Walls of Silence

by Walls Of Silence Free(Lit)

  I removed a couple of things from the bag, then slung it into a clump of reeds and started back on the ladder. I was short of breath and my eyes were clouded with sweat.

  “Don’t move a fucking muscle.”

  A beam of light hit me at the same time as the voice. The top of the ladder was the brilliant white center of a powerful flashlight or, perhaps, a searchlight.

  My limbs locked, my hand shielding my eyes, trying to peer into the sharp contrasts of black and white.

  Someone broke the light beam by pitching his body over the edge of the ladder to start a descent. I couldn’t see who it was. I was only aware of the confident movement of strong legs planting themselves firmly on each rung of the ladder.

  “Bring him up here,” someone shouted from above. McIntyre?

  Then I caught a glimpse of white; a large, square dressing on the back of a shaven head.

  Jesse jumped the last three steps, walked over to me, and, without a word, planted a massive punch in my stomach.

  As I dropped to the sand, clutching my intestines, Jesse stood back and rubbed his knuckle. “Fucking attorneys,” he hissed.

  “Stop horsing around, Jesse.” The voice from the top of the cliff. Angry, authoritative. It was definitely McIntyre. “Just get him up here.”

  Jesse grabbed my collar and jerked me upright. “Get up the ladder, motherfucker.”

  I leaned against the cold, rusty rungs and could feel the dribble running down my chin. My legs start to give way under me. In the distance I could hear more birds taking flight. They didn’t sound like ducks. They sounded like vultures, circling, ready for their next meal.

  “I can’t move,” I wheezed.

  Jesse pulled his fist back as if to hit me again, then stopped and looked around him.

  “Then we’ll have to give you some help, won’t we,” he said.

  Tugging at the end of the dangling rope, he formed it, in an instant, into a crude noose, which he looped over my neck and pulled tight.

  He lifted his head. “Start that winch, Mr. M,” he shouted.

  He then patted me on the cheek. “Cheerio, old fellow. Express service to the top floor. This time, no stops.”

  As he bounded up the ladder, I pulled at the rope, jerking at it, tearing at it as it dug deep into my neck.

  I tried to scream but only managed a rasp.

  My head started to explode as I felt my feet leave the ground and kick frantically against the cliff wall. I clawed at the noose, driving my fingers between the coarse rope and my flesh, but it made no difference; there was a vice closing on my throat and inside my head was a fireworks display.

  Thoughts cascaded and then I wasn’t thinking anything at all.

  The first thing I sensed was movement. The world was moving. Flying by. Then pain. My back was on fire.

  I tried to swallow. The vice still gripped and I gagged. I wanted to bring my hands to my throat, feel it, comfort it. My skin on my skin. But my arms weren’t responding, they were being held by something above my head. It was like I was on the rack.

  And still the world was moving. Pictures passed me by. Tables; one with an old black telephone, like my grandfather’s, another with a large Chinese vase, blooming with vivid yellow and white flowers.

  Then I could see up a grand staircase, a huge picture window at the top where the flight hit a landing and split in two.

  Thoughts started to return along with a blunted ability to analyze. I concluded that the world wasn’t moving, after all. I was. Jesse was dragging me by the wrists. The pictures, the tables, the vase, the telephone, were landmarks on a floor-level tour through the halfway house to hell.

  A phone rang somewhere: contemporary, electronic, out of kilter with the house.

  I felt someone rummaging in my jacket pocket and removing my cell phone. The noise suddenly got shriller.

  I looked up to see McIntyre peer at the screen and then press a button. He listened for a moment before switching it off, before placing itcarefully beneath the heel of his shoe and grinding it into an inoperable mess.

  He turned to Jesse and nodded.

  Jesse tapped me in the ribs with his toecap. “You be good while I’m gone.”

  He marched across the hall and fought for a moment with a giant latch handle on the front door.

  I heard the house echo as the huge door closed behind him.

  “I thought we had a deal, Fin,” McIntyre said.

  I could only manage a croak.

  McIntyre said, “You sure got Jesse pissed with that bump on his head.”

  Footsteps sounded from down the hall. I tried to move, but everything hurt too much.

  “You should have stayed away, Fin.” It was Mendip’s voice, but I sensed he hadn’t come alone. I swiveled my head and looked up.

  Flanked by Mendip and Askari was Carol. Her face was as wretched as the tracksuit she wore, the same one she’d been wearing at St. Cecelia’s.

  “Fin,” she whispered. Her voice barely covered the distance. She began to move toward me.

  Askari gripped her hair and pulled her back into line.

  I opened my mouth to scream at him. I squirmed, raging at my impotence.

  McIntyre knelt at my side, keeping his eyes on Carol.

  “Have you any idea what she’d be worth to the right customer?” he said. “I wish we’d got the mother: a pair. Like vases and candlesticks, more valuable as a pair.” He poked me in the ribs. “A bit of makeup, around the eyes, redden up those lips. They could have danced together, undressed each other.” Ernie had said he wanted to dance with the Pixies,a defiling dance. “Maybe bathed together. Oedipus becomes Shedipus. Jesus, it gives me a boner just thinking about it.”

  He seemed to retreat from the fantasy and straightened up. “Still, we got her.”

  I started to squirm again. McIntyre pulled me upright. “Here, let me help you. Get a better view of your loved one.” He slid me alongthe floor and propped me against the wood-paneled wall. I could smell the polish; it tormented my throat and made me gag.

  “You ever get Carol to fix up the threesome for you?” he asked. “Heck, I’d respect you for that.”

  “Stick to business, Jim,” Mendip said. He drew heavily on his inhaler, as if his lungs couldn’t cope with his own stench.

  I moved my legs and arms a little. I didn’t feel paralyzed anymore. The vice was still on my throat, but air could get past it now.

  The front door opened and Pablo appeared, Jesse herding him from behind. From the outside, I could hear a distant rattle. It was familiar, but at that moment I couldn’t place it.

  “He was near the house, Mr. M,” Jesse said. “Cut loose from that nice silver car of his.”

  Pablo glanced at Carol, winced, and then looked at me. “You okay?”

  “No,” I croaked.

  The rattle had turned into a steady throb that was starting to vibrate through the house. I could feel it pulsing through my body.

  McIntyre raised his eyes to the ceiling. “They’re here.” He turned to me. “Like I said, I thought we had a deal. I’m a lawyer, you’re a lawyer, and we struck a bargain.”

  “A standoff isn’t a deal,” I said. I had to draw a nigh-impossible breath between each word.

  McIntyre shrugged. “Well, this is the position now.” He moved over to Pablo and clapped him on the back. “You’re now keeper of the key, Pablo. You’re a big guy now. As of this morning you’re a partner. Something to celebrate with Connie.” He turned to Mendip and Askari. “His wife. A good family man, the kind we like at the top table.”

  “I don’t want a partnership.” Pablo’s words were barely audible above the now deafening noise from outside. “I don’t want anything to do with you.”

  “Time-out, my Latino friend.” McIntyre’s face was pure threat now, the smile gone. “You’ll take the cap, and you’ll fucking wear it. If you don’t, then this lady will be fucked until she splits open. And to reinforce the point, you and Connie will take delivery each day
of a piece of one of the kids we just shipped out of here.”

  Pablo looked at me.

  “Go on,” McIntyre said, “ask his advice. He should understand the meaning of standoff by now.”

  “Do what he says, Pablo.” I didn’t know if he could hear me. The noise shook the house now. It was a helicopter, maybe two of them.

  That explained the ugly expanse of asphalt in front of the house. McIntyre hated boats, didn’t he? And a car meant running Officer Miller’s puny gauntlet.

  Carol shook herself free of Askari’s grasp and ran over to me. She fell on my chest; her eyes scanned my face, her hands running gently over the bruised skin on my neck.

  She turned to McIntyre. “Why?” she asked. “Don’t you people have enough, what more could you want? So you take our lives, what’s next? Where do you stop?”

  She got up and started to move toward McIntyre, her arms semi-outstretched in a kind of bewildered supplication rather than aggression. Jesse stepped forward and delivered a sweeping kick, Carol’s legs buckling under her. Jesse then stood over her like a proud matador.

  “It’s not about killing, Carol,” I said. “It’s about something much worse. For you. We have no choice. They’ll kill me whatever happens.”

  Jesse went to the front door and opened it, allowing Carol to crawl back to me. The noise and clatter swept in like a storm. I could feel Carol’s wet cheeks on mine, her hands in what was left of my hair. Her hair blew in the wind, and it was like the storm was pulling her away from me. But it was Jesse wrenching her from my grasp.

  Through the swirl and mayhem, the tears and the despairing face, I could see her lips move. But I couldn’t hear her.

  I tried to stand up, levering myself up against the wall.

  McIntyre was shouting instructions into Jesse’s ear, pointing this way and that, directing everybody to their proper positions for the final clear-out.

  Askari waylaid Jesse and helped himself to the handgun that poked out from his belt. He nodded and let Jesse move out through the front door, then stood over me, pointing the gun at my head. His face was expressionless.

  He kicked me, and waved the gun upward, indicating that he wanted me to stand. Fuck him.

  He kicked harder. I started the struggle to get upright. Suddenly I felt Mendip’s hands under my armpits. His face was gray-blue, taut, wracked by the battle of his spongy lungs for air.

  He helped me up and guided me to the door. His arms felt weak. Who was supporting whom?

  There was a hurricane outside. Except no rain, just the blast of whipped hot night air and the shrill whine of two helicopters, parked near each other, their blades almost touching.

  I looked up. Even the sad sliver of moon had gone. There were no stars either. How was that possible? It had been a beautiful day, not a cloud in sight.

  Where were the stars, for Christ’s sake?

  Askari moved his gun in a series of downward jerks. He tapped his head with his other hand.

  What was he—?

  I felt the air whip around my head.

  Why should he care if I lost my head in the rotor blades? Inconvenience, I guessed. They’d cleaned out the house. It was now a respectable Long Island retreat. My brains on the asphalt might tarnish the image if the police got to nose around the place.

  Howwerethey going to kill me?

  Askari shoved me through the door of the helicopter. The interior was like the crowded rear section of a cheap flight. Carol was already in one seat, head lolling back on the rest, like she was unconscious, with Jesse leaning over her. He pulled up sharply and now I could see the syringe in his hand. In-flight refreshments had just been served.

  A helmeted pilot sat in his seat like a statue. A trusty butler in a hard hat, who sees nothing, hears nothing.

  Jesse shoved me into the empty backseat, took out a vial of liquid, and jabbed the syringe into it. Under my feet I could feel a solid lump and, glancing down, I recognized the shape of a sandbag.

  So I was to be knocked out and dumped at sea.

  Above the noise, I heard a shout.

  It was Askari. He was gesticulating at Jesse, who handed the gun over to Mendip, and pointed to the other chopper. I watched as McIntyre and Pablo climbed into it.

  Was Mendip coming with us? Four seats, but five people, including Jesse and the pilot. Would the whirlibird even take off with that load? Or had Mendip been deputed to be the last one aboard the escape chopper, the last guy on the roof of the US embassy in Saigon? His commission to see us off safely first.

  My hand burrowed into my pocket.

  In a moment I’d be out cold; would I even be aware of the instant of my death?

  Lawyers like to use a Latinism when there isn’t a fixed time for an event.Sine die,they say. Without day. It doesn’t mean it won’t happen, it’s just that you don’t know when. From the moment that the flashlight blinded me on the beach behind the house, I’d told myself there might be a better time to act.Sine die,I’d told myself.

  Now, the time was fixed.

  The time was now.

  I curved my fingers around the short cylinder. I kept my eyes on Jesse as my fingers felt for the tab. He turned to me, syringe in hand, an echo of Damindra Ketan at the Towers of Silence. But this time I wasn’t going to turn the syringe back on my assailant.

  Jesse gave me a strange look, like he sensed something was wrong.

  I pulled out the cylinder, ripped off the tab, and leaning forward, I dropped it between the pilot’s legs. I heard it bounce against the foot pedals, spluttering on the floor.

  When you shake up a can of Bud really hard, the geyser that erupts when you pull the tab can be spectacular.

  But this wasn’t a can of Bud, and instead of beer spewing out, it was flame.

  And a distress flare isn’t just supposed to behave like a top-of-the-range Roman Candle. It’s supposed to send a little ball of phosphorous, or whatever, a thousand feet up into the air. You’re supposed to see the resulting supernova from the fucking moon.

  The pilot didn’t need any explanation at all. He was already out of the chopper; a neat parachute roll on the tarmac and he was away.

  Jesse was also trying to leave, but he was in an awkward position between the front and rear seats.

  I had nowhere to go.

  I leaned across the gangway and tried to spread myself over Carol.

  In the confined space, the blast was ear-shattering. I could feel the wave of heat pass over my back. The whole chopper shook.

  The cabin filled with thick smoke that corkscrewed out of the open doors. If those doors had been shut . . .

  I twisted my body around and caught hold of Carol, tipping her over the front seat and giving her a shove.

  I was choking badly now, and ready for the others to reappear and finish what they’d started. My body was seizing up, giving up. I was finished.

  A pair of hands appeared on my shoulders. Old hands.

  They pulled at me, a compassionate removal of my arms from their sockets.

  I hit the asphalt.

  The smoke was clearing and I could see Mendip’s face staring into mine.

  A bloodless face, an old, old face, engulfed by despair.

  He coughed viciously, swayed a little, but then broke into a stumbling run, waving his arms at the other helicopter that was starting to rise from the ground, hovering uncertainly, a face pressed against the window behind the pilot. Whose face? Pablo’s? McIntyre’s or Askari’s?

  I managed to crawl over to Carol. She looked like a sleeping child that had fallen out of bed and not even woken. I swept the hair from her face.

  Nearby, the belly of the chopper fizzed and spluttered, as if it had a terminal case of acid indigestion. I was in a trance. I had to move, move myself and Carol. But I couldn’t.

  In the distance, the other helicopter retreated over the Sound. Then the clatter of rotor blades was replaced by the wail of sirens. A whole orchestra of light and sound, appearing over the brow of the hi
ll like a Wurlitzer from the pit of an old Broadway theater.

  The cops could put out the flames in the chopper, I thought. That was their job.

  FIFTY

  Detective Manelli said he was confused.

  He had an unconscious Carol (or, rather, he didn’t have her anymore, she was in an ambulance on the way to the hospital). He had a patch of slime and some scattered body parts spread in a wide radius around a burnt-out helicopter now covered in foam. I guessed these were the remains of Jesse; he must’ve ignored Askari’s advice and leapt upward when he left the chopper, caught himself in the still-rotating blades. Strange what one misses; I hadn’t noticed the mess until Manelli pointed it out.

  He had an old guy who couldn’t breathe, let alone talk.

  He had an empty house, quiet as a fucking grave, he said.

  “And I’ve got you.”

  He rested a foot on the ramp at the back of the ambulance, where I sat with a blanket wrapped around my shoulders.

  “And I’ve just finished a call with your counsel.”

  Pablo? Where the hell was Pablo?

  “Mr. Jim McIntyre,” he said in mock awe. “Senior partner ofSchuster Mannheim.” I didn’t correct him; he wouldn’t be interested in handshake logos.

  “You’ve got the top man working for you,” Manelli continued. “Meant to scare me, I guess. But I’ve met him before, checking he wasn’t taking his attorney’s duty to his client too far, like maybe harboring a fugitive. Not in the Rockefeller Center itself, of course—that one caught me out, I’ll admit—he says you never made it to his office. I’m not sure I believe him. Cute trick with the cans, by the way: Interfacing with traffic seems to be your bag, doesn’t it? Anyway, McIntyre seems a nice enough guy—for an attorney. He says that he has some very disturbing evidence about the old guy who can’t breathe. He may seem like a nice old Brit, but it turns out he’s the devil. Mr. McIntyre says that you’re one of his victims. He says I better be nice to you because the weight of his firm will be behind you.”

  Manelli drew close to me. “I don’t give a fuck about Schuster Mannheim or its senior partner; all I care about is understanding this mess. We get a call from a pay phone at La Guardia. A lady with a Spanish accent. She tells us nothing; just mentions your name and tells us to get up here.”