "You're definitely going to die. But not before you tell me things."

  "Oh, no, I won't. I won't tell you anything."

  I took the switchblade from my pocket with my left hand. It opened with a vicious snick. I stopped three meters in front of him and held it up beside my head. I felt my face twist into a grotesque, insane smile. "Oh, yes, you will."

  I would carve Dash up. I wanted to, and he knew that. His face twisted up, and he squirmed against the tire. When I started toward him again, he started to scream.

  There was a flashbulb flash from behind me, and a sledgehammer hit me in the right shoulder blade, sending me tumbling forward like a clumsy acrobat. I hit the concrete with the grace of a drunk at closing time, and the jar sent my pistol scraping into the darkness. I ended up on my back beside my pal Dash.

  30

  You've just been shot, logic told me. I dived into the waters of unconsciousness, then swam back to shore feeling nauseous and weak. My right shoulder was numb and I couldn't move my arm. The glare of my flashlight hit me square in the eyes and I had a hard time seeing anything. In the spotlight, I thought giddily. I felt like laughing but I felt like vomiting, too. A pair of shoes stepped in front of the light.

  "Well, well," a familiar voice said. "What have we here? A little fooking party?"

  "That's right, Inspector Blake," I said. "But who invited you?"

  "Chamberlain doesn't take a crap without telling me first."

  "So you can wipe his hiney for him?"

  Blake enjoyed a long, vicious laugh. "Always joking around, eh, Strait? Right to the grave."

  "Inspector! Inspector Blake?" Dash cried, snapping out of his delirium. "Thank God you're here! This animal tried to murder me! My own daughter tried to murder me! Kill him now and get me to a hospital. I need urgent medical attention. I'm in terrible pain."

  "Shut up, you rooking worm," the inspector spit out. "Die like a man. You don't hear Jake whining, do you?"

  "Yeah," I said. "Die like a man, for crissakes."

  "Inspector Blake!" Dash wailed. "We're all in this together. Don't you remember? It was my plan. We have to work together and see these difficult times through, for the future of the Party."

  "Shove your Party up your ass," Blake said, and shot Dash in the bridge of the nose. His head disintegrated in an explosion of blood, and I felt helpless and adrift in the churning sea of fate, waiting for my bullet.

  "So, how're you doing there, Strait?" Blake said, walking closer. He sounded happy. Blake was obviously one of those rare few who really enjoyed their work.

  "Oh, I think I may be mortally wounded," I said. "But otherwise I'm pretty okay. So, you're the SPF contact."

  "Kind of obvious, isn't it? When they found out the old man couldn't stomach the job, I went to them. I had a lot to offer."

  "You organized the skins."

  "Hell, we've been using the skinheads to break up the left for years. That angle was just a small part of my contributions. From the practical point of view, I'm running the whole show. I arranged for the SPF commodities to be used. I set up Travis as a training camp, and the skins answer only to me. As far as the Party is concerned, I am the man."

  "That's funny, you don't strike me as a hard-line Party ideologue."

  The inspector laughed, obviously enjoying our discourse. After being part of a big secret for so long, he needed someone to brag to, someone who wouldn't be spreading anything around later. "The Party has nothing to do with it," he said. "Oh, those weak poofs on the Hill posture around and rationalize why they want to massacre a quarter of a million people, but I look at it from a more personal angle. You see, after this show is over they're going to owe me a lot and I'll owe them nothing, and that's where true power lies. You are looking at the highest authority I recognize." He did a clumsy soft-shoe jig. "I… am… it!"

  "Woo-woo," I said. "That's a whole lot of talk from a lousy inspector." Loss of blood was making me irritable, and I couldn't stand unbridled vanity in anyone except myself.

  Blake sauntered over and stood above me. The amber lights illuminated his lower half, but his head and shoulders were lost in the darkness. He looked about a thousand meters tall.

  "Not 'Inspector, " he whispered. " 'Director. City Director Blake. That was my price for cooperation. The fooking old man is about to get an unexpected retirement, and I'll be appointed the new SPF director of the City. And in the coming days whoever controls the SPF controls the City — and the burbs and Hill, for that matter. So you see, wiseass — " his voice sank low and hard " — I am truly it!"

  "A rising star," I commented.

  "And you're a falling one," he
snarled.

  I shrugged my left shoulder. With me bleeding to death and him with the gun, I didn't have a lot of evidence to dispute his claim. My energy was seeping out with my blood, and I was having trouble keeping my eyes open.

  "You dead yet, Strait?"

  "Not yet," I muttered, beginning to slur like a drunk.

  "Good," he said, dropping to a crouch beside me. "Because I'm not through talking yet."

  "I didn't think you were." It was too much an effort to keep my eyelids up, so I let them fall shut.

  "You know, Strait," he said softly. "You and I ain't so different. We're both amoral — we both like to kill. The only difference is that I know what side of the barricades to stand on. You're not standing on either side. You're straddling it and anyone who does that ends up getting shot, as you found out. That's the big difference between you and me, Strait. That's why you're a lousy bogeyman lying in his own blood and I'm about to become the most powerful man in the City."

  I forced my eyes open a crack. Blake was sitting on his heels next to me, his wrists resting on his knees, the suppressor on his big service automatic pointed casually at my forehead. I hauled in a painful breath and whispered, "I bet I still get laid more than you."

  Blake laughed but it sounded forced. "Well, goodbye, Strait. But one more thing." He leaned his face close to mine and smiled like a wolf. The amber lights cast his features in demonic relief. My head swam in an ocean of pain, and I felt about ready to take the final plunge.

  "You shouldn't have used a little girl to cover your ass up there," he whispered. "That was a mistake. But I was thinking. Maybe I'll get laid on the way out. That is, if she's still warm." He started to laugh.

  I brought up my left hand from the floor and plunged the switchblade into his neck. His pistol flashed and a hot brand lay against my cheek. Then he stumbled back and collapsed in the arc of light. He gurgled and flapped around on his back, casting frantic shadows into the darkness. He worked the knife from his throat but couldn't staunch the fountain of blood squirting between his fingers in long, pulsating streams. My eyes begged to close, but I forced them to stay open. I wanted to watch the inspector die. It took about ten minutes.