The King of Swords

by Nick Stone

He went back to Sandra and kissed her on the cheek. ‘I gotta go.’

  She stood up and hugged him.

  He took her face in his hands and looked into her big brown eyes and almost didn’t want to leave. He kissed her.

  ‘I love you,’ he whispered.

  ‘I love you too,’ she said and kissed him again. ‘Please be careful.’

  ‘I will.’

  72

  At 8 a.m. Carmine checked out of the motel he’d been lying low in for three days and hit the road.

  His flight to Buffalo didn’t leave until 10.45, but he had one more thing to do before he left town.

  He drove to 63rd Street and pulled up by the kerb where Julita was standing.

  She came over to the window, stick-on smile and eyes criss-crossing the street for cops. It took her a few long seconds to recognize him.

  ‘Get in,’ he said.

  ‘Where we goin’?’

  ‘Just get in quick,’ he insisted.

  They drove off.

  ‘Cops are lookin’ for you. You’re in the papers. I seen this drawing of you on TV.’

  ‘I seen that too. Didn’t look like me.’

  ‘Drawing was better-lookin’,’ she retorted.

  He laughed.

  ‘Bonbon’s dead,’ he told her. ‘You see that on TV?’

  ‘No, but I heard he was. I heard you killed him.’

  ‘Who told you?’ he asked.

  ‘One of the girls. I figured it for bullshit. Everyone out here figured the same. We think it’s just some story Bonbon put out to fuck with our heads. He does that a lot,’ she said.

  ‘Well, it’s true,’ Carmine said. ‘Bonbon’s dead.’

  ‘So, you back in charge?’

  ‘It’s a new day, baby. You’re unemployed. I’m takin’ you home. Where’d you live?’

  ‘Quit fuckin’ wit’ me, Carmine.’

  ‘I ain’t fuckin’ wit’ you. I’m for real. But I ain’t got no time to convince you, so tell me yo’ address.’

  ‘I can’t just leave.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I got to earn my paper.’

  The fat fuck had scared her good, brainwashed her, and the street had done the rest. It hadn’t taken long. It never did.

  ‘Bonbon’s dead, Julita. DEAD. You don’t owe him nuttin’. And you ain’t hoin’ no mo’. Address? Quick. Please.’

  She told him.

  Fifteen minutes later they were parked outside a sorry-looking orange condo in Little Havana, cracks snaking up the walls, bars on all the windows.

  ‘You know I’m gettin’ evicted at the end of this month?’ she said. ‘It ain’t like it was with you. Bonbon took every last cent, gave nothin’ back.’

  Carmine opened the glove compartment and handed her a large brown envelope.

  She looked inside. Her mouth dropped open and her eyes came so far out of their sockets he thought they were going to pop out.

  ‘What’s this?’

  ‘What it looks like?’

  $100,000. The least he could do. He wished he’d had more so he could have spared more.

  ‘This–this is for me?’ She took out a brick of C-notes. Her hand was shaking.

  ‘Yeah. It’s for you.’ He nodded.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Call it a goin’ away present,’ he said.

  ‘You leavin’?’ she asked, without taking her eyes off the money, as if she were afraid to, lest it vanished.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Where you goin’?’

  ‘Far away from here. An’ I ain’t never comin’ back.’

  She put the money in the envelope and closed her hands tight around the opening. She was shaking.

  ‘Why you doin’ this?’ She searched his face.

  ‘You know, I never tole you, but–er–in my own fucked-up way, I always kinda liked you, Julita. I always kinda liked you a lot. Prolly ’cause you reminded me of this Latin lady who was nice to me way back when,’ Carmine said, looking out of the window to hide his embarrassment. He’d never told any girl he liked her. ‘She was called Lucita. She had long black hair like yours. She used to sing me to sleep on her lap. Best place I ever been.’

  ‘Lucita, huh?’ She smiled. ‘Maybe it was just my name you liked.’

  ‘Yeah, maybe…Or maybe it was more than juss that.’ Carmine laughed, remembering the first time he’d seen her dancing up on stage, hypnotizing those drunk drooling assholes with her magic ass and sinuous moves; then he remembered her black and vicious sense of humour, her way with one-liners–put-downs like knock-out punches.

  ‘Who knows? In another life? You and me?’ Carmine sighed, looking at her again.

  ‘This life’s all we got, Carmine.’ She sni?ed, as her shock made way for tears, which mingled with her mascara and ran sootily down her face.

  ‘Sucks, don’t it? Only gettin’ that one shot.’ Carmine dabbed at her cheeks with a handkerchief, which he then gave her. He looked at his watch. ‘I gotta go.’

  She grabbed his hand.

  ‘Let’s all go. You, me, the kids.’

  Carmine shook his head.

  ‘No. First up, I ain’t daddy material, Julita. I ain’t no one’s idea of a good example. And, as long as you wit’ me, you ain’t gonna be safe. Cops are after me, Solomon’s after me. If I ain’t dead, I’m in jail.’

  ‘Then vaya con Dios, Carmine. I won’t forget you.’ She threw her arms around him and held him tight. When she pulled away she left her tears cooling on his cheek.

  ‘No, please forget me,’ he said. ‘An’ please forgive me for draggin’ you into all o’ this…this shit. Take care o’ yo’ babies. Take care o’ yo’ self. An’ you get outta this place too, you hear? Get well away from here.’

  Carmine walked straight past the two cops at the airport entrance without looking at either of them. He had on his gold-rimmed Ray-Bans, a light grey suit and an open-necked white Oxford shirt. He looked inconspicuously respectable, just another businessman with an attaché case in one hand and a suitcase in the other, flying home after a convention.

  It was a Friday, so Departures was busy, just as he’d expected. He scoped out the place. Plenty of uniformed police about and plenty of plainclothes too, failing to look like civilians as they scoured faces.

  He’d already bought his ticket–under a false name: Ray Washington. He checked his bag in and held on to the attaché case. It was where his money was.

  His plane was leaving for New York in forty minutes.

  He made his way to the boarding gates.

  Up until then he hadn’t been nervous, but now, suddenly, he went into panic mode. The noise around him–canned music, flight announcements, conversations–merged into a saw-like buzz. His heart began to pound fast and hard, his mouth dried up and sweat started dribbling down his forehead and temples.

  He walked a little faster.

  Up ahead of him was the entrance to the boarding gates. Two people were checking tickets behind a desk. Behind them were three cops. They were looking at every face that went through.

  He remembered the gun he’d packed in his briefcase. He’d dumped Bonbon’s Magnum and bought himself a .38 snubnose, just in case. He had to get rid of it before he crossed into the boarding area. They had metal detectors. Why hadn’t he thought of that?

  He regretted not simply driving away. Why hadn’t he done that? Just left on the night of the shoot-out? What was he thinking? That it’d all blow over after three days? Why take a fucking plane? It wasn’t like he was leaving the country?

  Why in the hell did he have to be so damn smart only after he’d been totally utterly fuckin’ stupid?

  He stopped.

  It wasn’t too late. He could turn around, walk out, get back in his car…No, take a cab. What if the driver recognized him?

  Shit.

  OK. Start again. Turn around, walk out, get in your car, drive the fuck away.

  Sweat poured freely down his face, got under his glasses, itched.

>   He noticed one of the cops behind the desk was now staring at him.

  He turned around.

  A crowd of people was coming towards him.

  Passengers.

  He started walking away hurriedly.

  He saw someone threading through the crowd, slaloming past the moving bodies, looking at him the whole time.

  And then he noticed there were more people winding their way towards him.

  Four, no five, no six black men…including Solomon.

  He stopped again and turned back to the boarding gates.

  The cop who’d been staring at him was looking at a sheet of paper, and then back at him. He said something to the other two cops, who both looked right at him.

  Carmine knew he was fucked.

  He could surrender right now, or…he turned to face Solomon, who was getting closer. He opened the case and took out his gun.

  He let the case fall. The money spilt out with a sound close to a splash.

  People around him gasped and bumped into each other.

  Someone asked him: ‘Hey, is that yours…?’

  He raised his gun, cocked it and walked towards Solomon. All around him people stopped where they were. He got a bead on Solomon and fired once. Solomon dropped to the ground and rolled away to his left.

  Carmine aimed again, but, before he could get another shot off, his torso exploded with pain.

  He was surrounded by onlookers, gawping, shaking, crying, blank-faced, curious.

  His chest felt crushed. He was finding it hard to breathe. His shirt and jacket were the same bright red.

  He was going to die.

  He looked for Solomon in his audience.

  He saw him, standing there, one of maybe twenty faces, staring at him impassively.

  And then there was a new arrival, someone he recognized: that cop who’d beaten him up in the parking lot of Al & Shirley’s.

  Max Mingus.

  Out of breath, red-faced. He had pushed in and was standing right next to Solomon.

  Solomon was looking right at him.

  Carmine wanted to get up and warn Mingus, but he couldn’t. He tried to raise his arm to at least point Solomon out, but it was too heavy. He tried to say something, but his throat was fast filling up with blood.

  He decided to use his eyes instead. He looked Mingus in the eye, locked into him and then moved his eyeballs sharply to the right. Mingus didn’t react.

  He started to do it again, but his vision blurred and then fogged up, the colours leeching away into the purest white he’d ever seen.

  Fuck it, he thought. I tried, right?

  PART SIX

  August–October 1981

  73

  Max came to haphazardly, rushing in and out of consciousness as if he was sprinting through time zones on winged feet–day to night, to day to night again. Wakefulness was hard to stand: it brought a wild dizziness to his brain and sharp stabbing pains to his neck and shoulders. He tried to fix and focus his eyes on a specific image, but his new environment whirled fast before him like greased carousel horses, defying all purchase and definition. He found it easier simply to close his eyes and sink deep and fast into oblivion, where the pain faded and his head settled and cleared.

  The second to last thing he remembered was Carmine Desamours lying on the ground, his torso ripped open and shredded red; a fast-expanding crimson puddle under his back. He’d made eye contact with Max, his green irises registering first recognition, then trying to tell him something. Desamours had flicked his glance sharply to the right, twice. Max had turned and found himself face to face with a dark-skinned man with cuts all over his forehead and a very familiar stare.

  As he’d reached for his gun, he’d felt a powerful crack on the nape of his neck.

  A small engine whirred at his ear. He opened his eyes again. He was no longer dizzy, just exhausted, worn down to the bone. Things were coming into focus. He was in a vast, bare space with a concrete floor–about the size of a warehouse or an aircraft hangar–with a large, powerful spotlight beaming down on him from the ceiling, warming his exposed flesh. He was stark naked. He’d been shaved clean from ankles to groin, and his skin was gleaming, as if he’d been covered in oil.

  How long had he been out?

  He moved his head back to look up, but the engine stopped and a pair of rough, strong hands grabbed either side of his skull.

  ‘Keep still,’ a man ordered him.

  He was sitting in a chair. His arms were tied behind his back and his legs were bound at the ankles. He could only roll on and off. He was as good as trapped.

  The whirring resumed. He felt a dull, blunt object moving up along his cranium. Hair tumbled over his forehead and rolled softly and itchily over his face. Clippers. His head was being shaved. He thought of death-row inmates getting shorn like sheep before they got the chair; he remembered reading about what they’d done to the girlfriends of Nazi soldiers in Europe after liberation.

  ‘Where’s Boukman?’ Max asked.

  The barber didn’t answer, just went about his business, now working on Max’s temples, occasionally blowing away loose hair.

  ‘Close your eyes,’ the barber growled when he’d finished.

  Max complied. He felt the clippers moving across his forehead, his eyebrows crackling between the oscillating metal teeth. Then he heard the snip-snip of scissors.

  ‘Rinse! ’ the barber shouted.

  A bucket of cold water was dumped over Max’s head. The shock of it so sudden and unexpected it made him scream.

  But it completely woke him up too.

  He knew what was happening.

  Tomorrow–if today was still Friday–was Saturday.

  The ceremony.

  The SNBC.

  He’d first–briefly–regained consciousness in an ambulance. He’d found himself strapped to a gurney and the siren was wailing. The vehicle was shaking. They were moving at high speed. Two men in police uniform were leaning over him, one rolling up a sleeve, the other prepping a syringe.

  Before they’d shot him up with stuff that had sent him back to sleep he’d realized Boukman had had phoney cops on the airport concourse. Or were they real cops working for him?

  After the drenching, the barber–a tapering hulk of over-developed muscle packed in a sleeveless denim shirt, grey sweatpants and a Hermés headscarf–sprayed the top of Max’s head with shaving foam and spread it over his scalp. He produced a cutthroat razor from his pocket and scraped the stubble off Max’s dome, wiping the blade residue on a cloth. He did Max’s brows last.

  ‘Rinse! ’

  They left him alone, dripping in a big puddle of water.

  He looked around. He saw the bright light above him, the concrete ground and a trapdoor approximately twenty feet away. There were reddish-brown markings on the ground around the chair: a cross to his left, a star to his right and a line dividing them; the symbols were framed by the outline of a coffin.

  Max raised his legs off the floor. His ankles were bound with a thick tourniquet of packaging tape. He tried moving his hands. He could barely wriggle his fingers.

  There was no way out of this. He was going to die the long way.

  Boukman would feed him the potion, put a gun in his hand and send him out to murder. He would no longer know who he was, let alone recognize the target. He prayed that target wouldn’t be Sandra–and if it was her that the potion or a bullet would kill him before he even came close to taking her life.

  At that moment he felt his captor’s gaze on him. He was roving around in the darkness, studying Max from every angle. First from the back, then his profile, then his face. Max didn’t bother searching for him. He knew he was there with an unverifiable certainty.

  ‘BOUKMAN’ he yelled. ‘You hidin’ again, you fucken’ cocksucker? You fucken’ coward! Why don’t you show your face, asshole? Come on out! What’ve you got to lose, huh? I know what you fucken’ look like!’

  But Boukman didn’t come out. Max’s words
echoed around the empty space, and his anger–his useless rage–hugged the air like cold cordite.

  ‘Hey…’ Max said after a few moments’ reflection, his tone normal, resigned. ‘If I don’t see you again, hear this…Fuck you!’

  Some time later the barber returned, wheeling a small metal table. Two other men followed behind, carrying a black plastic bucket, which they set down on the floor in front of Max, out of reach of his feet, but close enough for him to see the contents: a putrid-looking milky-green liquid with the viscous consistency of pea soup.

  ‘That the Kool Aid?’ Max sneered.

  The two men looked first at each other and then at him and then again at one another and chuckled in unison.

  The barber positioned the table close to the bucket. On top were a small stack of Dixie cups, a plastic funnel, a spindle of catgut, a matchbox, a soup ladle and a leather case in the shape of a pocketbook.

  He wasn’t quites care dyet, more apprehensive and nervous.

  The barber dipped the ladle into the bucket and filled a cup.

  ‘You can make this easy on yourself and just suck it down,’ he said, as he took the matchbox, slid it open and sprinkled its contents–small coloured squares–into the cup. ‘Or else you make us force you. Your choice.’

  ‘Fuck off!’ Max shouted.

  ‘Most people get it over with–glug-glug,’ the barber suggested calmly.

  ‘Fuck off !’

  The barber nodded to the two men.

  One locked his arm around Max’s head, covering his eyes, while the other grabbed Max’s legs, straightened them and held them fast.

  Strong fingers gripped Max’s lower jaw and forced it down, stretching his skin, muscles and ligaments to tearing point, until the whole lower half of his head felt like it was going to snap off.

  He struggled about, wriggling and thrashing and rolling his shoulders, but he was too constricted for his movements to count for anything other than a nominal, face-saving resistance.

  The chair was tilted and the plastic funnel was jammed into his mouth, the end reaching his back teeth. He bit down on it but the plastic was hard and unyielding.