I became the bullet. Seeing into his skull. Locking the connection with my spirit before I sent death down the channel.
To keep my house safe.
My heart was a clock, every tick an icepick in a nerve cluster. How much time?
The hooker walked right past the van, not giving it a glance, looking over her shoulder at the wide street, hoping for some traffic. Suddenly, she stopped, turned to stare right at the van, hands on hips. I could see she was saying something. No reaction from the van—it was as dark inside as I was.
Except for that white blob. The target.
The hooker walked over, nice and slow, giving the detonator man a real eyeful. Nothing. She came right up to the van, rapped on the window like it was a door. The window came down. The hooker’s left hand was on the sill, her right hand dropped down to her purse. I saw a whitish face in the scope, wearing a dark baseball cap. Zeroed in until I was one long, thin wire of hate—my mind to my finger to my eye to the slug to the target.
I caught the rhythm of my heart. Started the slow squeeze on the trigger in the dead space until the next beat, the electrical impulse already launched along the wire. The whitish face exploded in fire. A split second later, the sound of the shot echoed up to where I was perched. My finger was still locked on the unpulled trigger, frozen.
The wire snapped.
A motorcycle roared into life. A low-cut racing bike flowed around the back corner like liquid over a rock. The hooker yanked the tiny skirt up to her waist as the bike slid to a stop. The rider was dressed in a set of racing leathers, face hidden under a black helmet and visor. The hooker jumped on the back and the bike rocketed away so fast the front wheel popped off the ground. The blond wig flew off.
I tracked them through the scope in case they needed cover, but they faded from sight long before the bike’s raucous exhaust stopped echoing through the concrete canyon.
I worked the bolt, ejecting the unfired cartridge. It hit the rooftop with a dull thud and I dropped to one knee, pulling an infra-red micro-beam out of my pocket. I found the cartridge, scooped it up and pocketed it.
As I got to my feet I heard a rumble down below and my heart stopped. I looked over the parapet. It was a giant semi with ALCHEMY TRANSPORT SYSTEMS painted on its side, heading right past me. Toward the river. Behind it, a panel truck, a dump truck, the carting-company rig and a pair of station wagons. Convoying together.
Ground Zero, moving.
Past me. Then past a dead crumpled target in a van.
I disassembled the sniper’s outfit in seconds, threw everything into a felt-lined carry-all. I slung the wide padded strap over my shoulder and took the stairs all the way to the ground floor, hoping that Pryce’s fix held and I didn’t run into a security guard, a silenced semi-auto in my right hand in case I did. When I saw the broad back of Max the Silent on the bottom step, I knew that last part was covered no matter what Pryce had done.
We were in the Plymouth, rolling toward the West Side Highway, when Max grabbed my arm a split second before the ground shook and the Hudson River shot straight up into the air, a skyscraper of white foam.
Then the sky behind us lit up with battlefield gunfire, tracers razor-slashing the night.
“It wasn’t the detonator,” Pryce told me thirty-six hours later. “It was armed, all right, but he never got his finger on the button before . . .”
I didn’t say anything. The detonator man had wanted to blow up the world . . . and the last thing he saw was it happening to him.
“We got all of them down the ramp and into the drink but the last one,” Pryce continued. “He must have put a timing device in that one . . . just to be sure.”
“How many—?”
“We lost four,” he said quietly. “The driver, and the three closest on the perimeter.”
“Your people were fantastic,” I told him. Not knowing a better word for heroes. Wishing I did.
The news reports said all six neo-Nazis had resisted. Five had gone down in a blaze of gunfire. No word about the silencer-equipped snipers who had taken out each of the drivers as soon as they were in place. Or how all the gunfire was for show, way after it was really over. The fire-team would have waited until they got the all-clear, counting on their backup to seal off the area. But the explosion on the river had told them they were out of time.
“Seems the van driver took Lothar’s way out,” Pryce replied dryly, telling me that was going to be the story for the press.
“I never thought you’d be able to use tranquilizer darts,” I said. “At that distance . . .”
“It was the only way,” he told me. “Even with that pink flag flying from the antenna to tell us which vehicle had your man inside, we couldn’t risk being wrong.”
So the whole gang had been alive when the river blew. But only one had survived to the end.
One plus Hercules.
“And the one we captured,” Pryce continued, “once we explained the true plan to him, once he realized the detonator man was going to take them all out, he started singing like a canary on crank. We took down almost a hundred of the others all around the country before the media even had the explosion on the air. And there’s more to come.”
Not a word from him about Clarence the pimp. Or Michelle the hooker. Or Crystal Beth the getaway driver. They’d all passed through the sealed cauldron like some vague rumor, leaving it to the whisper-stream to tell the story.
And not a word from me about how Herk and one of the lucky Nazis had gotten tranquilizer darts and nothing else . . . while the rest of them went down in a hail of lead thick enough to shield out X-rays. The others got it easier than the detonator man—they were already asleep, never saw it coming. Pryce had to have been right there—he was the only one who could ID Herk.
“I’m gone,” he told me quietly, holding out his hand for me to shake. “None of the numbers you have for me will be any good after today. And I won’t have this face much longer either.”
I took his hand, wondering if the webbed fingers would disappear too. Watched the muscle jump under his eye. I’d know that one again.
“I’m gone too,” I said.
“You’re really going?” I asked Vyra, unable to keep the surprise out of my voice.
“Yes.” A lilt in her usually waspish voice. “We are.” She was standing next to Hercules, who was vainly trying to cram another pair of shoes into a monster pile of suitcases.
“I’ve got . . . people still in Oregon,” Crystal Beth said. “That’ll be their first stop. Or, if they like it there, they can—”
“It doesn’t matter,” Vyra interrupted her. “We’re going to be together. From now on.”
Hercules stood up. He was bare-chested, sweating with the strain of “helping” Vyra pack. On his chest, the black swastika was now a murky Rorschach blot only a warrior could read. Or could be entitled to carry. His eyes were wet.
“I never fucking doubted you for a minute, man. I knew you was too slick for those lameass motherfuc—”
“It’s done now, Herk,” I told him.
“We never gonna be done, brother,” the big man said.
Crystal Beth and Vyra kept hugging and crying.
I stepped away from it.
“Are you going to stay?” Crystal Beth asked me late that night. “Tonight? Sure.”
“With me? And not just tonight?” she asked.
The time for lies was done. “I don’t know,” I told her.
An excerpt from
CHOICE OF EVIL
by ANDREW VACHSS
soon to be available in hardcover from Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
I nosed the Plymouth carefully around the corner, checking the street the way I always do when I’m heading home. The garage I use is cut into the closed-off base of an old twine factory which had been converted into upscale lofts years ago. Above the designer-massaged floor-through apartments is what the yuppie occupants think is crawl space. That’s where I live.
A pal had tap
ped into their electricity lines and installed a stainless steel sink-and-toilet combo. A fiberglass stall shower, a two-burner hot plate, a duct to the heating pipes below . . . and it turned into my home.
I’ve lived there for years, thanks to a deal I made with the landlord. His son got himself into a jackpot—an easy enough feat for a punk who thought ratting out his rich dope-dealing friends was a fun hobby—and ended up in the Witness Protection Program. I stumbled across him while I was looking for someone else, and I traded my silence for a special brand of rent control. Didn’t cost the landlord a penny, but it bought his punk kid an anonymous life. And safe harbor for me.
Some of my life is in that building. And when I saw the pack of blue-and-white NYPD squad cars surrounding the back entrance, I knew that part of it was over.
I just sat there and took it. The way I always do—fear and rage dancing inside me, nothing showing on my face. I’ve had a lot of practice, from the hospital where my whore of a mother dropped me—dropped me out of her, I mean—to the orphanage to the foster homes to the juvenile joints to prison to that war in Africa to prison again and . . . all of it.
It didn’t matter anymore. Nothing did. Somebody had dimed me out. And the cops would find enough felony evidence up there to put me back Inside forever once they connected it up.
I watched the cops carry Pansy out on a litter, straining under the huge beast’s weight. Pansy’s my dog. My partner, not my pet. A Neapolitan mastiff, direct descendent of the original war dogs who crossed the Alps with Hannibal. I had dreamed of having my own dog every night in prison. They’d taken my beloved little terrier Pepper from me when I was a kid, that lying swine of a juvenile court judge promising me there’d be another puppy in the foster home they were sentencing me to. I remember the court officer laughing then, but I didn’t get the joke until they dropped me off. There was no pup there, and I had to do the time alone, without anyone who loved me.
I never saw Pepper again, but I did see that court officer. It was more than twenty years later, and he didn’t recognize me. When I was done, nobody would recognize him either. That’s the way I was then. I’m not the same now. But I’ve only changed my ways, not my heart.
I’d raised Pansy from a pup. Weaned her myself. She would die for me. And it looked like she had. Standing up all the way. She’d never let another human being into my place when I wasn’t there.
I said goodbye the way we do down here—promising her vengeance. I was using the little monocular I always carry to get a close up when the screen shifted focus: I saw Pansy stir on the litter. She was still alive. The cops must have waited for the EMS unit—they carry tranquilizer guns. So I didn’t need the badge numbers of the cops anymore—I needed my dog back. I U-turned the Plymouth slow and smooth and aimed it toward a place where I could make plans.
“Honey, I called around for hours. We know where she is,” Michelle said, her lustrous eyes shining, reflecting the pain in me. She’s my sister—my pain is hers.
“Where?”
“The new shelter. The one in Hunter’s Point, just across the river? In Long Island City.”
“Yeah, I heard about it. It’s private, right? Part of the fucking Mayor’s giveaway plan.”
“Baby, relax, okay? Crystal Beth ran over there the second I called her. It could get a little stupid . . . Pansy’s got no license, no papers . . . but Crystal knows how to act. Just sit tight, and—”
“When did she leave?”
“Honey, stop. You’re scaring me. She’s been gone almost . . . three hours now. You don’t expect her to haul that monster on the back of her motorcycle, do you?”
“I don’t care how she—”
Michelle put her hand on my forearm, willing me to centered calmness, reminding me of all the years I’d invested in learning the path to that place.
“Can you get Max for me?” I asked Mama. She’d been hovering nearby since the minute I’d come in.
“Sure. Get Max. Come soon, okay?”
I just nodded.
“Burke, you don’t need Max for this,” Michelle told me. “Jesus! It’s not like they’re gonna care, right? So she doesn’t have a license. So Crystal Beth has to pay a fine . . . or whatever. It won’t take long. . . . ”
I stayed inside myself, waiting. Felt Crystal Beth’s small hand on my shoulder before I heard her approach. Smelled her orchid-and-dark tobacco scent. Didn’t move. She came around the table and sat down across from me.
“Burke—”
“What happened?” I cut into whatever she was going to say, already knowing it was bad.
“The . . . license thing wasn’t a problem. Just like Michelle said. They were willing to let me take her. But they wouldn’t bring her out —they said I had to go back and get her myself.”
“And . . . ?”
“And she was in a cage. A big steel cage. Like a tiger or something. There was a sign on it, in red; it said: DANGEROUS! DO NOT APPROACH! The . . . attendant, he told me she wouldn’t take food. Even when they shoved it into the cage, she wouldn’t eat. He warned me not to come near her, but I did anyway, and she . . .”
“What?”
“She tried to kill me. She lunged at the bars, snarling and snapping her teeth, and . . .”
“They don’t know the word,” I said, half to myself. I had poison-proofed Pansy when she was still small. Unless you said the right word, she wouldn’t touch food, no matter how hungry she was. I had a friend who ran a little auto parts joint. He had a Shepherd, a real nice one. He used the dog to guard the place at night, so nobody could help themselves. Some degenerate tossed a strychnine-laced steak over the fence. When the dog helped himself, he died. In pain.
I’d trained Pansy so that would never happen to her. And I should have known she wouldn’t walk out with anyone but me.
They try and get dogs adopted at the shelter. If they can’t, they gas them. Who was going to adopt a sixteen-year-old, hundred-and-fifty-pound monster who could bite the top off a fire hydrant? But Pansy wasn’t going to be gassed . . . she’d loyal herself to death first.
Not a chance. I owed her at least what I’d always promised myself. That I wouldn’t die caged.
“Michelle, go find the Prof for me,” I told her.
A few hours later, I was with a piece of my family, waiting on the rest.
“I can’t scam her out,” I told the women. “I mean, I could go there myself, and she’d come with me. But if I show up . . . the cops know where they got her from, and they might be expecting that. I’m surprised they didn’t try and follow Crystal Beth . . .”
“I was on my bike, honey,” Crystal Beth said, her face calm with assurance.
I knew what she was telling me. There wasn’t a cop car made that could keep up with Crystal Beth on that motorcycle of hers, especially with the steady rain that had been falling for days. For the first time, I noticed what she was wearing—a full set of racing leathers.
“But how were you gonna get Pansy on—?”
“We had a car too, standing by. If I got her out, I was just going to load her in there and—”
“Whose car?”
“I don’t know, Burke. The Mole lent it to us. Some big dark thing. He made me a new license plate for my scooter too. Even if the cops saw it, they won’t make anything out of it.”
“The Mole was gonna drive? Jesus, I—”
“Not the Mole,” Michelle interrupted. “Terry.”
“He’s not— “
“Yes, he is,” she said, a trace of sadness in her voice. “My little boy’s almost a man now. He doesn’t have a license, but he can drive.”
Terry. Had it really been that long since I’d pulled him away from a kiddie pimp in Times Square? Since Michelle took him for her own? Since the Mole had raised him in his junkyard? Since . . . ?
Then the door swung open and the Prof walked in, Clarence at his heels.
“What’s the plan, man? I got the word, came soon as I heard.”
“We
have to get her out before they—”
“I said the plan, fool. You know I’m down with the hound. So gimme the four-one-one, son. They gonna be laying in the cut, waiting on you to make your move. We gotta be quick, but we also gotta be slick. Otherwise . . .”
“Let me think,” I told the only father I’d ever had: the one I met behind the Walls.
“Everybody got it?” I asked. It was almost nine o’clock at night by then, more than sixteen hours since my life had been torn apart.
Everybody nodded. Nobody spoke. I looked over at the big circular table in the corner, now piled high with what we needed.
“You sure they’re open twenty-four hours?” I asked Michelle.
“That’s what they said, honey. But I don’t know if they’ll actually open the doors, even if you say it’s an emergency. It’s not a medical place. All they do there is keep the dogs and . . .”
“Kill them,” I finished for her. “It doesn’t matter anyway.” I turned to look at Crystal Beth. “You got the floor plan?”
“Right here,” she said, unrolling it on the table in front of me.
“Mole,” I called, summoning him over. Then I started to explain what I needed.
“There have to be women there,” Crystal Beth said, standing to one side of the table, little hands on her big hips, face tightened against any argument.
“Look, this is—”
“You say ‘man’s work’ and I’m going to—”
“No, girl,” I said soothingly. “I wasn’t saying that. It’s just you don’t have any experience with—”
“With what, hijacking?” Michelle interrupted. “That isn’t the way to do it. You and the Prof, sure. I know you even got Max to go along sometimes on that crazy stuff you used to do, but if you think—”
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