Lone Wolf #10: Harlem Showdown

by Barry, Mike

  “No,” Williams said, “let’s stay here. I have one question. I want to know if a man, a white man might have been—”

  “You have already asked that,” Father Justice said. “That question has already been asked of me and you may recollect that I did not elect to answer it. I am extremely distressed with you, my son. I am afraid that you are preoccupied with violence. You are, in fact, obsessed with it. Thoughts of violence seem to be central to your brain and spirit, and that, of course, is very bad. We must cultivate love, peace, that peace which passeth all understanding—”

  “Now listen,” Williams said. With the gun safely tucked within the reverend’s robes, with the axis of the conversation seemingly tilted toward him again, the urge was clear: pull now his own service revolver on the good reverend and reestablish that natural balance that should exist between the authorities and the governed. But then again he was no authority, not really, and it could hardly be said that Father Justice would label himself as being among one of the governed. Quite to the contrary, if Father Justice took orders from a higher authority it would be one to whose level Williams could not ascend. He shook his head, bit his lips, dismissed the idea. Fuck it. “Now listen,” he said, “let’s try to be reasonable about this. You see,” he said then, trying to be cunning, deciding that there might be another approach after all with which to entice the good reverend, “that white man, the one who I’m looking for, he might be the one who would know where all that ordnance is. As a matter of fact, that’s why I’m looking for him.”

  “Dissemblance,” said Father Justice, “dissemblance is a sin not only in the eyes of God but in those of man himself, and we must deal, all of we poor stricken creatures must deal with man primarily if only as the access route to God. Sin of all kinds blocks our passage to the higher realm, but of all the sins of which we speak, mendacity may be the worst. I—”

  “I’m not lying,” Williams said, “I mean it. If there was a white man looking for stuff from you, if he was in here to try to check out some armaments, he’s very likely the one you want, the one you got your stuff heisted from. I’m looking for him.” he paused, tried a careful breath, found it all right, took a deeper one. “If I can find him, there’s at least a good chance that you’ll get all the stuff back.”

  The reverend came closer to him. “The sins for mendacity’s use are great,” he said, “and they will be paid in full in the higher realm; they will—”

  “I’m not lying,” Williams said, “believe me, I’m not lying at all. If we can find him, we may find the stuff.”

  “Ah,” Father Justice said. “Ah,” and paused, his robes seemed to rise slightly as if he were taking deep, gasping breaths, but then again he might have only been preparing himself for a devotion of some sort. “I wish that I could truly believe this, but I detect within you some inner tension, some doubt and indecision—”

  “No,” Williams said, “it’s true,” and extended an arm to take Father Justice out of the ordnance room, slowly the reverend extended an arm to meet his, the two of them linking, and then he led him, surprisingly weightless, out of those damp, dense spaces and into the sacristy where Williams felt that he heard murmurous voices, although they might only have come from the sound of the crucifix as it gently brushed against the curtain on the little Harlem winds as they hit the panels of the storefront outside. “All true,” he said outside. “Why I think you’d be surprised at how much this man may have to do with the stolen ordnances, how much responsibility he may bear for what has happened to you. I can almost assure you that all the answers will emanate from there once you help me find him.”

  “Ah. I see. Well,” Father Justice said, and in a sudden, spasmodic motion of devotion that Williams might have found quite touching in other circumstances—the motion of devotion creates commotion, he thought—“such a man was in here just a very few days ago to request some materials.”

  “Ah,” Williams said, “ah. I thought so.”

  “Of course I had no idea whatsoever that he is, as you say, responsible for the theft of the ordnance. Otherwise I would not have dealt with him. The eye of duplicity is deep and penetrating, and the antichrist himself will dwell in the form of the familiar.”

  “That is true,” Williams said, “that is very true.” The crucifix was rolling and banging around in idle breezes now; it was really amazing how much circulation of air there appeared to be in the church. Of course, there was no saying either what sources Father Justice had tapped into for his power. “I agree with that philosophy.”

  “I was tempted,” Father Justice said. “I was deeply tempted.” He crossed himself, a gesture that Williams had always associated with Catholicism, but this was a peculiar offshoot of a sect; one simply did not know of their devices. “I trust that I will be forgiven for this lapse.”

  “I’m sure you will be,” Williams said encouragingly, “forgiveness may be granted for true penitence.”

  “Do you think so?”

  “I truly think so.” It was easy when you got into it; it was just a different way of looking at things. “The only sin that is unredeemable, beyond redemption that is, comes from the sinner who will not admit the error of his ways. But for those who grant it, redemption will come.”

  “That is very comforting. That is truly comforting; I appreciate those words of counsel, my son.”

  “It is nothing. Really it is nothing.”

  “Perhaps not. But there is true and real relief nevertheless to hear you say those words.”

  “I am glad of that,” Williams said, resisting an urge to reach out and touch the suffering Father Justice. Perhaps he really was a minister of the Lord, one who merely dabbled in ordnance on the side to support his mission. Then again he might be an arms seller who used the church as a front. That was the more logical explanation, certainly the one he had accepted at the outset. Still, there was no saying. Life and religion were far more complex than you might think at first glance. It was entirely possible that the reverend was indeed supporting his ecclesiastical activities through satisfying a basic demand and then, conscientious man that he was, paying penance for it. One never knew. In Harlem there were at least three levels to everything. “Yes, there was such a man in here. He purchased a machine gun, some grenades, an M-15 rifle, and other miscellany. I had my doubts about serving him but he was sincere and advised us that he would not use these materials in any way to raise up a hand against our people but would instead be supporting our own great and holy mission to restore the world to black peoples as was ordained. So, in my great weakness, I gave unto him according to his demand. I am truly shamed.” His shoulders sagged. The crucifix banged, jingling on the rostrum. “I will pay for the vanity of pride, for the sin of greed. I am paying for this already.”

  “What did he look like?”

  “What did he look like?” Father Justice said, and paused. “It is hard, hard to give a physical description of one who functions as one of the tempters or comforters. He was a tall man, about six feet four inches, in his mid-thirties, who seemed to have had some kind of military background. That, at least, was in his bearing, but this may be a false assumption on my part. God must guard against the sin of pride.”

  “That is the man,” Williams said. “Do you have any idea where he went?”

  “Ah,” Father Justice said. Benevolence radiated from his features; it seemed that he had come close to having a religious insight, would, in fact, have mounted an altar if there had been an altar instead of merely a flat sunken place in front of the crucifix. “I think that I might have an idea where he went. We have many devoted followers in the brotherhood here, many of whom are willing to cooperate in any fashion that will enable us to complete our mission, to serve our God. Accordingly,” he said, “accordingly we felt it best when this white, this antichrist, left our quarters to have him followed, very subtly of course, to that place from which we came.”

  “Were you able to locate it?” Williams said hoarsely. He was pois
ed on a tip of anticipation; in another moment he might have been on his knees in front of the reverend. “Were you able to locate the place where he is living?”

  “I do not know if he is living there, my son,” Father Justice said peaceably, “but we were able to, or I should say, certain devoted followers, whose place shall be numbered with the very best, were able to follow him to that place in which I believe his evil schemes are hatched, in which he broods like the great snake itself over his apocalypse.”

  “Where would that be?”

  “Why I have it right here. I have it right here,” Father Justice said and went to the altar, stood behind the podium, dug a hand into an empty space underneath the podium and came out with a large manila envelope, his hand splayed outward within it. Williams could see the little extensions his fingers made against the paper, and then Father Justice came out with a slip of paper, which he looked at intently, the lights twinkling in his eyes, bringing a sheen to his forehead, before he passed it to Williams. “Here,” he said, “it is believed that he was in residence at this address. Of course in this flawed and difficult world it is a mistake to confuse design with reality; he may not be living there at all. Nevertheless, one of our devoted congregants was able to trace him to this address.” He seemed to bow subtly, inclining his head altarwards, his hands gripping the podium then in an embrace. “I hope that it will be of service.”

  “I’m sure that it will be.”

  “If it is of service and if you are able to establish contact with this individual, I trust that you will keep our priorities very much in mind.”

  “Oh, I will,” Williams said. “I can assure you of that.”

  “We would be very interested in dealing with this individual should you find him. It was a serious mistake, a very serious mistake indeed for me to deal with him. Nevertheless, he presents a superficially winning appearance, and the church has long wished to establish that it is devoted to forms of righteousness no matter what color they may wear externally,” Father Justice said. “For this reason I allowed myself to fall into the hands of the tempter, but this will not happen again. Truly it can be said that I have learned from this and that never again will I be so persuaded.”

  “Sure,” Williams said, “certainly,” and backed toward the door, his business completed. It was time to leave, but it was hard to bring himself to leave the form of Father Justice, now fully embracing the altar, hugging it in fact, moving belly to belly against the crucifix, his back to the podium, which he had abandoned in the last flight toward ecstasy. He seemed to be humming a liturgical chant. “Thank you very much,” Williams said again uncertainly and went toward the door, began to struggle for the knob nestled in the midst of the panels.

  “One thing,” Father Justice said, turning in prayer, his eyes heated and intense, glaring at Williams, “just one thing. The measure of vengeance is sure and terrible, and it would be highly unpleasant for you if you were lying to us. If indeed this white devil of yours had nothing at all to do with the materials you failed to return, it would be you who misled us, and our devoted followers would surely be as unhappy as I. Some of them are overeager; this is a regrettable habit on their part, but then again, until dedication can be tempered by mercy, one has to get along with them. You know the problems of the pastorate in these troubled times.”

  “Oh yes indeed,” Williams said, “oh yes indeed, I do know what problems religion is facing, it’s truly a time of transition,” and finding the doorknob he wrenched open the door, it came stickily, ungratefully into his hands. He had to struggle with it to hold it into place, and then he was in the street, the decayed, binding smells of Harlem once again around him, and in his hand the precious slip of paper with the location to which Wulff had been tracked.

  He looked at it quickly and it was as if even without seeing he had known what it would be; a furnished room in the west nineties. Yes, indeed, it would end where it all began. Everything in life made sense after all; it all came together in a perfect closed circle of unity if you only knew how and where to look. Father Justice was right. He was right: there was a divine order to things; even the doubter would find it if only he knew where to look.

  Walking down the street, the paper already ripped into shreds and discarded, feathers to the breeze, he found himself wondering: perhaps the true religious services of the brotherhood church were in the transfer of money and guns; perhaps the sacraments were arrived at through the blood that its ordnance customers ripped from the bodies of others. Perhaps when you came right down to it the good reverend himself found his glimpse of the divine in the dull, dead stock of the rifle, in the hard shell of the grenade, in the shelves in his ordnance room where all knowledge, transferred to hard, impacted pieces of destruction, lay piled upon itself ready to be turned at any moment toward the true mission of the church, which was nothing less—when you looked at it in the overall sense—nothing less at all than to clean up the world.

  If you looked at it that way—and Williams saw nothing sacriligious about it—it was an entirely new insight into religion. Perhaps that was what it had to become: an instrument of vengeance.

  He headed downtown on his way to see the wolf.

  XI

  Wulff had chucked the book of the man who looked like a stockbroker a long time before, but a couple of names still stuck in memory. One of them was De Masso. He remembered De Masso well; the name had rung a connection from his narco squad days. De Masso was worth seeing; he had put off the idea of visiting him only painfully because the important thing, the book disclosed, was to get to San Francisco and head off a shipment due there. But he had abandoned the idea of seeing De Masso with regret; now he would be able to make up for it. Make up for the long stopover.

  So he went off to greet him.

  De Masso had lived and worked in New York until only a few months before, when he had quite suddenly moved to a high-rise apartment in Fort Lee. A crossout of his old address and the entering of the new one, including the date that it was good, in the stockbroker’s book had indicated this; from the date it was also pretty clear exactly why De Masso had decided to move at that time; there was a happy concordance between the enactment of the new New York State drug law providing life imprisonment for convicted drug dealers and De Masso’s decision that bucolic, pastoral living in a high-rise overlooking the Hudson beat all hell out of struggling along on Manhattan’s West Side. If nothing else could be said for the governor’s drug law, you could definitely say this: it was shuffling people around. It was moving them from here to there; a surprising number of people in the drug business had come to the decision that city life was intolerable and what they really needed was to live piled over one on top of the other in some rabbit warren of a high-rise slum in Fort Lee, New Jersey. Maybe the governor had worked in accordance with the Fort Lee real estate brokers and builders. You never could be sure of this; he had connections everywhere.

  In any event, De Masso was in Fort Lee, and Wulff decided that it was time to pay him a visit. Nothing to it; he was getting around quite a bit this time, now it was time to see how De Masso was enjoying country living, how all of that west-shore-of-the-hudson air was agreeing with him. Wulff, carrying a valise, boarded a bus at the Port Authority and rode with the commuters all the way, standing in the aisle, holding perilously to a strap, as the bus, sputtering exhaust fumes, staggered through the tunnel under the Hudson, heading west. This was the life, the commuters agreed with one another. Getting the hell out of the city at five; you couldn’t beat it.

  At Fort Lee, Wulff got out with the rest of them, walked to a diner a block from the bus stop. He had already worked his disguise over back in the furnished room, using the men’s room at the Port Authority only to give it some final touches, to see how it was holding up in public. It seemed to be holding up fine. The moustache and the little dabs of charcoal he had placed under his eyes managed to convey an impression of age and weariness; he might have been a forty-five-year-old clerk/accountant com
ing home from a difficult day in the municipal building, or better yet he might have been a forty-five-year-old police sergeant, fleeing the city after a day of interrogation, glad to get back to the swamps of New Jersey after a risky and perilous attempt to deal with New York for another nine hours, his face and body clotted with the wastes of the city now, but essentially optimistic: after all he was going home. Oh, it worked, all right; it wasn’t the most effective disguise, but then no one on the homeward bound bus at the Port Authority gave a shit about anyone else, and he had to assume that surveillance was not of the highest quality anyway. There was still a high bounty on him, and there were a lot of people who might be keeping an eye out for his appearance. But what he had done in nine cities so far would have to discourage all but the absolute hard core or the financially desperate, neither of whom were the most difficult kind of assassins to defeat. And so many of those people who had carried his name and photograph around in their pocket—well, so very many of them were dead. He had effectively raised the price on himself by cutting by four-fifths the number of potential assassins—which was a crudely direct but highly effective way of going at the problem, of course.

  De Masso. He thought about De Masso. The inclusion of the name in the stockbroker’s book had not surprised him at all; everybody in narco knew that De Masso was one of the major dealers working within the tight confines of the East Side. He handled Lenox Avenue, around 120th street, east over to Fifth, that was pretty well how they had him mapped on the departmental charts and from the stories of informants. The thing was that there was adsolutely nothing to get De Masso on and for that matter no interest in getting him; you could hardly bust him for possession because he was too clever to ever have anything on his person or in his home. And as far as catching him in the act itself, well, how the hell were you supposed to catch a distributor? Could you tap his phones, get a court order, get cameras and tape recorders to bug the critical conversations in which the careful, almost unspeaking arrangements were made? The hell you could. And De Masso, sure as hell, was never going to be found out on the corner of 124th Street and Lenox, hawking heroin at the top of his lungs from a fruit stand. That would be entirely too much to ask.