“Some things never change,” Sarah said.
• • • •
Before we cleaned our weapons, not much more than a ritual because only one had been fired, we dragged the corpses from the field, deftly maneuvering through the Queen Anne’s Lace and tulips to avoid the mines. Each mine field was mapped, but to make life easier during spring and early summer, we had planted tulips to the right of each mine. The brightly colored flowers were now gone, but the spiked leaves remained, drawing sustenance from the sun to feed the bulbs and marking a safe path for us through the mines. When the tulip leaves dried up, Queen Anne’s Lace would mark safe passage zones.
We buried the dead clan soldiers out back, behind the house. No one offered a prayer for their souls.
We took their weapons, drugs and ammo, destroying the M 16’s and several of the older semi-auto pistols, removing them from circulation. We kept the clips, couple of hundred .223 rounds, and drugs—Slammer, Bad Boy and some crystal meth. Their jewelry and clothes were buried with them. Like the drugs, the jewelry could have been valuable in trade, but none of us had the desire to touch the corpses. The men felt filthy to us, not only physically, but also spiritually.
Down in the basement armory, we talked while we stored the captured ammo and two of their pistols. “Out of those four men,” Weasel said, “I see three clans.”
“You hit it right,” Merlin said, loading up a pipe. Of the five of us, he was the most knowledgeable on the signs and affiliations of the clans. A wandering trader and barterer, as well as a former clan member, he was familiar with at least a hundred of the groups. “All of them were People, too. You saw all the jewelry was worn on the left.”
“The tattoos, too,” Weasel said. “Pyramids, five pointers, diamonds. Those are all People signs. But I’m not sure what specific clans they are. What about it, Merlin?”
“Two of ‘em are Messengers,” he said between tokes on his freshly loaded pipe. “The one trussed up in the kitchen with Duke and the guy that stepped on the mine.” He offered the pipe to me.
I declined, as did Sarah, Stevie and Weasel. “If I smoke,” Sarah said, “I won’t be able to carry any single thought beyond two sentences. I don’t know how you do it, Merlin.”
We all nodded in agreement. If we smoked we would accomplish nothing, and upstairs, bundled up and partnered with Duke, was a man we needed to talk to.
Merlin laughed. “I’m not so sure I could carry on a conversation straight,” he said. “I just find my level every day and stay that way. What were we talking about?”
I pointed to the ceiling. “The man in our kitchen,” I said. “The one that wants to kill you.”
“Oh, yeah. The clans. That pig upstairs is definitely a Messenger. Upside down cross tattoo, left side of his head shaved. Then in the ground out back you got another Messenger and a Lakeside Homeboy and your basic Black Mamba, one of the snake clans. They’re Cobra wannabes, the snakes are. But the Cobra’s won’t have anything to do with ‘em.
“How can you tell exactly what clan they’re with?” Sarah asked.
“Homeboy had the ‘H B’ and the pyramid tattoos on his hand,” Merlin said, “and the Mamba had the snake earring in left ear plus the usual stars and shit.”
“So what does that tell us?” Sarah asked. “Anything new?”
“If hanging out with Satan’s Messengers means these guys have joined up, then both of these clans are new entries under the Babe’s umbrella,” he said. “This is the first time I’ve seen a Homeboy or a Black Mamba affiliated with the Messengers. Homeboys like to think they’re hot shit, but they’re really just preening punks. They tried to fuck with the fishing territory of the Black Gangster Disciples couple of years ago and got their asses whipped pretty good. Never really recovered. But in their own minds, they are mean. Not in anyone else’s, though. Mambas are small fish too. But it’s starting to add up. The Babe may be getting a bunch of punks to join up, but his numbers are getting pretty impressive.”
“So are his problems,” I said. “With prosperity comes some extra responsibilities. Food, drugs, weapons…I’d say he’s got four or five hundred soldiers to keep fed and armed.”
“And don’t forget women,” said Merlin. “He’s gotta have plenty of whores. These guys are animals. One of the lieutenants in the Messengers offered me a half pound of Slammer if I could come up with a half dozen decent whores. That’s ten times what the price was six months ago.”
Sarah shot him a withering look. Merlin didn’t miss it. He held up his hands in supplication. “Don’t start on me, Sarah,” he implored. “I never deal in people. I came out of a clan myself. I know what goes on inside. Believe me, I’m never gonna peddle human flesh.”
“What I can’t figure out,” I said, “is why The Babe is bothering with me when he’s got all those other problems. He obviously wants to rule Chicago, run the whole show. Why worry about one guy and a dog?”
“The Cobras you killed were People,” Weasel said. “So are the Messengers. Maybe he’s trying to buy some votes.”
“It’s possible,” Merlin said. “Cobras are huge. They like to handle their own shit. And I know they don’t trust the Messengers. But they can’t begin to find out anything about Mac. No one has any idea where you live.”
“Why didn’t they put a price on my head, like The Babe did?” I asked.
“It’s not the code, man,” Merlin replied. “It would be totally against their system of beliefs to hunt an enemy for material rewards. The honor of their clan is at stake. When you killed those men, it became personal for every Cobra. Any soldier who hunted a Cobra enemy for profit would be outed by the clan.”
“Those soldiers we killed on Roosevelt Road were completely out of control,” I said. “They weren’t anything like any of the Cobras I had ever dealt with. I’d never seen any of Roberto’s men that combative. They didn’t give us any choice.”
“You ever try to tell Roberto that?” Merlin asked me.
“No. Been too busy hiding.”
“It could solve some problems.”
“It could get me killed.”
“If Roberto agrees to talk with you,” Merlin said, “he won’t take you out. Not there, at least.”
“We’ll think about it,” I said, looking around at Stevie, Sarah and Weasel. “But we still have the Messengers to deal with. Why are they after me?”
“Because of what you saw in that parking lot last year, Mac,” Merlin said. “The massacre. Only reason they need. He was starting a war there. Breaking every one of the few rules that the clans operate by. Why in the hell didn’t you tell anybody about it? That’s pretty important shit.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” I said. “I know all that stuff. But to tell you the truth, who’s going to believe me? Folks clans, sure. Because that’s what they want to believe. But People clans wouldn’t believe it. No way. There’s more. And I think its related to the Cobra, Felipe’, the guy Duke chewed up on Roosevelt Road. Think about this: The Messengers were hunting me quietly until we whacked those Cobras. Then suddenly I’m number one priority for every People clan within fifty miles.”
“And all this time,” Sarah said, “not a peep out of Roberto and the Insane Cobra Nation.”
“That’s what I don’t understand,” I said. “But I’ve got an idea that’s been percolating. Mull this one over: What if Roberto, leader of the Cobras, incredibly respected by his clan, never knew anything about any of this, nothing about Felipe’ sleeping with the Messengers? Nothing about who perpetrated the massacre at the parking lot?”
“The implications of that theory are pretty severe,” Weasel said.
“Right,” I said. “It would mean that Roberto and The Insane Cobra Nation have been infiltrated by the Messengers. It’s not such a far-fetched theory. Loyalty is a valued attribute in the clan culture. But individual weakness is also rampant. How hard would it be to find a soldier in any clan that could be bribed away from his affiliation?”
“It’
s a great hypothesis,” Sarah said. “But unfortunately it’s untestable. The Babe is the only one who would know.”
“Why don’t we ask our friend upstairs,” Merlin said. “You see the crosses on the backs of his fingers?”
“Yeah,” Weasel said. “Upside down. Identifies him as belonging to the clan.”
“More than that,” Merlin said. “The man’s a player. Only about ten Messengers got five crosses on one hand. This guy is one of ‘em. It’s like when they used to have armies in the 20th. You did good, you got stripes. The more stripes you got, the higher your rank. Those crosses are the Messengers version of stripes.”
“What happens if you get demoted?” Stevie asked.
Merlin held up a finger of one hand. With the other hand, he made a scissors with two fingers and snipped at the extended digit.
• • • •
The prisoner was in a corner of the kitchen, hands and feet manacled with police cuffs. Three feet in front of him, Duke sat on his haunches, implacably staring into the man’s eyes. Weasel had gone upstairs to check on him. “Guy’s twitching every once a while,” Weasel reported. “Head and shoulder, like a spasm. Every time he does it, Duke snarls. Man is obviously scared shit of the dog. But he can’t stop twitching.”
“Good sign,” Merlin said. “He’s starting to come down from the Bad Boy he was snorting in the mine field. Been about four hours now. We can use that.”
“Reward for cooperation,” Stevie said.
“Right. One of the clan chemists told me Bad Boy is a combination of meth, cleaning solvents, battery acid and just a dash of window pane. Plus some home brewed PCP. There’s about five different versions going around. Makes you mean, nasty and very brave. Also makes you want more. This man isn’t an addict. Too fat to be one. Addicts last about a year. Die from malnutrition. Man hasn’t been missing any meals. But when the drug wears off, he’ll begin to realize he’s in trouble. Probably start being scared, way a normal person would. A little Bad Boy would smooth out that edge.”
I grabbed the bag of smoky grey powder that had been in our prisoner’s shirt. It would be the carrot. Denying the drug was the stick. “Let’s go talk.”
• • • •
Sarah grabbed a soup bone from the freezer and tossed it to Duke, the signal that he had been relieved of guard duty. Bone in mouth, he walked over to the kitchen table where the five of us were seated, drinking milk and munching oatmeal-raisin cookies. Duke weaved in and out of the chairs, circling the table and receiving attention from each of us. Satisfied, he lay down under the table and began noisily working the bone. In the corner the naked man with the painted face, a drop-out from mime school, twitched and passively surrendered any sense of dignity he might have ever possessed. The drugs weren’t helping any more.
“We need to talk,” I told him.
“Hungry,” he responded. “Thirsty.”
I toasted him with a glass of milk. “After we talk.”
“Fuck you.” His head snapped down in a spasm. The right shoulder came up to meet it. Couple of times a minute now.
Each of us munched on a cookie and smiled.
“Fuck all of you.”
Stevie went to the refrigerator and pulled out a pot of lamb stew, placed it in the microwave and set the timer and temperature. In about two minutes its smell began permeating the kitchen. Made me hungry even as I ate the cookies.
“How’d you find us?” Stevie asked.
“Been looking a long time,” the Messenger said.
I went to the sink and poured a glass of water, giving the man two sips. A small reward. Then I went to the microwave and stirred the stew, intensifying the aroma of garlic, lamb and vegetable stock that floated in the air.
“How’d you find us?” I repeated.
“There’s ten different scouting parties looking,” the man said. A shiver shook his body. “The Babe knows which way I was headed. When we don’t come back, you’re fuckin’ dead.”
Weasel pushed back his chair, grabbed the prisoner’s glass of water, took it to the sink and poured its contents out. “It pisses me off when you’re not polite,” he said. “We’ll be back later.”
As we each served ourselves a bowl of stew, the man screamed and pulsated, the little spasms increasing in frequency and intensity. “You’re dead. You’re all fuckin’ slow dead. Except the cunt, McCall. She’s mine. She’s my dog. Gonna ride her while you…”
Duke materialized in the man’s face, inches away, snarling, hairs on his back bristling, canines flashing. The Messenger went instantly silent. His eyes protruded from the sweat smudged face like twin full moons on a midnight sky.
“You interrupted his meal,” I told him. “He hates it when that happens. If you make another sound, he’s gonna chew off your testicles.”
The Messenger lieutenant’s eyes grew even wider, and a shudder shook his frame.
We all exited then, leaving the man alone with Duke once again. Hunger, thirst and the ravages of withdrawal from the Bad Boy would eat away his resolve.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
The five of us took our stew outside, eating at a picnic table behind the house. We discussed the next step and decided to give the prisoner another thirty minutes to simmer before we returned. Confident that the intruders had been a scouting party, we felt no sense of imminent danger—no more, that is, than we did every day. It would take several days before the Messengers declared them missing.
Sarah, Weasel and Merlin dispersed in three directions, looking for quick chores or, in Merlin’s case, some down time. Stevie and I went through the woods to feed the free range chickens. They didn’t care that we had a crisis. To them, hunger was a crisis.
As we hiked through the meadow and wooded area, Stevie was quiet. Something was on his mind. Normally he would have been full of questions and comments about the extraordinary events of the day. I continued hike side by side with him, waiting him out.
“I’m scared, Mac,” he finally said.
I continued walking, not changing pace. “Of what?”
“It’s not that man back there, if that’s what you’re thinking,” he said.
“Wasn’t thinking anything,” I replied. “I know that after what you’ve seen and experienced, there’s not a man alive that could scare you.”
“That…thing…in the kitchen. I’m getting some memories back. Stuff I haven’t thought about in years. The Messenger is triggering them. It’s, uh, unpleasant.”
“Is it like you’re reliving all that bad stuff you experienced when you were a kid with the Messengers?”
“Not exactly. I never forgot any of that shit. The dogs, the beatings, that clan attack when I was seven, The Babe trying to get Eric to do him, then killing him. That stuff’s not gone. It never will be. It was too powerful. It’s just not as important to me as the present.”
I pulled a couple pieces of grass and we both picked at our teeth with the sweet ends, thinking about what he had said.
“You know what I’m saying?” he asked.
“I think so. Look at the four of us. Even Merlin, too. Five. And Duke. Everyone’s lived through devastatingly painful experiences. Physical pain, sure. But that kind of pain gets forgotten about. Break a leg, cut yourself, get shot. Man it sure is bad when it happens. But do we sit around and think about it years later?”
“Yeah,” Stevie said. “The physical stuff kinda fades. But the pictures don’t. Like when a dog pack was after me. Or the day with the wolves. You remember the fear more that the pain.”
“Right,” I said. “We don’t dream about pain. We dream about fear.”
Stevie put his head down and spoke softly. “I was lucky to be saved.”
I nodded. All of us were. Sarah was the one that saved me. We both saved Weasel. And Weasel was returning the favor to all of us. The three of us considered ourselves lucky that we had the chance to do the same for Stevie.
“Tell me,” I said. “You’re not afraid of the Messenger prisoner on
the kitchen and you’re not afraid of the pain that’s probably coming. If it’s not the memories coming back, what’s got you scared, Stevie?”
He niggled away at his teeth with the grass, at the same time poking around in his brain for the answer to my question. I didn’t know if he wasn’t sure…or just didn’t want to say.
“I want to kill that man,” he suddenly said, the words rushing out in a torrent. “That stupid, pathetic, fat bellied, face painted goon in our kitchen. I want to kill him because I know he’s a fucking beast, and I know what he’d do to you and Sarah if he had the chance. I know the Messengers. When he talks about Sarah like that, he means what he says. Those freaks don’t know any limits. It’s like The Babe is a magnet, drawing every evil man within twenty miles to his camp. I want to take my knife and put it right below his navel and yank it up with both hands until it reaches his sternum. That’s what scares me, Mac. I want to do it. I can see myself doing it.”
“And you think that kind of feeling just isn’t natural?”
“Right.”
“Wrong. It’s as natural as can be. I’ll bet you that Weasel and Sarah feel the same way. I know I do.”
“No shit,” he said. “How do you hide it?”
“Same way you did. If we weren’t talking right now, I wouldn’t know the guy made you crazy. You controlled it beautifully. When you slice him up, can you see his intestines falling out between his fingers?”
“Great picture,” he said. We both laughed. It was OK to laugh because we would never do it. I told him that.
“Unless you are a saint, there’s no way you can’t hate them, Stevie. It’s natural. But torturing them isn’t. We become like them if we do that. Make him suffer only in your mind. If he’s a real threat, kill him. Just do it quick. You’ll have to do it someday, maybe soon. They’re coming after us, son. Evil men can’t tolerate the existence of good people. When it happens, if you don’t move fast, they’ll kill you…or worse, someone you love.”
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