Ikon

by Graham Masterton

  The man in the car wrestled to change magazines. Lieutenant Berridge slithered forward across the vinyl roof, and hooked his left arm down into the open window, grappling at the man’s shoulder, and then at his neck. The man struck at him with the machine-gun, chipping flesh from his knuckles, but Lieutenant Berridge hung on to his throat and swung himself down from the car’s roof. Now he could seize the man with both hands; and he did so, directly, and slammed the man’s head forward so that he broke his nose against the car’s window-shelf. There was a vivid splash of blood, and the man gargled and tried to wrench himself away.

  ‘Out!’ shrieked Lieutenant Berridge, hysterical. ‘Out of

  the fucking car!’ He tore open the door and dragged the man on to the road, punching him again and again in the face. The machine-gun clattered on to the blacktop and skidded underneath the car.

  The man tried to stand up, but Lieutenant Berridge gave him a karate chop to the side of his throat that snapped one of the bones in Lieutenant Berridge’s right-hand pinkie. Then, as the man collapsed, Lieutenant Berridge delivered a piledriving kick in the balls, and felt a testicle smash. The man dragged himself a few feet towards the side of the road, and then collapsed, whimper-mg arid groaning.

  Lieutenant Berridge knelt down beside Stella. Her face under her suntan was the colour of ashes; as if she had suddenly become a very old woman. The blood was pumping out of her severed thighs undammed, and unstoppable, and the shock of being shot had already numbed her senses so deeply that she could only stare at him, and reach out for his arm as if she were trying to grasp the arm of a ghost. She was dying very quickly. To her, perhaps Lieutenant Berridge was already a ghost, a dim reminder of her lost lifetime, and the world which she was entering was already more real.

  ‘Stella,’ whispered Lieutenant Berridge. He knew that she couldn’t hear him. He was sickeningly conscious that her left leg was lying at an odd angle within his field of vision; the shoe still laced up, the sock still as white as when she had pulled it on less than two hours ago. He said again, ‘Stella,’ and she died in his arms, and he thanked God in a way that she had. He knelt beside her for two or three minutes, not speaking, not thinking, wishing that this was nothing more than a butcherous illusion, and knowing all the time that it was real.

  He heard a metallic clicking sound behind him, and he stiffened. Slowly, he turned his head around; and there he was. Bloody-faced, eyes bulging with agony, leaning up against the front of the Thunderbird with the Ingram upraised, and a fresh magazine already inserted.

  Lieutenant Berridge stood up. ‘Drop the weapon, he said. ‘You’re under arrest. Homicide in the first degree.’

  The man fired, a half-second snatch of bullets that blew chunks off the side of Lieutenant Berridge’s head, ear, skull, and splashes of brain. But with the fixed concentration of a man who no longer cares if he lives or dies, Lieutenant Berridge walked right up to the killer, and laid his hand on his shoulder.

  ‘I said, you’re under arrest,’ he repeated. The man stared at him and didn’t fire again. Lieutenant Berridge could see the man’s face in front of him, swollen and blurred, and a dark triangle of red which must have been the man’s broken nose. The morning seemed extremely cold; almost as if somebody had opened up the door of an icebox. He shivered, but kept his grip on the man’s shoulder, and said, ‘arrest,’ and then, in a slurrier voice, ‘a…rest.’

  His mother kept saying to him, ‘Don’t go outside without your rubbers. Do you hear me? Don’t go outside without your rubbers.’ And he was sure he could hear that Sunday churchbell tolling around the corner, on the day when the leaves began to fall.

  He fell in the road. He was not quite dead. He could see the road surface close to his face. A little further away was a fallen orange. The last thing he heard was a car engine coughing into life, then the sound of a door slamming.

  The man backed up the Thunderbird, then slammed it into drive, and ran deliberately straight over Lieutenant Berridge, crushing his chest with a crackle like fireworks and finishing him off. The man then drove to the intersection with 24th Street and made a left against a red light, provoking an outraged chorus of horns. He shouted at the top of his voice, ‘Suck off, you bastards!’ even though nobody could hear him. The pain from his broken nose was more than he could actually bear: he could feel the bone grating under the skin. And his right testicle was a complete crucifixion of agony. It felt as if it were eight times its normal size, and afire.

  He reached the safe house in Tempe in twenty minutes, railing all the time against the slowness of the traffic, the stop-lights, and the monumental pain in his balls. He parked outside, and hobbled up the front steps, gasping and sweating. He fumbled for the key, and at last managed to let himself in. Then, with a terrible cry, he collapsed face-first on to the rug, and lay there shuddering and shaking and feeling as if the whole world were nothing more than two cubic inches of utter pain.

  It was almost noon when the telephone rang. He managed to reach out for it and drag it on to the floor. ‘Yes?’ he asked, in a clotted, nasal voice.

  The call was long-distance. There was a faint singing of electronics, the blurping of other people’s dialling. A man’s voice said, ‘We just heard about Berridge. Good work. Nice and messy.’

  Im hurt.’

  ‘We’ll be staying in Los Angeles for a week or so. Why don’t you come back for good? We’ve got two more jobs for you; then you can retire for ever.’

  ‘You said Ruse was the last one. Then you said that Berridge was the last one. Come on, Skellett, I’m hurt. I don’t want any more. I’m finished.’

  ‘How can you be finished? You’re the best.’

  I spent twenty years looking for that one woman. I’m finished. No work for twenty years and now this. Three in one week. I can’t take it any more, Mr Skellett. I’m through. And, besides, I’m not sure that everybody in Washington is going to be as pleased with these jobs as you are. Some people don’t like to make a fuss, that’s what I’ve heard. Especially these days, with those nuclear talks coming up.’

  ‘Henry,’ replied Skellett, and his tone was like chilled vinegar, strained through a pot-scourer, ‘Henry, nuclear talks are none of your business. You’re a man for hire, that’s all.’

  ‘I’m a man for hire and right now I quit. My nose is broken. Can’t you hear my nose is broken? And that goddamned Lieutenant Berridge kicked me straight between the legs. I need a doctor, goddamn it, not more work. Send me a goddamned doctor.’

  There was a silence. Then Skellett said, ‘Can you make the LA flight this afternoon? Western have one at 1:40.’

  Til try. I don’t know.’

  ‘Well, try. Okay? I’ll book you a room at the Welford Clinic. But I want you here. You’re still the best, as far as I’m concerned, broken nose or not. You’re a man after my own heart.’

  ‘I didn’t know you had one.’

  Skellett laughed, jarringly. ‘Make sure you catch the 1:40,’ he said. Til have a car waiting for you at LAX.’

  ‘So long as you never send me back to Phoenix.’

  Skellett laughed again; and then just as abruptly as he had called, hung up.

  Thirty

  They drew up outside the multi-storey parking-lot on Santa Monica and Wilcox, and sat staring at it like apprehensive Hobbits considering the uncertain prospects of entering some evil wizard’s castle. They were driving their rented Monaco still, but Rick had spent a couple of hours last night tweaking its engine, with a flashlight clenched between his teeth and a ring spanner in each hand, and although the Monaco wasn’t exactly a Shelby Cobra, it did run with a reasonably satisfying burble, and give kicky little surges of power whenever Rick put his foot down. Under the circumstances, Rick had promoted himself to driver.

  ‘My guess is that they’ve arrived already/ said Daniel.

  They’ve probably deployed themselves around the parking-lot in case we try anything funny.’

  Tunny?’ said Kathy. ‘What’s this funny?
’

  Rick said, ‘What do you want to do?’

  Daniel checked his watch. ‘Drive straight in, I guess, and take it as it comes. But for God’s sake be careful. These guys are really dangerous. I mean, they’re wild beasts.’

  Rick bipped the engine, and cleared his throat. ‘You ever done anything like this before?’

  Daniel shook his head.

  ‘Me neither.’ Then he paused. Then he said, Tucking scary, isn’t it?’

  They turned cautiously into the parking-lot ramp, and Rick collected the ticket from the gate. Up went the barrier, and they drove into the darkness with tyres squealing loudly on the polished concrete floor.

  They didn’t say what level?’ asked Rick.

  They didn’t even say that they’d actually be inside.’

  ‘Well, we’re just going to have to make this up as we go along.’

  They reached the end of the first level, and drove through a sudden burst of sunlight up the ramp to the second level. The muffled throb of their engine echoed against the walls; and with the long-drawn-out shrieking of their tyres, the noise made the parking-lot seem more like an evil wizard’s domain than ever.

  Kathy whispered, ‘We should have brought guns.’

  ‘We should have brought the National Guard,’ said Rick.

  Daniel, thinking tensely about Susie, could say nothing at all. His fists were clenched tight and his muscles were so rigid that he felt as if they might lock.

  They reached the end of the second level, and turned up the ramp to the third. Rick said, This is the one. Look along to the end there, where the railings are. Nothing but rows of flat rooftops. We can drive straight through the railings,right across the tops of those buildings, as far

  as that water-tank there. Then we can get out and climb down the fire-escape.’

  Daniel looked dubiously out over the tar-papered rooftops. There seemed to be heaps of trash out there, as well as several awkwardly-protruding ventilation stacks and chimneys. ‘What happens if the railings don’t give way?’ he wanted to know. ‘And supposing we collide with one of those chimneys?’

  ‘And supposing your killers aren’t even here at all?’ Rick retorted. ‘We sure as hell haven’t seen them yet and we’re up to the third level already.’

  But as they turned up the ramp to the fourth level, they heard the growl of another engine; and when they reached the top of the ramp, and turned again, the reception committee was there, waiting for them at the very end of the level, five of them, flanked by two grey Cadillac limousines, their headlights shining and their engines whistling over.

  ‘Skellett,’ said Kathy, breathlessly, recognizing at once the thin man standing in the centre of the group in his pale blue sharkskin suit and bolus tie and wide-brimmed Western hat. Next to Skellett was the man called Walsh, with the crimson strawberry-mark on his face, and a little way behind him stood three Los Angeles Hell’s Angels, hard-looking men in sleeveless denim jerkins and high-heeled boots, all tattoos and earrings and studs. Presumably Skellett had paid cash for a little supportive muscle.

  Daniel said to Rick, ‘Stop the car. Don’t get too close.’

  Rick drew the car to a halt, its engine warbling, and pushed on the parking-brake. But then he leaned over to Daniel, and said in a mock-British accent, ‘I think we have a slight flaw in the jolly old plan here.’

  ‘What’s that? What are you talking about?’

  ‘Well, hate to say it, old chap; but we’re up here on the fourth level, unable to turn around so that our vehicle is facing the other way because of our hostile friends here; and yet our only route of escape is behind us.’

  Daniel said, uncomfortably, ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘That means that when we hightail it out of here, old chum, we’re going to have to do it in reverse.’

  Daniel peered out through the back window at the sloping concrete ramp which led down to the third level again. It was almost obscured by the Monaco’s trunk. He certainly wouldn’t have liked to have tried backing down there himself, even slowly.

  He stared at Rick for a long time, while fifty feet away the men who had tortured Kathy and kidnapped Susie stood silent and impassive, half-obscured in front of the dazzling headlights of their parked cars, waiting like men who had all morning to kill.

  ‘Do you think you can do it?’ asked Daniel. ‘If you can’t, we might just as well back off now. I don’t mind trading myself for Susie, if that’s what the deal has to be; but I don’t intend to be killed right here in front of her.’

  ‘You don’t even know that they’ve brought her here,’ said Kathy. ‘We haven’t seen her yet.’

  Rick lifted himself up in the driver’s seat and took a good long look behind him. Then he smiled ingenuously at Daniel, and said, ‘I’m a stuntman, remember. I can do these things.’

  ‘Can you back down that ramp at high speed? And then back all the way along the third level, and across those rooftops?’

  ‘Piece of shit,’ smiled Rick. Daniel shot a look at Kathy, as if to suggest that Rick may not be as good as he boasted. But Rick caught the look, and gave Daniel a friendly punch on the upper arm, and said, ‘You know what you are? A Doubting Daniel. If I came up there forwards, I can go down there backwards.’

  One of the Hell’s Angels came striding forward, and tapped on the Monaco’s window with the tip of a baseball bat. Daniel put down the window, and said, ‘What is it?’

  ‘You’re Korvitz, right?’

  Thaf s correct.’

  ‘Mr Skellett wants you should step out of the car.’

  Tell Mr Skellett I don’t do anything until I see my daughter safe and well.’

  The Hell’s Angel thought about this for a while, and then turned around to Skellett and yelled, ‘Guy says he wants to see the girl.’

  Skellett didn’t appear at first to have heard this raucously-broadcast message; but eventually he turned around, and beckoned to Walsh to follow him. The two men retreated to one of the grey Cadillac limousines, and opened up the back door. Dazed, her arms tied, Susie was helped out of the car, and pushed forward so that her father could see her.

  ‘Susie?’ called Daniel. His voice echoed.

  ‘Susie?’ he called again.

  Susie said suddenly, ‘Daddy, in a voice of utter despair and anguish, and it took all the self control he could squeeze out of himself for Daniel not to run forward and hold her protectively in his arms. His own little girl, Can-dii’s girl. He thought to himself: that’s the first time I’ve ever considered Susie to be Candii’s daughter. Properly, I mean. The child of Candii’s fickle and transient affections. It gave him strength, somehow, a feeling that he would never really be alone.

  ‘Skellett!’ he called.

  ‘Yes, Mr Korvitz. I hear you,’

  ‘Skellett, I want you to let Susie go.’

  ‘That’s what we’re here for, Mr Korvitz. But first, we want to hear that you’re prepared to tell us what you know.’

  I don’t know anything, Skellett. Nothing at all. Just let Susie go, and you won’t hear anything more about anything.’

  ‘Promises, Mr Korvitz, promises. Assurances and promises. There isn’t an assurance or a promise in this whole damn world you could go out and buy yourself lunch with. Promises and assurances are so much crap. Now, get out of the car, come over here, and we’ll let your daughter go.’

  Daniel shifted around in his seat to look at Kathy. ‘Listen,’ he said, quickly, ‘it strikes me that their weakest moment is going to be when they let Susie go. Susie can’t

  physically fight back at them; but , can, and I intend to. So the second that Susie is back at the car, tug her in, and I’ll start hitting out. I may get away. I may not. But the first thing you have to do is drive directly towards me, so that I can have one good try at breaking free.’

  They’re armed, for Christ’s sake,’ protested Rick.

  ‘Sure they’re armed. But we’ve got the benefit of knowing what’s going to go down, and the
y haven’t. So use the surprise.’

  ‘You’re being very masterful all of a sudden,’ said Kathy.

  Daniel opened the car door. That’s my daughter out there, with one of the most sadistic people I’ve ever heard about. You think I care about anything else?’

  ‘Bonne chance,’ said Kathy.

  Daniel stood beside the Monaco, using the open passenger door to shield the lower part of his body. He felt chilled, but very determined. He wanted Susie back, he wanted Susie safe. If there was anything at all that he had ever done in his entire life which was worth preserving, it was Susie. Susie had been born out of his passion for Candii, out of his pleasure and joy in those all-American girls who made the West what it was. He wanted her alive, and that was all.

  ‘Skellett!’ he called. Then, quieter, ‘I’m coming across. I want you to let the girl go.’

  ‘We’ll let the girl go when you’re halfway, Mr Korvitz. No point in taking risks. But I warn you - any ridiculous tricks and you’re both dead meat.’

  I’m coming, Mr Skellett.’

  Daniel left the car and began to walk the twenty echoing paces towards Skellett and his entourage. Susie’s eyes widened as he came nearer, but she didn’t cry out any more. Skellett at last gave her a gentle push and said, ‘Start walking, Susie. Walk towards the blue car. Don’t stop to talk to daddy. You’ll be seeing him later.’

  Warily, unsteadily, like a fresh-born foal, Susie began walking towards Daniel. She stared at him intently all the time, as if she was desperately hoping for some kind of

  signal that everything was all right, that this entire pantomime of Skellett’s was a bad adult joke; and that soon they would be back at the Downhome Diner, frying bacon and boiling grits and waiting for the first grumpy customers of another Apache Junction day.

  As they passed each other, Daniel paused, and Susie instinctively paused, too. Skellett called, ‘Come on, Korvitz. Let’s move it.’