by Dancer, Jack
"You look like a blind Toulouse Lautrec with those sunglasses and cane, only taller. I saw on the apartment menu they've got dogs. Maybe you can get a guide dog," she says.
"Why? I've got you," I say and when she cocks her arm to take a swing. "I meant as a guide!"
"Woof," she says and taking a step back I raise the cane and with the press of a button a hidden blade shoots out.
"En garde."
"Holy shit, Tucker! That's some serious cane for a blind man."
"Yeah. Now let's see if I can figure out how to get the thing back in," I say pushing the thing against the street with no luck.
"Hold the button in and push." I do and the blade retracts with ease.
"How'd you know that?" I ask.
"I've got an umbrella version," she says.
"No kidding . . . Wait . . . From the Green Dragon?"
"Pony himself.”
"Jesus! Maybe I should search you for weapons."
“Tucker, I am a weapon."
***
Nanette's a Robert Palmer girl tonight, only blonde, wearing a pink torn-open t-shirt with ‘Kiss Me' scrawled across the front, over a Kevlar bodice, and a pair of sprayed-on black Levi’s. She could stop a run away locomotive dead in its tracks.
“Look at all these posters,” she says.
“Yeah, I'm surprised the police haven't pulled them down after all the publicity.”
“Oh, my God, there she is. How'd you get that photo?”
“Took it on the train with the Stealth Pen. Look up. See that airplane?”
“The one trailing the banner?”
“Read it.”
“Oh, my God.”
“See the blimp over there?” I say pointing.
“Oh, my God. How much did you spend on this?”
“A lot. I don't even know.”
“And you're doing all this for Monica?”
“I'm doing it for me too, Nanette.”
“I know.”
“I can’t believe the number of people that’ve turned out for this,” I say.
“Me neither. There's a lot more than I remembered from last year.”
“They did this last year?” I ask.
“They do it every year on the same day.”
“September 11th?”
“Yes.”
“So, this is Barcelona's 9-11?”
“I guess you could say that, but it's not tragic like 9-11 is in the States. And it dates back a lot farther than 2001.”
“How far back?”
“Back to 1714 and the siege of Barcelona. But this rally has been taking place every year since the early 1900s.”
“Wow, that's pretty cool.”
“September 11th here is known as the 'Diada,' the National Day of Catalonia. It's a very big deal.”
“I can see that. Hey, they're handing out placards over there. Let's get two and join in.”
“What if somebody recognizes us?”
“You think someone's going to recognize you in a blonde wig, sunglasses and floppy hat and me behind this beard, sunglasses and hat? I don't think so.”
“Let's get a placard,” I say, and we make our way through the crowd to where they're being handed out.
I look at hers and read it, "IndyCat? That's rich.”
We look at mine. It reads, “Independence.”
“Pretty boring, huh?” I say. “Back in the day in the good ole U.S. of A., the anti-war marchers carried placards saying things like, 'Fuck the pigs,' or, 'Kill the pigs.' Stuff like that. The pigs were cops. They didn't mince words, and they weren't polite. I don't see any of that here. Everything's so clean and organized. This rally could've been put on by the Boy Scouts.”
“We're civilized, Tucker,” she says smugly.
“Yeah, guess so.”
Someone taps me on the shoulder, and I turn around.
Holy shit, it's Ebba.
“Hey, Tucker. What are you doing in that get up?” Then she turns to Nanette and says, “Hi Nanette? Gone blonde, huh. Lot more action there,” she says primping at her own hair.
“What the hell are you doing here? Where've you been? We've been worried sick about you. We heard you went over to the other side,” I say, and it's then that I notice the two goons behind her staring at me in a not so friendly manner. “Who're these guys?”
“Remember Buenos Aires, Tucker?” Ebba asks.
“How could I forget? You went for a Tango lesson and disappeared for three days.”
“Right, so just figure these two comrades are my new Tango partners.”
“Yikes,” I say. Comrades?
Ebba turns to Nanette and says, “So, what's with you Nan? Where's Monica? I thought Tucker was fucking her? Now he's fucking you too, is that it?”
“Why don't you crawl back under your rock, Ebba? And take these two retards with you,” says Nanette.
The two men say something to each other and take a threatening step toward Nanette, but Ebba throws her arm up stopping them with, "Stay non zaude."
“Nice seeing you again, Ebba and good-luck in your new life. We'll tell Pat not to expect you for the flight back," I say taking Nanette by the arm and melting back into the marchers.
“Terry told me everything, Tucker,” Ebba yells.
We hold our placards up ignoring her.
“So, you still doubt someone will recognize us, Tucker?” Nanette says.
“Musta been that hat of yours.”
“Oh, Christ, Tucker,” she says laughing, then, “this is not funny. Why am I laughing?”
“Because you're scared,” I say. “It'll be okay, Nanette, really; as long as we stick together.”
"Did you hear what she said to those guys?"
"Yeah, stay something."
"Stay non zaude. Stay where you are, is what she said."
"So?"
"I didn't know she spoke Basque," Nanette says.
"Neither did I. Doesn't surprise me though. She speaks several languages."
We move along at the pace of the marchers. There's no choice really. It's so crowded we're being pushed along, literally. Reminds me of Times Square on New Years Eve.
“Take my hand, Nanette, and stay close, so we don't get separated and lose each other.”
“Tucker, are you proposing?” she says.
“I've already done that remember?” I say.
“I do and I accept, let's consummate.”
“Right,” I ask, "wait until we get back to the apartment.” I notice someone on the sidelines. “Get outta here!”
“What?”
“I just saw that woman who bumped me off the plane in New York.”
“Sandy, you mean?”
“Sandy? You know her?” I ask.
“Well, she was in business, Tucker. I did have to serve her.”
“Oh, right. But what are the chances we'd run across her here?”
“Pretty slim but not impossible. So what?”
“Just seems the chances would be so slim that we wouldn't; that's all.”
Nanette starts yelling, "We will, we will rock you.”
People turn around looking at her like she's lost her mind.
“Wrong chant Nanette. You're dating yourself. That's Queen,” I say.
“Oops,” she says putting her hand over her mouth, laughing, embarrassed.
Suddenly, euros are raining from the sky, all over us. Everybody in the march scrambles to pick them up, astonished. Until they take a closer look and see Doctor Libica's photo surrounded by the headline, "5 million euro reward, DEAD OR ALIVE.”
“Oh my God, Tucker,” Nanette says examining a bill. She leans in close to me and says, "You're going to get us killed. You better hope no one else recognizes us, or we might not make it to the end of this parade. Drusilla's men could be all over this place. You're certifiably nuts doing this you know.”
A kid, a boy, breaks out of the crowd lining the street pushing his way through the marchers until he's in front of us, facing us, walki
ng backward.
“Señor Tucker, Señor Tucker. What do you think, Señor Tucker? Did we do a good job for you?'
“Great job, Angelo,” I say reaching into my pocket extracting a hundred euro bill and handing it over. "You have your team here?”
“Si,” he says still facing me walking backwards with the parade, and he does it well.
“How many?”
“Twenty maybe.”
“Could you keep us within sight, and if you see trouble, anyone harassing either me or the lady here with me (I nod at Nanette), have your boys intercede?”
“Si, Señor Tucker, we will watch after you and the Señora like you are familia. It is what we do best,” he says with a big smile and melts back into the crowd lining the street.
“Who was that little urchin, Tucker?” asks Nanette.
“He's the one who spent all night putting up these wanted posters.”
“He did this himself?” she asks stunned.
“He and his familia.”
“His familia?”
"Yes, he heads of one of the largest familia's of street urchins in Barcelona. He had lots of help."
“Good God almighty,” she says. "How in the world did you find him?”
“Funny you should ask because he worked for you.”
“Me?”
“Yeah, he was the kid James Culpepper hired to pick up and deliver the ransom money.”
“You're kidding?”
“Not.”
“How did James find him?”
“James is a pedophile and has been abusing this kid for years; he knows him well.”
“Oh, my God, Tucker. I didn't know.”
“I'm glad to know that, Nanette, but he worked for you ultimately, how could you not know?”
“Because I didn't want to know whom James hired to carry out things. I didn't want to know anyone. No one knew everyone. That's how we kept it safe. I told you that.”
“Yeah, I know. Well, now you've met one of your employees. Cute little guy don't you think?”
“Yes, he is.”
“And to think what James Culpepper has been doing to him all these years. It's a wonder he'd do anything to protect you isn't it?”
“He doesn't know who I am, Tucker.”
“And for your sake, he never will.”
“You're making me feel awful.”
“Nanette, you should feel awful. You probably have no idea just how many people you and your scammers have really hurt. I'm glad you got to see one of them.”
“I am too, Tucker. Really I am,” she says with tears rolling down her face from behind those sunglasses. I think for the first time I'm finally seeing the honest Nanette.
“Tucker, Tucker. Over here, Tucker,” a voice out of the sideline crowd hollers. I look around and spot Captain Pat jumping up and down and waving at me like a madman. The next thing I see is Captain Pat disappearing under a pile of Angelo's familia who've jumped him.
“Oh, shit! Did you see that?” I ask Nanette.
“Yes, I can't believe it,” she says astounded.
“What can't you believe? That Pat recognized us or that he was just pounced on by Angelo's gang?”
“Both.”
We keep walking along in the parade, holding our placards up and waving to the crowds on the sidelines like we're movie stars.
“Look up, Tucker,” says Nanette pointing to the sky where a plane is sky writing, "Five Million Euros For the traitor Libica, Dead or Alive."
“Man oh man, looks better than I imagined.”
“How much more is there, Tucker?” Nanette asks.
“Wait until dark. The fireworks will really start then, literally. Lasers will sky write what you see up there, but all over a black sky background and in living color. It'll be fabulous. Do you have any idea how many television stations are picking all this up and re-broadcasting around the globe?”
“The poor woman's dead for sure.”
“Poor woman, hell. Whenever you catch yourself thinking that way, just remember the flayed girl in the photo and multiply that by, how many times?”
“How do you know Drusilla did that?”
“I told you, I have my sources. Why is it you keep underestimating me?”
“I don't, Tucker, believe me. I don't at all. I'm only glad I'm on your side and not the other side.”
“Can I now trust you, Nanette?”
“With your life, Tucker, I swear it.”
“You'll get your chance to prove it tonight, later.”
“And I will, Tucker. I promise.”
By now, the parade, at least our part of it, is entering the Parc de la Ciutadella where the Parliament of Catalonia building is located, and I can see a large stage ahead, just like Nanette said, rising above everyone's heads from a sea of red and yellow Catalonian flags. It's like a circus. Even acrobats dressed in green and white costumes are standing on one another's shoulders six-persons high. It's one gigantic party. Everyone's happy, dancing and singing.
As we come to the center of the Parc de la Ciutadella and forward movement has ceased, three men push their way through the crowd and come up to us. One approaches me and stands nearly nose-to-nose, intimidating. There appears to be a green lizard crawling up the guy's neck out of his collar.
“Señor Blue, would you and, Miss Mieras, come with us?” he says.
“Who are you? What do you want?” I ask.
“We are police.”
“Show me credentials.”
“We do not have to show you credentials.”
“If you want us to come with you; you do, and even then; we may not." I jump back. "Yikes, dude. There's a green lizard on your neck! It's crawling outta your collar."
People around us turn and look, some laugh. Two men move in threateningly close to Nanette.
“Señor Blue, we do not want to cause a scene here, but we will. If you refuse to come with us, we will break the lady's arms, it's that simple.”
Over the man's shoulder, I spot a line of urchins snaking their way through the crowd toward us, Angelo leading.
"Holy shit!" I say pointing at the necks of the other two guys and doing my best to call everyone's attention to these guys and embarrass them. "Look out boys. There're green lizards on your necks too!" My antics are eliciting some laughter from people standing nearby, but the guy in front of me isn't laughing. He's turning seriously pissed but now Angelo's here, and he brazenly walks straight up to the guy with his palm out, inserting himself between me and my interrogator, totally throwing this asshole off his game.
“Señor, I am homeless; my familia is homeless, can you spare . . .”
“Get out of here street rat before I break your head,” the man says.
The other boys too, worked their way around us with their palms out begging for coin from the other two, annoying these guys when a sudden flash registers, and my interrogator has slapped Angelo to the ground bringing a collective gasp from the stunned crowd around us. And it's then that I press the button on the cane and in one fluid move, I've got this jerk's foot pinned to the asphalt street like a bad butterfly with a twelve-inch ice pick, and he's screaming like a girl.
The other two lizard guys are so stunned, watching their boss trying to pull his foot free that they fail to notice the small object in Nanette's hand before she gives 'em a good dose of pepper spray, and they too go down grabbing their eyes screaming. And if that wasn't punishment enough a couple dozen of Angelo's boys comes out of the crowd, as if on cue, and pile on all three of these dopes and begin pummeling them into the street. And just like with any schoolyard fight, everyone around draws into a circle and begins cheering and egging on the little guys to beat the shit out of the bullies.
It's time for us to split, so I grab Nanette's wrist, and we start swimming against the current of human bodies. "Excuse us please, thank you,” I say pushing our way through. Glancing back over my shoulder, the three green dragons are now crowd-surfing toward a large fountain.
/> “Hope they know how to swim,” I laugh to Nanette.
“Hope they don't,” she says.
When we find the outer edges of the crowd and finally spring free we're both so spent from the effort all we want to do is find a place to drop, and we do at the Barcelona Zoo just across the street. At the foot of two carved giraffes, mother and baby, we collapse into a thick carpet of grass and lay there like two corpses.
“I don't think those were Drusilla's men with the green dragon tattoos back there. They were speaking Basque,” she says.
"You mean the lizards?" I say with a laugh.
"Christ, Tucker, I thought you were going to get us killed back there. I couldn't believe it; you taunting them like that."
"Served them right. Idiots. Coming up to us in public like that, threatening us. I mean, how stupid can you really be to do something that brazen surrounded by a million witnesses?"
"I guess they think people won't interfere with the Green Dragons," she says.
"But then they fail to consider those people who don't know they're supposed to be afraid of the Green Dragons. They're not exactly the Hell's Angels you know. I mean, whoever's heard of the Green Dragons?"
"Maybe you should offer up a little help. You're an advertising guy. You've done a pretty good job of getting Drusilla's face out there. I'll bet by tomorrow morning more people will know her than can name the prime minister of Spain," she says.
"You ain't seen nothing yet. Wait'll the fireworks show. So, who is the prime minister of Spain?"
"Got me."
sixty-four
22:54 Hours, Thursday, 11 September.
Independence March.
When the fireworks started, and lasers lit the sky, writing out the reward for Drusilla Libica, the Raven, Dead or Alive, the cheering of the crowd, a million-plus strong, set off tremors from Barcelona all the way to Perpignan and throughout the Pyrenees. And nowhere were those tremors felt more than at the Castello Llivia where the Raven, along with a handful of her top lieutenants, and Julia, sat glued to a 60-inch wide, flat-screen television attached to a wall within her innermost sanctuary.
The messages, spelled out with blood-red slashes across a jet-black nighttime sky punctuated with bursts of exploding perforation, couldn't have more dramatically introduced to the world the face of evil when Drusilla Libica's portrait materialized for all to see. It was the same face gracing all those wanted posters lining the parade route and the thousands of five million euro reward currency dropping from the sky like confetti on New Years.