“That’s a scary thought,” he said.
“I’m glad to hear it. If you enjoy it, the killing, then you can start to worry.”
“I meant losing someone. Never cared about anybody until now.”
• • • •
When we returned to the kitchen, the naked Messenger was paying full price for his night of packing the Bad Boy up his nose. Instead of three times an hour, his spasms were coming two, three times a minute. Shivers, tremors, full body contortions—they were coming in all the garden varieties of withdrawal. Between his spasms, I unlocked his handcuffs and allowed him to place his hands in front, relocking the cuffs after he massaged his aching muscles. For a minute I was the good guy. It wouldn’t last for long.
“The higher you fly, the further you fall,” Merlin said. “Must have been good shit. Only two ways to get through it.” He was speaking loud enough for our prisoner to hear him.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Time or more drugs,” he answered.
I pulled the bag of grey powder from my pocket. “Guy’s a fucking mess,” I commented, holding the bag up. “You mean this would help?” I tossed the bag toward the manacled prisoner, landing it right beside Duke’s front paws, between man and dog.
The Messenger lieutenant gazed at the bag, then up to me. I think he was trying to look mean. It was hard to read his expression with the black paint masking his features. Whatever effect he was working on was completely demolished by a head, neck and shoulder convulsion that jerked him sideways, banging his head into the corner.
“You’re a cocksucker, McCall,” he said. “I’m gonna enjoy seeing your head on a stick.”
“Duke,” I said, flashing him a hand signal.
He was immediately in the man’s face, lip to lip, teeth bared, growling ferociously. A splash of urine washed down the man’s legs.
Weasel groaned. “That’s fuckin’ pitiful,” he said to the man. “You call yourself a soldier? Hand me that mirror, will you, Sarah?”
She pulled a 3x2 oak framed mirror from the wall. Weasel walked it over to the man, tiptoeing around the growing puddle that surrounded his legs. Holding it up, he said, “Look at yourself. You’re fat, ugly and painted like a member of the Insane Clown Posse. Top it all off, you’re sitting in your own piss and shaking like a gut shot deer.”
The Messenger looked into the mirror, quickly turning away. Reality’s a bitch sometimes.
“Talk to us,” I told the humiliated man. His bravado was temporarily in abeyance. Hard to act tough when you just pissed on yourself. “Tell us what we need to know and you can clean up, get some clothes on and have your drugs back.”
“I’m hungry, too,” he said, head down, voice soft.
“We’ll feed you if you cooperate,” Weasel said.
He didn’t hesitate for long. “Whaddya wanna know?”
“Why is there a city wide bounty on Mac?” Sarah asked. “He hasn’t done anything to you.”
“The Babe’s had us looking for a year now,” he said. “We kept it inside. Our business. Babe don’t tell me everything. He just told all of us he wants McCall. Alive.”
“We know all that, ass wipe,” Merlin said. “The lady asked you why the Messengers put out a city wide bounty on the man and the dog.”
“He fucked with the Cobras,” the man said. “Cobras are People. They’re our brothers.”
I flashed on the Gaylords, slaughtered and tortured in the parking lot by the college, just about a year ago. The start of all of our current problems. They were People, too.
“Bullshit,” Merlin said. “Cobras spit on you guys. They think you’re a bunch of animals. Only reason they tolerate you is because someone decided you were People thirty or forty years ago.”
The man looked up at Merlin. He started to speak when another tremor hit him, pulling his head down and his shoulder up as if he were trying to quell an uncontrollable itch on his shoulder by rubbing it with his chin.
When the seizure had run its course, he spoke, a crooked little smile on his blackened face. “You ain’t as up to date as you think, little man. Babe’s had a couple of sitdowns with Roberto. Cobras are thinking about joining up with the Messengers. First thing happens we join together is little bugs like you get squashed.”
“Think maybe them Cobras will provide diaper service for you Messengers?” Weasel asked, verbally slapping the Messenger back down.
I picked up the bag of Bad Boy, which had remained untouched by the pool around the man. Taking out a handful, I sprinkled it in the urine, watching it dissolve into the liquid. Our prisoner’s eyes widened. Another series of twitches shook his body.
“I’m not believing your answer about why there’s a price on me and my dog,” I said, floating some more powder to the floor. The contents of the bag diminished. Only half remained. The smell of urine was getting stronger. I wanted to finish it up.
“People stick together,” he said. “It’s the fucking code, McCall.”
I took another handful of powder and threw it in his face. It stuck to the greasy paint, making his countenance look like it was covered with dirty snow. “Stop!!!” he screamed, frantically darting his tongue out as far as possible, retrieving as much of the drug as he could from his lips and chin. “You’re fucking nuts. That’s the best goddam BB in a hundred territories.”
My hand went back into the bag. His eyes followed the movement.
“OK. OK,” he said, licking his now white lips with a newly blackened tongue. “Truth. Just put the shit back in the bag.” Another seizure hit him as I poured the powder from my hand back into the bag. “Cobras are playing with us. Think they’re hot shit. Better’n us. Babe offers Roberto drug concessions, jewelry, guns, whores, even little kids to play with. Roberto ain’t buyin’. Says he don’t want no war, got enough whores and guns and don’t fuck children. What a wimp.”
“The Babe had a Cobra on his payroll, didn’t he?” I asked, referring to the recently deceased Felipe.
The prisoner snorted in derision. “You don’t know half of it, McCall,” he said. “All this fancy shit you got,” he moved his head to indicate the interior of the house, “you’re still nothing but a dumb fuck indie. And Roberto…he ain’t got the balls to lead the Cobras anymore. He’s out of touch. Asshole gives books to his soldiers. Makes ‘em listen to women trying to teach them to read. Woman’s mouth should be sucking cock, not telling a soldier what to do.”
Sarah pushed back from the table and walked over to me. “Excuse me, sweetheart,” she said, voicing dripping with solicitude, “do you mind if I have a word with this gentleman?”
I moved over, making room for her just outside the puddle. She sat on her heels and, speaking sweetly, asked the prisoner, “Now tell me, does all of this cocksucking occur before or after you big, tough Messengers piss yourselves?”
“Fuck you, bitch,” the man snarled, hatred flaring in his eyes. “You got a big mouth. How many Messenger cocks you think you can fit in that hole?”
“If they’re all the same size as your equipment,” Sarah responded, nodding toward his crotch, “at least a dozen. Did you get shot or something?”
The Messenger lunged at her, reaching out with manacled hands for her neck. Duke flashed forward and took a chunk from his forearm before the man retreated back to his corner, yelping in pain.
Sarah pulled Duke to her, putting her arm around his shoulders, reaching across to stroke his chest. He turned his head and nuzzled her neck.
“Let me tell you something about this dog,” she told the Messenger soldier, a man now both humiliated and angered, a man who was losing control because he was in withdrawal from the massive doses of Bad Boy he had stoked himself with in the mine field. “Unlike the dogs you see running in packs, he feels love and respect for human beings. Well actually, just for us. Because we love and respect him in return. We’re his family. He protects us. Thing about dogs, though, is that they are carnivores, meat eaters. All dogs are. When they hun
t and bring down an animal, or sometimes a man, they go for the internal organs. Always the liver first. It’s the most nutritious and satisfying to them.”
The man was now watching Sarah and Duke very closely, frequently shaking as another tremor racked his frame. He didn’t like the direction her conversation was heading.
“Now you may think,” she continued, “that Duke here thinks you’re another human being, just like the five of us. But that’s not the way he looks at it. If you’re not family, you’re just another piece of meat to him. Prey. And you know what? Duke here knows exactly where your liver is. And if I allow him, he’ll eat right through your body until he finds it. Watch.”
Sarah leaned down and whispered in Duke’s ear, as if she were having a talk with him. In actuality, she would give him a one word command. In this instance, it would be “sit,” which in Duke-speak meant “attack the torso.”
He plunged forward, straight at the prisoner’s side, right above the spot where the hip bone begins, snarling and baring his teeth. The Messenger tried to become one with the wall, ended up slipping in the wetness around him as he tried to scramble away from the gnashing teeth. Sarah tapped Duke’s flank twice, breaking off the attack before he tore off a chunk of meat.
The Messenger, now almost completely covered with his own urine, pulled himself to a sitting position and stared wide-eyed at Duke.
“Now,” Sarah said, “before you enlightened us with your views on the role of women in your clan, you were about to tell us something about The Babe and his relationship to The Insane Cobra Nation. Please continue.”
“Over the past couple a’ years,” the man said woodenly, “we found some Cobras that ain’t so much interested in books and fixing up buildings. Pussy and drugs is pretty much what they wanted. We supplied it to ‘em. Babe’s got some young stuff he brings ‘em in with. They like it, they bring some others in.”
“How many?” Weasel asked.
“Them that got killed by McCall and the dog, there were three in that bunch. We got five or ten more. They tell us what Roberto’s up to so maybe we can get some advantage on him. Get him over to our side.”
“How long this gonna take?” Weasel asked, wrinkling his nose. “Gettin’ a bit ripe in here.”
“You butt wipes remind me of the Cobras,” the prisoner said, looking at Weasel. “Got all these big ideas, always building shit, think you’re better than everyone else. Let me tell you something. The Babe’s got this big bird cage, you see. Must have held some kind of owl or hawk or somethin’. Takes it with him whenever we move. Keeps his drugs in it. Just hangin’ there from the ceiling, full of the best stuff. He always gets the best shit. Anyway, The Babe figures he’s gonna go visit the Cobras, take Roberto this cage, covered with a blanket, see, and then he’s gonna sit down and talk awhile and then suddenly remove the blanket and surprise Roberto with this great present. Then—when Roberto is real grateful—the Cobras will understand The Messengers are someone to take seriously. Insane Cobra Nation will join up with Satan’s Messengers. Then we do some serious dancing. Rule this fucking city. Wipe out fucking dweebs like you.”
“What’s in the cage, asshole?” Weasel asked.
The Messenger looked at all of us. Smiling, he said, “McCall’s fucking head, you stupid shit. McCall’s fucking head is gonna buy us the Cobras.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
The prisoner, a man whose name we had never learned because you don’t want to put a name to garbage, was mightily pleased with himself. We didn’t let the man know we, too, were pleased. Instead, we gave him a mop and pail of water, allowing the Messenger scout to clean himself with the water he used to mop the floor.
In addition to being a bully, he was a whiner. Before we fed him, he groveled for his Bad Boy, needing a hit to control his spasms, resurrect his courage and resurrect his dignity. After he ate, I poured the remaining Bad Boy down the sink, causing him to go ballistic. Hands free so that he could eat, he lunged at me, mouth twisted in a snarl eyes popped wide in rage. Before Duke could take his ankle off, I stuck my arm out, fist locked, and he obligingly met it with his face, dropping to the floor, lights out before he landed.
We manacled his hands again and tossed him in the closet, allowing for the possibility that he was of value to the Messengers. He was, in other words, a keeper, of possible potential as a trade if things went badly for us. His presence presented a security problem, which we solved by building a new door to the closet, installing two dead bolts and two cross bars which could only be opened from our side. The only ways out for him were one of us opening the door or persistent use of his teeth.
“Jesus, Mac,” Stevie said, smiling at the Messenger hitting the floor, “guy went nuts when you poured that shit down the sink. You think maybe that was a form of torture, stringing him along like that and then not giving it to him.” His grin had broadened.
“Well, son,” I said in mock seriousness, “drugs are a scourge upon our land. Man was in real bad shape. Any more of that shit in his system could have killed him. Might have twitched his head right off his shoulders. Call it forced detox. We’re really doing him a favor.”
“Yeah,” Stevie said. “I see where you’re coming from. Altruism in the highest sense of the word. Plus…he’s still got all his intestines and we have our dignity intact.”
“I don’t know what you two are talking about,” Merlin said, mystified by the banter between Stevie and me, “but we need to change the subject real quick. That asshole just laid some serious bad news on us.”
“You believe what he said about the Cobras?” I asked. “The possibility of them joining up with the Babe.”
“From what I know about Roberto, it’s hard to grasp. I can’t see it. But it’s a fucked up situation out there, man. Nothing would surprise me.”
“What are we doing about this?” Sarah asked.
“Team the Cobras up with the Messengers and you got a juggernaut,” Weasel commented. “Un-fucking-stoppable. Be ten or twenty years before the dust settled.”
“No way,” Merlin said, “is Roberto going to throw in with The Babe. He’s got too much pride. Plus, near as I can tell, he is a sane man.”
“Unlike the Babe,” Stevie said.
“Man may be nuts,” Merlin said, referring to The Babe, “but if he gets a couple of breaks, he’s gonna make Idi Amin look like Snow White. And what he’s looking for right now is your head, Mac. That’s his first break. He thinks Roberto’s gonna kiss his feet when he gives him your head.”
“What about the story that the Messengers have spies in Roberto’s camp?” Sarah asked. “Are we to believe that?”
“It’s a whole bunch more believable than Roberto voluntarily teaming up with The Babe,” Merlin answered. “I can see the scenario going down just the way the man described it. That could be our biggest problem. The Babe’s eating away at the Cobras on two fronts. From within like some kind of cancer and the more direct route, trying to buy Roberto’s allegiance with Mac’s head.”
“We need to narrow the field,” Weasel said. “Too many players. We have two of the biggest clans out there after Mac’s head.”
“Here’s the way I see it,” Merlin said. “Reason The Babe is courting the Insane Cobra Nation is that the Cobras got the respect of all the People clans. Messengers got the fear, but Cobras got the respect. The Babe can’t unify the People without Roberto’s blessing.”
“So why doesn’t he just take the Cobras out,” I asked.
“He could probably do it,” Merlin replied. “But think of how many men it would cost him. Cobras wouldn’t lay down. Roberto knows about fighting. War between those two could last for months. If The Babe won, he’d have nothing left. Have to start building all over again.”
“And there’s always the possibility he could lose,” Sarah added.
“So either way, he can’t afford to front the Cobras,” Weasel said. “It’s a lose/lose for the Messengers.”
“Right,” I said, begi
nning to get a grasp on the intricacy of the fat man’s proclivity for evil. “And in the best tradition of Machiavelli, The Babe falls back on the tried and true methods of chicanery, subterfuge and bribery.”
“And The Babe thinks he can get Roberto’s blessing by presenting the Cobras with your head,” Sarah said. “Oh, Mac, you’ve got to talk to Roberto. You’ve got some information he needs to know. If we can get the Cobras on the sidelines, then we can focus on the Messengers.”
“Right,” I said. “All 500 of them.”
“Probably closer to 1000 now,” Weasel said.
“You want me to set it up, Mac?” Merlin asked.
“Do it,” I said. “It’s really our only chance.”
“How will you handle it, Merlin?” Sarah asked. “Why should Roberto consent to talk with Mac?”
“Roberto is intelligent,” Merlin told her. “Intelligence means curiosity. That’s what I’ll play on, his curiosity. Plus he knows Mac. I think he’ll be willing to listen.”
“Where you going to set the meet?” Weasel asked.
“There’s no choice in that. It has to be on Cobra turf. Mac will have to go to him. If he OKs the meet, he’s doing us a favor. We have to go to him.”
“Oh, Merlin,” Sarah said, “that’s so dangerous. What if Roberto has just recently decided to join up with the Messengers? He could kill Mac right on the spot. We don’t have any idea what’s going on inside that camp.”
“If Roberto promises Mac safe passage…”
“In and out,” Weasel interjected.
“…in and out,” said Merlin, “the man will honor the commitment. I’d stake my life on it.”
“Yours and the rest of ours,” Weasel continued. “Guilt by association. Let’s say you’re right. Mac gets safely in. Roberto keeps his word. What about those Messenger spies running around in the Cobra camp? What’s to keep them from whackin’ Mac?”
“I’ve got some thoughts on that,” I said, feeling like I should have some input on a discussion that centered on my safety. “First of all, I’m not that easy to whack.”
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