The Brigade

by H. A. Covington

  “Uh, card?” asked Erica.

  “Our signature cards which we leave at the scene of our hits,” explained Lockhart. “I’m the Jack of Diamonds, as you probably know from the media. I use regular playing cards because I’m in a line unit. This gentleman here is Third Section. He’s part of what we call The Squad, courtesy of the famous Irish revolutionary leader Michael Collins, so he gets a Tarot card. He’s the Prince of Wands.”

  “If I ever get a card I want to be the Queen of Hearts,” laughed Erica. “That way I can yell, ‘Off with their heads!’”

  By three o’clock that afternoon, all seven NVA Volunteers were ensconced in Suite 1401. Erica spent several hours up in the penthouse setting up the party with Jane Gerasimo and schmoozing with the early arrivals who were drifting in, drawn by the scent of free alcohol and drugs and the possibility of earning a role in an upcoming movie through fast and witty patter, or through a quick act of fellatio in one of the bathrooms. The only disturbance had been some noise outside the door at about three o’clock; Erica had just come back down to the suite, and she slipped out to see what was going on. She came back and reported, “It’s all right. Seymour Grossberg from Warner Brothers and Bart Payne were just having an argument about his cut for his last film. The studio literally Jewed Bart into accepting ten million up front, plus a three-point percentage, and now he’s pissed. He would have gotten at least that much from the opening weekend alone if he’d gotten the ten points he told his agent Manny Skar to go for. I think I mentioned Manny used to be my agent as well? I wonder if Bart’s figured out yet that Manny himself got two points under the table from Seymour for keeping him down to three? The usual thing. When two Jews get together in Hollywood over lunch, the Gentile client is the dessert.”

  “That’s the flick about the brave astronauts who go into space to shoot down the aliens who have allied themselves with the Muslims and are going to zap New York and Tel Aviv with their ray guns?” asked Lee Washburn.

  “And breed the alien monster in the Pope’s belly that bursts out of his robes during his Easter address on St. Peter’s Square wearing a Swastika armband, yes. Terror from Beyond the Stars,” confirmed Erica.

  There came the last coded knock on the door. Randall opened it and Kicky McGee walked in, wearing a neat business ensemble with long sleeves and black hose that covered her legs, as well as the mandatory L.A. sunglasses. “Okay, that’s the last of us,” said Randall. He phoned Christina, who answered in the name of a well-known pizza joint. “Just thought I’d let you know, the one with the anchovies finally got here,” he said. Back at the safe house Christina turned and told Hill and the rest of them, “They’re all in!”

  “Was that Bart Payne out there in the hall?” asked Kicky back in Suite 1401.

  “Yep,” said Lee Washburn.

  “Christ, he looks old! Gin blossoms all over his face and he needs to hit the showers, or at least put on some deodorant,” she said. “I met him getting off the elevator and he leered at me and tried to pick me up. I told him I was meeting somebody, and he wanted to know what I was doing after the Oscars. He invited me up to the party in the penthouse.”

  “What did you say?” asked Randall.

  “I told him I’d give it a shot.”

  “Cute.”

  “You’re a girl!” blurted out Erica.

  “All my life,” agreed Kicky.

  “This is Tanya,” said Randall.

  “Yeah, I figured I’d use Patty Hearst’s old handle since this is Hollywood,” said Kicky. “Death to the Zionist insect!”

  “Wait, I know you!” exclaimed Erica, staring. “Jesus, that big gunfight with the cops you guys had up in Portland last year! I know Cat-Eyes and that other guy in there, Thumper, he was in it, now you’re here too. You were the girl who was shot and bleeding, but you kept on firing your gun and charging down the street at them! Oh, wow!”

  “I never liked that clip,” said Kicky with a wry smile. “The camera didn’t get my good side. I know you, of course, or I would if you were anywhere near here. My brother had a real crush on you and a poster of you in his bedroom when he was fifteen.”

  “Cool!” said Erica. “Is your brother part of the operation too?”

  “He came back from Baghdad in a bag. Several bags, actually. Poor white boys who grow up in double-wides on 82nd Avenue don’t get draft exemptions like they do at Beverly Hills High.” Kicky suddenly remembered the well-publicized story of Chase Clayborn’s fate, and she slapped her forehead. “Oh, shit! Damn! I’m sorry, Erica, that was a stupid thing to say. I should have known better. I saw what happened to your boyfriend on TV.”

  “It’s all right,” said Erica. “You’re right, of course. Chase ended up where he is only because I pissed off the wrong Jews, in case you’re wondering why I’m helping you guys.”

  “I’m really sorry, about what I said, and about what happened to him.”

  “Your stuff is in the bedroom in there,” said Randall, pointing to one of the doors. “Go ahead and check out all your gear, then go ahead and get into your tux.” Erica followed Kicky into the bedroom. As she started taking off the feminist cubicle wear, Erica observed her tattoos and the scar on her arm in fascination, as well as when Kicky took out the Heckler and Koch MP5 submachine gun she would be carrying that night, checked the chamber, attached the sling, and slammed a magazine into the well, following that by screwing the silencer onto her own Ruger .22 automatic.

  “Look, don’t take this wrong, I know this is going to sound weird, but do you mind if I kind of watch you and talk to you while you get ready, Tanya?” asked Erica. “The reason I ask is that it occurs to me that someday I may have to play, uh, someone like you.”

  “I assumed from your presence here that you are someone like me,” Kicky told her, as she pulled the hand grenades out of their olive green cardboard canisters and hooked them onto her web belt, to Erica’s startled gaze.

  “Ow! Touché. It’s just that I always study people, watch how they act in as many different situations as I can, so that if I’m ever faced with a similar situation in a part I can make it real. I’ve done a few gun and crime scenes, and I was a female detective in one flick, but I was never really comfortable with those parts because I didn’t know. Sorry, I know that sounds like I’m trying to use you as a guinea pig or something.”

  “I’ve been used as worse, honey,” said Kicky.

  “I know you don’t have time to sit down and tell me your life story, and you wouldn’t tell me if you did, but can I ask, just what’s your motivation? Why are you involved?”

  “I have a little girl,” said Kicky. “Almost four years old now. I want to make sure that when she grows up, she doesn’t turn into me.” She called into the other room. “Jimmy, you wanna come do my hair?” Wingo entered the room, and while Kicky laid out her tuxedo on the bed he began braiding her hair, which had grown long again, into a single braid.

  “Why is he doing that?” asked Erica.

  “One of the things female volunteers have picked up through experience is that the best way to go into action is with one braid you can stuff into your collar and down your back,” explained Kicky. “That way your hair doesn’t get in the way, flapping around in your face while you’re running and jumping and covering and trying to aim, that kind of thing. It’s also a lot easier to wear your mask, and it breaks your profile if you’re seen or recorded on camera. Afterward when you’ve broken contact, you can undo the braid real quick when you change your clothes and let it drop on your shoulders like normal, changing your appearance.”

  Suddenly Erica’s cell phone bleeped. She opened it and listened, then said, “Hi, Janey. Yeah, okay, I’ll be right up.” She closed the phone. “I’ve got to go back into glitterati mode and get back upstairs and schmooze some more, before I come down and get ready to go on myself. Well, ah, good luck.” She left with an embarrassed air.

  “Did you ask for her autograph?” Wingo asked Kicky.

  “Another ri
ch bitch who thinks there’s something cool about growing up in a trailer park on Meth Row,” sighed Kicky. “What is it with these girls? Delusions of squalor or something?”

  “Yeah, well, did Cat tell you she’s going to be standing right next to the two fags when he opens up?” inquired Jimmy. “It ain’t just her money and her fame she’s putting on the line.”

  “If she can stand still and smile and chatter for the camera when she knows she’s in Cat Lockhart’s sights, she’s got more guts than I have,” admitted Kicky.

  Cat and Randall monitored the various pre-Oscar shows, flipping from channel to channel with the remote, looking for any new developments that might affect the plan. At a little past three the first stars began to show up outside the theater, mugging and posing as they strolled down the red carpet. There were increasing levels of shouts, laughter, cackling voices, thumping and bumping from the hallway outside as partygoers went up and down the corridor, to and from the elevator. Erica came back down at about four o’clock. She found them all sitting in the living room of the suite in their tuxedos. The TV’s sound was off, and Kicky was holding up large glossy photographs of various studio executives, actors, directors, and Hollywood big shots in front of them. She held up a photograph. “Art Bernstein!” several of the Volunteers called out. She held up another one. “Allen Adler!” came the shouts of recognition. She held up another one. “Sid Glick!” snapped back Cat and the others. She held up another photo. “Peter Mandel!” came the quick responses.

  “Kind of reminds me of that scene in Tora, Tora, Tora! where the Japanese pilots are getting ready for the attack on Pearl Harbor,” she said, shaking her head in amazement.

  “Not a dissimilar sitch. How’s the party going upstairs?” asked Randall.

  “Pretty slow so far,” said Erica. “One minor drug OD that the house doctor is taking care of, and somebody barfed on the carpet, but otherwise just the usual grab-assing. Most of them understand they need to stay reasonably straight for the ceremonies so they don’t show their butts, get tossed onto the paddy wagon to Betty Ford, lose millions and maybe get blacklisted by the Glick Gang. I need to get into my outfit and get down there in time for the presenters’ call at five. Have you got everything you need out of the second bedroom?”

  “Yeah,” said Randall.

  “Thank God I never went in for big fancy hair styles,” she said. “I always go for a simple look.” She disappeared into the bedroom and closed the door. Simple look or not, it took her almost an hour, but when Erica opened the door and stepped out again the whole room fell silent. She was wearing a sheer sleeveless silver lamé evening gown with matching high-heeled shoes, carrying a matching purse, and adorned with a string of pearls around her neck, a silver bracelet, and gleaming diamond earrings, and a matching purse. Her cornsilk hair floated down over alabaster shoulders in a foaming wave; the best hairdresser in Hollywood couldn’t have done better than she had done herself with a brush and a mirror.

  “Looks like a movie star to me,” said Lockhart with an approving nod.

  “If that’s a simple look, I’d love to see you all dolled up,” said Randall.

  “Get your damned jaw off the floor, Jimmy,” Kicky told him in asperity.

  “I wish you’d reconsider my advice about taking those two steps back, ma’am,” Lockhart urged her sincerely.

  “Nah, I always do my own stunt work,” she told him with a smile.

  “Okay. Just remember what I told you.”

  “One good scream to be recorded for the ages, then hit the floor, roll under the curtain out of the line of fire, and get behind any cover I can find,” she repeated.

  “I know you can scream,” said Randall with a smile. “I saw you in that slasher film, The Boogeyman Does Boston.”

  “I screamed better in The Bugs, when I was covered with cockroaches,” she said. “Live ones, not animatronic. The FX crew dumped 70,000 of them right over my head from plastic bins. I think I swallowed a couple during all the screaming and thrashing around in that scene. But this one tonight will be my masterpiece.”

  “Yeeew!” said Kicky.

  She turned to the group. “I have to get going,” she told them all, quietly but in a strong voice. “I very much hope that I will meet all of you again.” She glanced quickly at Randall. “But if that’s not the way it plays out, then I want you to know that it is a privilege for me to have met you, and I am proud and honored that you have let me be a part of this memorable evening in history.” She walked to the door and turned with her hand on the knob. She held the other hand up, not in a National Socialist salute, which her dramatic sense told her would have been overdoing it, but simply as a gesture of parting. She did not shout, she simply spoke a word that filled the room. “Freedom!”

  “Freedom!” replied Lockhart.

  “Right back atcha, babe,” replied Randall.

  * * *

  They watched the opening revue and speeches on television. Randall was already wearing his air conditioning mechanic’s outfit with the contractor’s badge, his long red metal toolbox carefully packed with the tear gas grenades and his Uzi. His silenced Ruger was now in a shoulder holster under his coveralls, which were unzipped down to the waist to give him easy access. His radio hung on his tool belt. “The chorus line and whatnot should be cleared out of backstage and out of the dressing rooms in the basement by the time we get there,” he told them. “Security doesn’t like them wandering around after they’ve danced for their masters, so they get cleared out of the building pronto. One departure from the final briefing. When you leave this room, carry your web belts in your bags, don’t wear them, since with these corridors as crowded as they are we might be seen and reported to hotel security. You’ll put on your belts when you reach the jump-off in that corridor under the stage. Make sure that you do not leave anything of yours in these rooms, and make sure you spend the time between my departure and yours wiping this place clean as a whistle of prints, every single object any of you may have touched. Cat, you’ve got the schedule. Are they on it?”

  “Down to the minute,” said Cat. “Best Documentary is just coming on. What did we finally decide on for departure times?”

  “I leave at 6:30 sharp, and you lot at 6:40,” said Randall, looking at his watch. “Which means I’m off in about sixty seconds. Cat, keep your radio on. I will let you know if there are any problems, and you let me know when you leave. Comrades, I second everything that non-existent person said when she left. Let’s give these bastards a night to remember.” Randall picked up the toolbox, turned and walked out the door. In the hallway he could hear noise and music and maniacal laughter from the other suites along the corridor. A man in a white tuxedo was standing some ways down the corridor talking to the wall in a monotone, stoned on something. Randall entered the elevator and rode it down to the garage level, card-swiped into the laundry room and found the door into the underground passage to the Kodak Theater without meeting anyone. He took out the swipe card copied from the one Erica had obtained for him. If this doesn’t work, we’re screwed, he thought to himself.

  The door clicked and slid open silently. The long, dimly lit, carpeted passageway was empty. Randall got on the radio and clicked it three times. Back in Suite 1401 Cat Lockhart said, “That’s it. He’s in the Trap Door. His card works, so ours should work as well.”

  The door on the other end had no keyed access on the inside. Randall simply pushed it open, slowly peering out into the corridor by the old Green Room. It was empty. He could hear one of the award winners up on the stage droning on with his speech, and the noise of the audience that filled the theater. He entered the corridor and went to the open archway, carefully looking around. The backstage area was empty. He could see no activity up on the catwalks.

  Randall looked up and waited for the traverse camera to begin its leftward swing, and then he moved swiftly along the back of the stage, stopping briefly to make sure the small door that led to the orchestra pit was indeed open, and
then headed for the stairs, going upward into the gallery of makeup rooms and dressing rooms above. Randall and Sterling Farrell had carefully plotted out a circuitous route that would get him to the interstitial area with only two spots where a short time visible on the security cameras was unavoidable. The first was at the end of the dressing room gallery where he had to enter one of the main corridors for about 50 feet, which he did, walking casually as if he had every right to be there, swinging his tool box. Someone in the control room now knew he was there, if anyone was paying attention. As soon as he got out of camera range he ducked into a men’s room that had a second exit door leading onto a short staircase down to lobby level, which Farrell had assured him had been somehow neglected when Centurion had been placing the cameras. If Centurion was sending somebody to look for him, they wouldn’t know which way he had gone and they would waste time searching the whole corridor and all the rooms on it.

  The second exposed place was the lobby-level corridor leading toward the interstitial area; Randall had to get down that and walk almost into the wall at the T-junction so as to get under the camera, so they couldn’t see which way he was turning. If they figured him for an Oscars gatecrasher, they would assume he had turned right to try and get into the theater itself. Instead he turned left. They would not know he had entered the interstitial area until he swiped his key card and it registered in the control room. He then had to wait there until he got word that the team was in place before popping his gas grenades, and shoot anybody who came through the door. He met no one along the way. He swiped the card and entered the room, drew his pistol and stuck it into his tool belt, opened his toolbox and took out an elastic bungee cord that he looped and hooked around the doorknob with the other end around an electric cable conduit. It would slow up anyone trying to open the door long enough to warn him so he could get his gun out. Then he took out his radio and clicked it three times. The roar of the air conditioning was so loud that he could speak in here. “I’m in place,” he told the rest of them.