Absolute rage kac-14

by Robert K. Tanenbaum

  He led her down a corridor to a rusty steel-bound door. "They must have kept their payroll here. It makes a fairly good dungeon. Go through. I will see that you are fed later."

  He closed the door behind her, and she heard it lock. Shafts of dusty sunlight came through glassless, barred windows. In the center of the room was a man hanging from his bound wrists tied behind his back, his toes just touching the floor. He was naked except for a pair of camouflage-patterned briefs. She approached him, her Swiss army knife already pulled from her pocket. She sliced through the supporting rope. He collapsed at her feet, groaning. She cut the cords that bound his wrists. She looked around the room. On a long table was a length of thick, rubberized electrical cable, below the table a plastic bucket full of water. She carried the bucket over to the man, knelt, dipped her bandanna in it, and washed his bruised and swollen face.

  He opened his eyes. Recognition dawned and he shied. "You!"

  "Yes. Lucy Karp. You're Bo Cade."

  "Jesus H. Christ! Every damn time I get my ass handed to me, you're somewheres around. Why in hell is that, huh?"

  "Because you hang around in bad company probably. You remember I tried to warn you. How are you feeling?"

  "Like I been kicked by a horse. Are you in with them all? Those chinks?"

  "They're not chinks. They're Viet Kieu."

  "What?"

  "Vietnamese living here."

  "What the hell do they want with us?"

  "Your gold, for one thing. Another thing is that one of you shot my little brother. There's a revenge angle. My mother is Sicilian."

  "What does that mean?"

  "The Mafia is Sicilian."

  "Your ma's in the Mafia?"

  "No, but she has a sort of private mafia, and these are them. Look, we probably don't have much time. I need you to tell me where the gold is."

  "Hell, no, I won't!"

  "Yes, you have to, because here are your choices. You can tell me, and then I'll help you escape. Or you can refuse to tell me, and in a little while they'll come back and torture the truth out of you and then they'll kill you."

  "They ain't gonna make me tell, I don't care what they do."

  She sighed. "Oh, for Christ's sake! They'll break you in twenty minutes, you poor sap. You think your cousin Wayne is mean? Wayne is a church lady compared to these people."

  "Oh, yeah? Well, let me tell you something, girlie. When my kin get finished with them, they're gonna be sorry they ever messed with the Cades."

  "There won't be any Cades after tonight. Oh, God give me strength! You've heard of the war in Vietnam?"

  "Yeah, my uncle Ralph got kilt there. What about it?"

  "Those men out there, they're Commie Vietcong sappers, you dolt! They will go through the Cades like a blowtorch through a newspaper."

  He was staring at her, his mouth slightly open. "I could get out anyway. You couldn't stop me. I could take them bars off with that fancy knife you got."

  "Yes, you could. But I'd yell and they'd come in here and stop you."

  "I could fix it so you didn't do no yellin'."

  "Could you? Well, go ahead, then." She lay the open blade down on the floor. "See what happens."

  Warily, he reached for the knife. She said, "Let me give you a hint. The man who's running this operation is a good friend of mine. If you manage to hurt me, he will stop everything he's doing and track you down. Then you'll die in the kind of pain you can't even imagine. Plus, you'll tell them everything they want to know in the first five minutes."

  He stared at her, looking for fear or some trick in her eyes. But he didn't find anything like that. He grappled with that knowledge. Everyone was afraid; specifically, everyone was afraid of the Cades, and within the Cades there was a defined hierarchy of fear, with Ben Cade at the top. He himself was fairly low down in the order, liable to be beaten on by his brothers and his uncles. In turn he got to beat on his smaller cousins and any women, although he found he didn't like doing it all that much. In his mind there grew the desire to know the secret she had.

  "You want to know why I'm not frightened, don't you?"

  He felt a chill run through his body. He replaced the knife. She said, "It's a long story, but you'll never get to learn it if you're tortured to death or get killed along with the rest of your kin. Your old life is finished, but you could have a different life."

  "Yeah, in jail."

  "Yes, you'll have to go to prison, maybe for years. But you're young. You'll get out of prison. The world is a lot larger than Robbens County."

  He felt a long sigh escape from his throat. "It's in the big house. In his bedroom. There's a trapdoor in the floor that leads to a shaft…" It was complex, involving a descent into the underlying mines, turns and backtracks, and a number of booby traps that had to be disarmed. He told her all this in a low, dead voice. When he was through, and she had asked a few clarifying questions, she rose, checked out the barred windows, and chose one where rank growth pressed against the building. She thought of what Tran had said: "a fairly good dungeon." But a strong room was meant to keep people out, not in. The bars were screwed in on the inside, of course, and she used the screwdriver on her knife to remove them.

  "Get into some thick laurel and stay there," she said. "I think it'll all be over by tonight, or tomorrow at the latest. Good luck." Without a word, he boosted himself over the sill and was gone in a rustle of weeds.

  Lester Weames got into La Guardia at around two on Sunday, rented a Taurus, and drove into Manhattan. He drove through the City slowly and carefully, to a bar on Greenwich Street. He told the bartender he was looking for a Mr. Schaeffer. Last time he had been looking for a Mr. Ballantine. The bartender gave him a plain envelope and turned away. Weames noticed that the man did not look him in the eye, just like last time. In the envelope were driving directions to Rector and West Streets, near the Battery Parking Garage. He drove there and parked. An August Sunday afternoon in the financial district; you could fire a machine gun down the street and not hit anyone. The only other car on the street was a white Cadillac Seville. He picked up his briefcase, walked over, slid into the backseat of the Cadillac. As before, Frank was singing low on the stereo and the AC was maxed out. Weames felt the sweat prickle as it dried on his face.

  The man in the front seat checked Weames in his rearview. As before, he didn't turn around.

  "First things first. You got the fifty large?"

  "Yes. Right here." Weames opened his briefcase and lifted up a fat manila envelope. The man in front raised a restraining hand. "Not so fast. We haven't decided to take your business."

  "What the hell! What're you talking about?"

  "Because the problem's not so simple anymore. You screwed up so bad that half the FBI's down there. If we're going to take the extra risk, we need to know what happened, the planning, who did what, and what went wrong. Otherwise, no deal."

  "Hell, it's no big story. I told George Floyd to get rid of him, Heeney, and George hired a gang of goddamn slows to do it, and they left evidence all over the place, and the cops caught 'em. That's it."

  "You told Floyd to do it. You told him to get rid of Heeney and his family, or just him?"

  "I told him to get everyone in the house."

  "Why?"

  "Because it makes more of an effect. Man might take a risk himself, but not if he knows his family's going to get dead, too. It's better for business."

  "And this Floyd supplied the money."

  "Yeah, from the union. Untraceable, except the damn fool goes and licks it all before he gave it out. Now he's going state's evidence on me."

  "Which is why you want to take him out. He's not in jail?"

  "No, out on bail. He's living in his house. Got a couple of union security people with him, but they ain't much. You can take them out, too." Weames hesitated. "Or would that be extra?"

  "No, that's covered. Bodyguards are always covered in the sticker price. Okay, Mr. Weames, I think we can do business. You're going t
o hand me fifty thousand dollars now, in exchange for which you want me to arrange the murder of George Floyd. Have I got that right?"

  "Yeah, as soon as you can."

  The man held his hand up.

  Weames placed the envelope in it. "When do you think you can get it done?"

  Mr. Schaeffer did not answer, but took the bills out of the envelope, riffled them, rolled down his window, and waved the wad out at the empty offices, as if trying to attract a wandering stockbroker.

  "What're you doing?"

  "It's an old Italian custom. It takes the curse off blood money."

  "I asked you when you're gonna do it. I'm thinking I need to fix me up with an alibi for the time."

  Squeal of tires. A car pulled up alongside on the left, the right-hand door flew open, a big dark man in a suit slid into the seat beside Weames. He felt queasy fear. A face appeared in the window next to him. Mr. Schaeffer swiveled around in his seat and pressed the button that rolled down the rear window.

  Karp said, "Hello, Lester. How about moving over and letting me sit down?"

  The big dark man put an arm around Weames's shoulders and jerked him across the seat. Karp got in. Mr. Schaeffer was grinning and showing a gold NYPD detective's badge.

  Karp said, "Lester, this is Detective Cicciola of the New York police. He's going to arrest you for conspiracy to commit murder, which is a major league felony in the state of New York."

  "This is entrapment."

  "Oh my, Lester, you've been watchin' too many crummy TV crime shows. When a scumbag like you is 'ready,' 'poised,' 'wanting,' and 'predisposed' to engage in the criminal activity, entrapment goes out the window. Lester, we got you on tape. You're goin' down as big time as it gets for the Heeney slaughter and the Floyd attempt. While you're in custody, I wouldn't be surprised if the state of West Virginia attempted to extradite you for ordering the murder of the Heeney family. What I can assure you of is that the New York district attorney's office will make no objection to that extradition."

  "I want a lawyer."

  "And you shall have one, my murderous little hick," said Karp, "but it will not do you much good."

  19

  Tran entered the strong room. He was carrying a steel bowl with a cover and a pair of chopsticks on it and a steel mess-kit mug from which steam rose. The aroma from the bowl reached Lucy. She felt liquid rush into her mouth and her belly quivered. Tran placed the things on the floor, then removed the cover from the bowl.

  " Pho. And tea."

  "Thank you." She picked up a sliver of meat with the chopsticks. "Not dog, I hope."

  "No, it's dried beef. I recalled that you did not care for dog."

  Lucy was already slurping away at the pho. Between bites she asked, "How is your war going?"

  "Well. There are about twenty-five of them on a little knob in front of their settlement. A stupid position and easily outflanked. When night falls, we will have them." A pause. "I assume you have the information we require. I could not help noticing that our prisoner is gone."

  "Yes. You planned that, didn't you?"

  "I thought it was a reasonable assumption that you would act as you did. You are a clever child. I hope I didn't terrify you too much."

  "You did. You still terrify me. And you really would have tortured it out of him?"

  "Of course, or Freddy would have. But having been tortured, I find I have lost my taste for it. In others, you know, the same experience heightens the taste. I am glad not to have to do it."

  "What will happen now?" she asked in a tone that suggested she didn't much care.

  "Tonight we will do our operation, return here, and go through the tunnels with our prizes. A truck will be waiting. You should not be here when we return."

  "Because you might be killed."

  "Yes. Freddy will certainly kill you if you remain. He will almost certainly try to kill me, and therefore I must arrange that this doesn't happen."

  "You'll kill him."

  "Not I. Someone else. Someone he believes has been suborned, but has not. It is quite complex and boring. We Vietnamese! In any case, you will not observe the last charge of the 614th Battalion of the National Liberation Front's popular forces. We were five hundred and fifty in 1965. Ten survived the war's end, of whom four are here with me today." He stood up. "I will look in on you before we depart. There is a guard at the door. No one will disturb you for the next few hours."

  He waited for a moment, as if expecting some comment. She was, however, silent, and he left.

  She drank the tea. It grew dark outside, and darker still inside. She loved him and he was a devil. What did that make her? She rocked back and forth with the pain of it. Her brother was probably dead by now, or a vegetable. There was no help in this world or out of it. She fell to the floor, arms outstretched, face against the dusty, splintered planks. Priests lie this way when they are ordained, but she was not thinking of that. Her head hurt, a nauseous pounding behind her eyes. She pressed her forehead against the floorboards, as if she could press clear through the wood, down to the earth, down to its hot bowels and be lost. There was no time, no light, the universe was nothing, deep stupidity, suffering, meaningless death, forever.

  "Help me," a small voice said to nothing. Lucy was surprised to find that it was her own voice. "Help me," she said again. After that, silence, the blood in her ears, pain.

  An odor touched her nostrils, cutting through the dry-wood and dust smell of the boards. Roses, heavy and sweet, and something sharper. Roses and onions.

  Lucy lifted her head, groaning. She saw a woman dressed in dark robes, with a white wool coif around her face, sitting on a chair. She was cutting pieces from an onion with a small knife and eating them. The woman looked uncannily like her mother-dark, large, luminous eyes, thick brows, a straight, perfect nose, the mouth full and sensuous. The skin of her face was smooth and fine like her mother's; unlike hers, it was adorned with three small moles.

  "You're a hallucination. Go away." Lucy said this in Spanish.

  "If I am, then you are mad," said the woman in the same language, with a thick Castilian lisp. "Do you feel mad otherwise?"

  "I don't know. I don't know anything anymore."

  "So you claim. In the meantime, you are performing works of mercy at the risk of your own life. That is the behavior of a good Christian, not a maniac."

  "Why are you eating an onion? I didn't know they ate onions in heaven."

  "There is much about heaven of which you are unaware, child. Although you are as full of pride as Lucifer, at least you haven't claimed that."

  "I'm not proud. I'm miserable."

  "That is one of the worst forms of pride. I know it very well."

  "Permit me to doubt that," said Lucy. "You're a saint. God spoke to you every day."

  "He speaks to everyone every day, but only those who listen hear. Now you will listen to me, you silly girl, since you still seem to require these hallucinations as you call them. Our Lord has allowed you, of his grace, to suffer some tiny part of what He suffered, as much as a single tear is to the whole ocean. And what do you do? You cry, you pout, you complain, you have the affrontery to throw back in his face the gifts He has deigned to bestow on you. And why? Your brother is hurt? He will live or die according to His will, blessed be His name. Are you the keeper of heaven, to bar the way when He calls a soul to Him? Ten thousand times you have prayed, 'Thy will be done.' Was that a lie? Did you mean, Thy will be done as long as it is pleasant for me? Don't you know you must give thanks for your afflictions as well as for your graces? More thanks, to tell the truth. If he lives, rejoice. If he dies, mourn. Such is the life of us below. You speak of saints; what can you possibly comprehend of how the saints suffer? You know, at one time I was in danger of being called before the Inquisition, and I found this amusing, because nothing they could have done to me with their racks and red-hot pincers could equal what our Lord laid upon this poor body, out of His mercy. Many times I twitched like a crushed worm on the fl
oor of my cell, my head bursting, my entrails all afire, praying myself hoarse for an end to the agony, and there was nothing, nothing answered. You know what I mean now, don't you?"

  "Yes."

  "I was in such a state, lying in a pool of my own tears and filth, when His Majesty came to me for the first time. So what is the lesson? He waits for us in the darkness; there we seek Him. The light, if it comes, is a pure gift, and we cannot summon it, however we may try. Kings are not summoned, my girl, although you imagined in your infernal pride that it was so. Now you have learned something, and you feel like you have been flayed. It won't be the last time, I can assure you."

  The woman leaned forward in her chair, leaned and came much closer to Lucy than the geometries of ordinary space and matter would normally allow. She dropped her onion in Lucy's hand.

  "Consider the onion, my dear. Its many layers. And when the layers have all been peeled away, what?"

  The woman was gone. The onion sat in Lucy's hand, cool, weighty, pungent.

  She heard the door swing violently open; Tran burst into the room, pointing his Skorpion.

  "I heard voices," he said, peering into the dark corners. "Two voices. Who were you talking to?"

  "Teresa de Alhuma."

  "Who?"

  "Teresa of Jesus, of Avila, saint, Doctor of the Church. Don't worry, she died in 1582."

  "Hm. I should have known, this being you. My little sister used to talk to our grandmother's ghost and swore to me that she talked back. I never heard it myself, but my sister was otherwise never known to lie. Hien was her name."

  "Your sister's?"

  "Both of them were called Hien."

  "What happened to her? Your sister."

  "She became a Buddhist nun. She immolated herself in front of the American embassy in Saigon, in 1966. We are going out now. Wait until we are gone and then leave the way you came. I will arrange for the power to be left on. The elevator is easy to operate. Your flashlight is outside this door." He dropped down on his haunches next to her, squatting in the easy Asian way. He was dressed in black cotton, with a floppy black hat, bandoliers of magazines across his chest, and a pair of big Zeiss night glasses around his neck. It was what he must have looked like during the war, she thought.