Flood rocked back on her heels, a puzzled look on her face. And the Cobra struck. Scrabbling like a super-speed crab, he pushed himself off the floor with his one good leg and fired both hands at her throat.
Time stopped. I was watching the whole thing as if the room were full of crystal-clear Jello—everything in slow motion. His body was flat to the ground, his spine arched backward, his hands just about at her face when she brought her right hand around her hip and up into his exposed throat. Up on her toes now, but still in her crouch—the force of her strike lifted his upper body off the ground, where she held him, suspended, with her one hand.
Time froze them like that until her thighs flexed and she slowly straightened up—the Cobra, his throat still connected to her right hand by the spike, slowly rose with her. It seemed forever until Flood’s right arm shot forward, pulling the Cobra up like a rag doll, then flipping him straight back. His head hit the hardwood, and he was flat on his back—the handle of the spike sticking out of his throat.
I looked down at what was left of Martin Howard Wilson—his face contorted, locked forever into his last thoughts. The spike must have gone right through the throat and into his brain. The snake would never crawl again.
Flood was out of gas. I started to move to her before she fell, but Max quickly stepped forward, shaking his head no at me—she had to finish this herself. Max bowed his head and so did I—looking down at the dead Cobra—but not out of respect. I could see the muscles tremble slightly in Flood’s thighs, in spasm from the strain. One arm hung loosely, probably broken. Her expression: half-warrior who had survived a battle to the death, half-schoolgirl who had just gotten her heart’s ultimate desire.
Time passed. Flood’s breathing smoothed and her legs stopped trembling. She worked her head from side to side, ignoring the blood flowing down one cheek, then held out her hands and Max and I came to her and each took one.
We turned and walked to the altar. Flood knelt, took the Cobra’s mug shot, and I fired up a wooden match and handed it to her. She held the burning photograph in her hands, ignoring the fire as she had so many years ago in that room with Sadie. Only when the picture turned to paper ash did she rub her hands together. She wiped her hands on the red silk, wrapped the picture of Sadie and Flower inside its folds, and put it in her robe. She knelt again, said something in Japanese, I think. When she got to her feet her face was a bloody, discolored mess and her hands were burned—but the tears in her eyes were pure joy.
She bowed deeply to Max, spreading her hands as wide as they could go to show him the depth of her gratitude. Then she reached to her waist and pulled the bloody black jersey over her head. Standing naked from the waist up, she threw the jersey at the Cobra’s body, then took Max’s robe from her altar and handed it back to him. Max held his hands up, palms out—he spun his hands in a circle, refusing the return of his robes, telling her to put them on. Flood bowed again and wrapped herself in the robes. She searched through her duffel bag, found her own rose-colored silks, bowed to Max, held them open. Max took the robes with one hand, touched his heart with the other. They didn’t need words—he would no more wear her robes to dispose of the Cobra’s body than she would wear his to fight him.
Flood looked around the temple once more—taking it all in, memorizing it for life. Max clasped his hands together, closed his eyes, and leaned his head against them. It was time for Flood to rest. She nodded and flowed into the lotus position on the temple floor, Max’s robes draped around her shoulders, pulling everything inside her.
Max and I left her there while we went to throw out the garbage.
57
I MADE A bed for Flood in the trunk of the Plymouth—she couldn’t go to a hospital, and I didn’t want some inquisitive cop noticing her anywhere near the scene where the Cobra vanished. It didn’t look like a problem . . . he’d been carrying all kinds of weapons but he hadn’t been wired.
When I opened the trunk again inside my garage Flood was curled up like a baby, one arm cradling the other. It probably was broken but she never made a sound. I got her upstairs, let Pansy out to the roof, and went in the back for my medical kit. When I came back into the office she was sitting on the desk in the lotus position, looking at the door.
“Flood, get up and take off your clothes.”
“Not now—I’ve got a headache.” She smiled, pointing to her battered face. But the smile was weak and the crack fell flat.
I threw the cushions off the couch, pulled a flat piece of plywood out from behind it, and laid it against the springs, then folded over some blankets to make a cover and put a clean sheet over the top. Flood hadn’t moved.
“Flood,” I told her as gently as I could, “you have to work with me now, okay? Put your legs over the side of the desk. Come on.”
She slowly unwrapped from the lotus position and did like I asked. I eased the robes from her shoulders and took the bad arm in my hand. The skin was bruised but not broken. “Can you move it?” She rolled her arm from side to side. Her face stayed composed but some pain flashed in her eyes when she brought her hand toward her shoulder, flexing the bicep. At least it was a clean break, if it was broken.
I motioned to her to climb off the desk and untied the white sash as she stood in front of me. The silk pants came next, falling to the floor in slow motion. She stepped out of the pants and kicked them away, then stood there in the morning light as I went over her body as carefully as I could. The flesh over one elbow was gone, a lumpy discolored knot was on the outside of one thigh, and the two smallest toes of one foot were already dark with clotted blood. She let me move the toes without protest—they weren’t broken, just bleeding under the skin. Like a patient child, she opened her mouth and allowed me to probe around—all her teeth were intact, the damage was on the outside. Her pupils looked okay, and she wasn’t talking like someone who had a concussion, but I didn’t want her to fall asleep for a while just in case she did.
I took one of the pieces of aluminum in the medical kit that looked like a good fit, tested it against her forearm, bent it into the right shape. I put the aluminum splint against her forearm and wrapped it into place with an elastic bandage. It didn’t look pretty but it would work well enough if she didn’t jump around, and let the bone set properly.
I swabbed out the open wounds, packed them with Aureomycin, and covered them with gauze bandages. Then I walked her over to the couch.
“Which is better, Flood? Lying on your back or your stomach?”
“Depends on what you have in mind.”
“Flood, I don’t have the patience for this crap. You don’t have to convince me you’re tough. You’re going to be fine, okay?”
“You looked so scared, Burke . . .”
“Maybe you did get a concussion. I’m not the one who got mangled.”
“I know. I’ll be good. Whatever you say.”
I put her on the couch lying on her back, folded a pillow under her head, and covered her with another sheet. I got the splinted arm supported by a folded blanket, kissed her forehead, and went back to the desk to put things away.
“Burke,” she called out.
“What is it? Just relax, I’m not going anywhere.”
“My sash . . . the white sash with the black tips . . . ?”
“Yeah?”
“It’s for you. To keep, okay?”
“Okay, Flood, I’ll keep it.” By then it was obvious she didn’t have a concussion—but she was running on the fumes in her reserve tank.
“Keep it here . . . for me, okay?” she said, and was drifting off to sleep before I could ask her what she meant.
58
ALMOST A WEEK went by like that. Max brought over all kinds of strange-looking gunk from Mama Wong’s kitchen for Flood to eat. It looked like molten slag to me, but Flood seemed to know what it was. Pansy tried some too, but she didn’t like it . . . no crunch.
I watched her get stronger, watched the swelling go down until I could see the other eye, watc
hed her flex the arm experimentally, practice her breathing.
I didn’t go out much, but Max stayed with her when I did. Pansy stayed to guard her when I went downstairs for the papers in the morning. I would read the stories to Flood until one morning she told me to stop. The headlines just sounded like body-counts, she said, so I stuck to the race results. I still watched the horses, but I didn’t feel like making any bets—with Flood getting better every day I sensed my luck was about to change, and I didn’t like the feeling.
One morning she was already up when I came back upstairs. She was wearing an old flannel shirt of mine—unbuttoned, it hung on her like a robe. She was working her body: hard now, not tentatively like before. A modified kata in the narrow office, but the kicks and chops and thrusts looked clean and sharp. She was back to herself. Her pain was leaving, and mine was on its way.
I tried not to show it. “You want one of these bagels?”
“You have any pumpernickel?” Flood wouldn’t eat white bread.
“Yep. New York Fresh too.”
“What’s New York Fresh?”
“Less than two days old.”
She grinned. Except for what looked like a monster black eye, she was as good as new. The splint was on the couch—she twisted the bad arm behind her and touched the back of her own head. “See?” Like a little girl showing off. I saw.
I took my bagel, cream cheese, and apple juice and sat down in the chair behind my desk to read the morning paper in peace. Flood wasn’t having any of this—she plopped herself in my lap, nuzzled my neck. “Let’s go out today, okay? I feel like I’m locked up in here.”
“You sure you’re ready?”
“Yes, yes, yes,” she squealed, squirming around in my lap until I gave up trying to read the paper.
I finally got to the paper while Flood was taking a shower. I started with last night’s race results, like I always do, but I wasn’t that interested. I still had almost all of Margot’s money, and pretty soon it would be time to earn it. I’d been working out a plan in my head but needed to run it past Flood first.
She bounded out of the shower, water still glistening on her white skin, smiling an angel’s smile. I knew she hadn’t forgotten—I couldn’t keep her here much longer. She walked to the back door to let Pansy out.
“Put some clothes on first.”
“Who’s to see up here?”
“Just do what I tell you. I can’t explain every little thing to you.”
She saw the look on my face and sweetly went back for a towel while Pansy waited patiently. Good—I didn’t feel like telling her about the kind of people who watch. I was listening to one of those radio psychologists on a talk show late one night on a stakeout: she was saying how people who like to watch are really harmless: repressed, sad perverts, more annoying than dangerous. Once when I was being held waiting for trial the guy in the next cell told me he watched women to see if they had a message for him. Something about the way they dressed themselves before they went out—it sounded like the guy belonged in Bellevue instead of the House of Detention, but it wasn’t my problem. They took him off the tier later that night. One of the guards who knew me from the last time stopped by my cell and slipped me a pack of smokes through the gate. I figured he just wanted to talk—the nights get lonely for them too.
“You hear about Ferguson?”
“Who?”
“The guy next door, the one they took out before.”
“He never told me his name.”
“He tell you anything at all?”
I handed him his pack of cigarettes back through the bars. “You know better than that. You trying to hurt my name?”
“Hey, I didn’t mean nothing, Burke. The cops don’t need any fucking info on that guy. Don’t you know who he is? Fucking Ferguson—he killed seven women. Cut ’em to fucking pieces, man. They found all the stuff in his apartment. And listen to this . . . he told the D.A. that they all asked him to kill them, that they gave him a fucking message to do it. Can you believe it?”
“How long you been working here?”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right. But every time I think I’ve heard it all . . .”
“What’s in the paper?” Flood wanted to know.
“I thought it all sounded like body-counts to you.”
“Today’s different. I feel so good . . . like I want to dance.”
“As long as you don’t sing.”
“Why?” she asked in a threatening tone.
“Oh, it’s not on my account. It’s Pansy—she has real sensitive ears.”
“Is that right?”
“Honest to God. I’m sure if she heard you sing like you did in the shower this morning she’d be strange for a week.”
Flood felt too good to care about my musical critique. I was just glancing through the paper before going up on the roof when the headline jumped off the page at me: “TERRORIST BOMB KILLS TWO IN MERCENARY RECRUITING OFFICE.” The story went on to explain how the back window of a Fifth Avenue office had blown out “yesterday afternoon in a blaze of red fire. Police arriving on the scene found the mangled bodies of two white males, neither as yet identified, and most of the office still smoldering in flames.” No fewer than four separate phone calls had been made to the media claiming responsibility for the bombing, ranging from a known black liberation group to some folks who claimed the recruiters were endangering the African environment with their proposed jungle warfare. The story said the investigation was continuing—good luck to them, I thought. Well, so much for my big plans about making a rich score from Gunther and James.
I’d never know the true story, and I wasn’t about to burn my fingers prying into it. No way the investigators would be able to trace the phony gunrunners back to their fleabag hotel—they’d probably moved as soon as they scored the front money from me anyway. And if they did, all they could find to connect to me would be a name and a phone number. So what? The Prof had promised to check out their hotel room and pick it clean, working in his hall-porter costume, and it was a long twisted trail back to me no matter what. And I had my usual alibi.
I tossed the paper aside, looked over at Flood. “I’ve got a debt to pay to someone who helped me with the business we just finished. It’s a one-acter, won’t take long. You up to it?”
“Sure”—she smiled—“as long as it’s outside someplace.”
“Sure. First stop, at least, New York fresh air.” I needed to assemble my people for this last piece, and I didn’t want to call from the hippies’ phone. “So get dressed,” I told her, “we’re going out.”
We spent the day at the Bronx Zoo. They have this re-creation of an Asian rain forest right inside the cyclone fencing—Bengal tigers, antelopes, monkeys, the whole works. You ride through it on an elevated monorail, and the driver tells you what’s happening over the loudspeaker. We did the whole place—everything but the Reptile House. When we got to the bear cages everybody was gathered around the artificial ice floe where a mother polar bear and her cub were basking in the sun. The mother bear looked balefully at everyone. One little kid asked his mother why the bear looked so mean—she told him it was because it wasn’t cold enough for them. Flood turned to the woman, smiled her smile, told her, “It’s because she doesn’t belong here—this isn’t her home.” We left a puzzled woman in our wake, but I knew what Flood meant, and it hurt. I pushed the feeling aside.
Afterward, as the Plymouth moved through the burnt-out hulks that were once apartment buildings in that part of the Bronx, I felt sorry for any of the animals that might work their way through the fence and get out. . . .
It wasn’t until late that night that we all got together in the warehouse: me and Flood, Mole, the Prof, Michelle, and Max. I had the floor plan of Dandy’s apartment Margot had drawn for me spread out on a bench, and Mole was using one grubby finger to indicate how he’d work his end of the deal.
It looked easy enough, provided Margot came through with the set of keys like she promised.
If she didn’t the whole deal was off and she could go to the Consumer Protection Agency for her money.
“Michelle . . . any problems?” I asked.
“Don’t be funny, honey. My piece is a breeze.”
“Mole?”
“No.”
“You got all the stuff?”
“Yes.” The Mole was really being gabby. Usually he’d just nod.
“Prof?”
“His mind is on crime but his ass shall be mine. Revenge tastes even more sweet than a virgin’s—”
“Cool it, Prof,” said Michelle, “there’s ladies present.”
“I was going to say ‘than a virgin’s kiss,’ fool. What on your mind?”
“If it was the same as yours, it’d make me a lesbian.”
“That’s enough,” I told them. “Michelle, can’t you get along with anyone?”
“I get along with Mole,” she said, patting his hand.
The Prof looked like he was going to snap back but some glint from behind the Mole’s thick glasses must have convinced him that playing the dozens could be a dangerous game when you let lunatics participate. He let it slide.
“Flood, you’re sure you’re up to this?”
A brilliant smile, glowing even in the dim warehouse. “I’m looking forward to it.”
“You know what you have to do?”
“Burke, we went over and over it. I have it down pat.”
There was no reason to ask Max if he was ready—and not because he couldn’t hear the question.
“Okay, this is Wednesday. We do it Friday morning.”
“Say, Burke,” said the Prof, “you really going to use that damn dog of yours?”
“Why not? Pansy’s perfect for the part.”
“That beast is a monster, Burke. It makes me nervous just to be in the same neighborhood as he is.”
“As she is.”
“You mean that dog is a bitch?”
“Sure enough.”
“Well,” said the Prof, “I guess that makes sense, when you think about it.”
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