New Dark Ages

by Warren Kinsella

Danny also saw something else, very briefly. It was the handle of some kind of a revolver, in a holster attached to Ezra’s belt.

  Then Ezra buttoned up his jacket, but only just barely. He was sweating. He smiled, a big-bucks smile.

  “A half-million bucks, Danny,” Ezra said, tapping the counter, preparing to leave. “To start. I will be in touch to tell you when, how, and where. If you tell anyone other than Turner, we will kill your family, got it?”

  Danny nodded, feeling short of breath.

  Ezra slapped him on the back, like he was an old friend. “Good boy,” he said. “See you soon.”

  CHAPTER 33

  What?

  “… she has these spectacular tits, Kurt. Just fucking huge tits, and they were all sweaty and bouncing right above me. And she has these long, long legs, and they were on either side of me …”

  How?

  “… and she was riding me, brother, for like the third or fourth time, I honestly can’t remember. This fucking amazing little ass, and we were in my room at the Rex, and she was just totally in control and I was just her sex slave, you know? And her face …”

  Why?

  “… her face is just, like, wow. Like out of this fucking world. Like a model or something. And I just lay there, all night, knowing that I would never be fucked like this again for the rest of my life. This fuck should have been in the Smithsonian, it was so fucking historic, brother.”

  Who?

  “I know I wasn’t her first choice, man. She wanted X. But I was okay with playing second string on this assignment, you know what I mean?”

  My eyes started to focus. It was dark. I was in a hospital room somewhere, in a bed. There was another bed, and it was occupied. A screen prevented me from seeing who was in it, but I recognized the voice. It was Eddie Igglesden, our drummer.

  But why was he in a hospital bed? Why was I, for that matter?

  I grunted. Then I saw Eddie sit up on my bed and look over at me. “Brother? Are you awake?”

  I grunted again. Eddie jumped off the bed and clapped his big hands. “I did it! I told you as many porno­graphic stories as I could to wake you up — and it worked!” Eddie patted me on my arm — which, I noticed for the first time, was handcuffed to the metal bed frame. “Sorry the stories were heterosexual in nature, brother. That’s all I’ve got in my repertoire.”

  “Who the fuck were you talking about?” I said, my voice like Lazarus after a bender. “Who …?”

  Eddie smiled. “Oh, that? The chick who sings for Tit Sweat. Nagamo. Holy fucking hell, brother, she fucked me like I was her last meal.” He paused, grinning like a goof. Which he was. “She couldn’t have X, so I volunteered!”

  Despite myself, I laughed, but it came out like a crow’s croak. Eddie busied himself looking for a glass of water. I drank it using my free arm.

  “Where am I?” I rasped. I indicated the handcuffs. “And why am I …”

  Eddie’s goofy smile disappeared. He looked at the door of the room. “I dunno, brother,” he said. “Maybe I should get the doctor so they can talk to you …”

  “Fuck the doctor.” I coughed. “How the fuck did I get here?”

  “You snorted a bit too much of the crystal, bud,” he said. “Sam and Luke found you convulsing and stuff on the floor of your room. Thank Christ your door was ­unlocked.” He paused. “You need to cool it on that shit, Kurt, man.”

  No kidding, I thought.

  “Where is everyone else?” I said, sounding a bit more human. “What about the show?”

  “The show’s been rescheduled until you’re back on your feet, brother,” he said. “Sam, Luke, me, and Leah and Sister Betty did this fuck band thing and called ourselves the Hot Virgin Punks. We were actually not bad.” He laughed. “Bembe and Mike even came up and we played some really bad covers of reggae stuff by Desmond Dekker. It was hilarious.”

  I frowned. “What about Patti?”

  Eddie rolled his eyes. “She freaked when Nagamo hit on X. Took off to stay with some feminist punk chick she knows out in Toronto’s east end. Lisa or something.” Eddie shrugged. “The Nasties couldn’t play without you, so we did the fuck band thing with Betty and Leah. The Horseshoe actually liked it. We drove plenty of people to drink.” He laughed.

  A “fuck band,” in case you’re wondering, which you probably are, happens when a band (or bands) are short a member or two and they form a band to fuck around and be stupid. My old band with Danny Hate, the Social Blemishes, was basically a two-year-long fuck band.

  I surveyed my surroundings, wondering (a) how to get out and (b) what had happened to my baggie full of speed. I then remembered something.

  “Wait,” I said. “Where’s X? You didn’t say anything about X.”

  Eddie scowled and surveyed the floor. “Yeah, well …”

  “What?” I asked him.

  “X is gone, brother. He took off. Nobody’s seen him in a couple days.”

  CHAPTER 34

  Lighthouse Cleaners looked like what it claimed to be.

  It even had customers. It was Lower Manhattan, early morning on a weekday, and the customers could be seen going in with bundles of shirts and suits to be cleaned and pressed, and out carrying plastic-covered shirts and suits and dresses.

  Theresa Laverty, Pete Schenk, and Tommy were in a fake FedEx van on Lafayette Street, pointed south and just down from the Church of the Creators’ New York City hideout. The van had tinted windows, ensuring no one could see in. Looking out, however, Schenk confessed that he didn’t see anything all that unusual happening.

  “So, are all those customers going in and out Church of the Creator types?” he asked Laverty and Tommy, clearly skeptical. “They look like a bunch of SoHo yuppie types to me.”

  “Yes,” Laverty said, her eyes remaining focused on Lighthouse Cleaners. “And, yes, they’re real people. Real customers. Which also partly explains why we haven’t charged in there, executing a warrant for Billy Klassen, guns blazing. We’re still not sure he’s there. And we’re not sure some innocent yuppie wouldn’t get hurt, either.”

  “Gotcha,” Schenk said. “No perp. No dead yuppies. No shooting up so-called churches.” He grunted, wondering again why he’d agreed to do the way-too-early stakeout. It seemed like a big waste of time. “What’s the last known location of Billy?”

  Tommy spoke. “Ever since he was kicked out of the ­military, he’s been his father’s shadow. Runs what they called the COTC Security Legions. A few dozen pumped-up young guys like him, some ex-military, armed to the teeth. They like to blow up ordnance and improvised bombs in remote areas outside their headquarters in Otto.”

  “But he’s in the wind now,” Laverty said, sipping at a Dean & Deluca green tea. “No sign of him anywhere. Which maybe lends credence to the notion that he killed those three kids. He knows we’re looking for him, I suspect.”

  “So what’s up with the punk band, with their tour?” Schenk asked. “Any more corpses show up?”

  Laverty shook her head. “Not yet. They’ve done shows in Burlington, Montreal, Ottawa, and now they’re in Toronto.” She paused, looking unhappy. “Their lead singer almost overdosed a few nights ago and is now chained to a bed in a Toronto hospital.”

  “The glorious rock ’n’ roll lifestyle,” Schenk said. “What is it with these fucking kids? Do they all want to die at twenty-seven?”

  Laverty didn’t answer. “The show in Ottawa I saw was practically nonstop violence,” she said. “It was ridiculous. These punks don’t dance — they slam into each other at the foot of the stage, and it inevitably leads to fistfights and brawls. Call me old-fashioned, but I don’t quite see how that can be called entertainment. Or even dancing.”

  “So, do you have anyone watching them while they’re in Canada?” Schenk asked.

  There was a long pause.

  “We can’t, of course. No jurisdiction,” Laverty said carefully. “But the RCMP told us they’d keep an eye on things as best they could.”

 
Schenk looked at her. She wasn’t telling him something. Again. “But no bodies yet.”

  “No bodies,” she said. “Lots of black eyes and bloodied noses, but no murders. If Billy Klassen killed those three kids, he’s laying low now.”

  The trio continued to watch Lighthouse, saying little. It was getting closer to 9:00 a.m., and the number of customers was slowing down.

  Shortly past nine, the place emptied out. There was no one inside apart from the beefy young man at the counter. He, too, was COTC, Laverty said.

  A white limousine suddenly appeared, turning onto Kenmare off Center Street. It screeched to a halt at the minipark that faced Lighthouse Cleaners. Two muscular young men in tight black suits jumped out and circled the limo to open a door on the other side from the phony FedEx van.

  “What the fuck?” Schenk said.

  “What do you know,” Laverty said, preparing a battered FBI-issue camera to take a few snaps. “It’s him.”

  They watched as the two bodyguards escorted their charge to the doors of Lighthouse.

  “Bernhardt Klassen,” Tommy said, “in the flesh.”

  CHAPTER 35

  After a few months of working for Earl Turner, Danny O’Heran had gotten used to the unexpected.

  Turner claimed to be a churchgoing family man, but he was regularly fucking his two press secretaries — and possibly others, in other states. That Danny had not expected.

  Turner had entered the Republican presidential race as a garden-variety populist rural conservative, but he had turned into a racist, gay-hating anti-Semitic demagogue. That Danny had not expected. Turner had professed to be the candidate for the little guy, but the only guys he cared about, truly, were the ones who gave him money — for his ad campaigns and to line his pockets. That Danny had not expected, either.

  And Earl Turner’s reaction to the news that a photo existed of him passed out in a hotel room in Eastport, Maine, his dick in some old guy’s mouth? He barely reacted at all. In fact, Earl Turner reacted like he had been expecting it.

  That Danny O’Heran had definitely not expected.

  They were back in Portland, sitting in the campaign Jeep. Danny had parked in an old part of town, a block or two from Gary’s, where he had once been known as Danny Hate and where he had once played the drums for the Social Blemishes with his friend Kurt Blank. Danny stared at Turner, who — while not quite blasé — was far from panicked or upset. To Danny, Turner seemed almost serene. It was weird.

  “So, you had never seen this Ezra guy before?” he ­finally asked Danny. “Not at any of your punk rock shows, or something like that?”

  “N-n-no, sir.” Danny was yellow-pale and looked ­terrible. He had been up all night. He spent most of it sitting on the floor outside the bedrooms where his younger siblings slept, his dad’s Heckler & Koch 9mm at his side.

  When Danny picked him up at his west end home, it had been difficult to persuade Earl Turner to go somewhere other than the campaign office. At first, Turner was concerned that Danny planned to quit. It would be inconvenient and give rise to unhelpful news stories.

  “It’s not that, sir,” he said. “I just need to speak with you someplace where we will not be bothered for a bit.”

  Reluctantly, Turner agreed. Twenty minutes later, Danny was parked on Congress, up the road from Gary’s. The Secret Service parked their big, black Suburban a few car lengths back.

  Haltingly, Danny told Turner about Ezra, and the photograph, and the gun, and the promise to kill the entire O’Heran family after they left Mass at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception. By the time he finished, Danny O’Heran was again a yellowish-pale, and sweating, and shit-scared.

  “They’re not going to kill your family,” Turner eventually said to him, sounding almost irritated. “That was just to ensure you didn’t speak to anyone but me.” He looked sideways at Danny. “You haven’t spoken to anyone else about this, have you?”

  “No, sir,” Danny said. “No way.”

  Earl Turner sucked air through his perfect teeth. “Good. And he said a half-million to start, is that correct? That’s what he said: ‘to start,’ right?”

  “Yes,” Danny said. “He said it was just to start.”

  Earl Turner shook his head. “They’re fucking dreaming if they think I’m going to be someone’s lifelong lottery ticket,” he said. “That is not going to fucking happen.”

  Danny was still in shock — by Ezra’s blackmail attempt and by how calmly Earl Turner was now reacting to it. “What are you going to do, sir?”

  There was an uncomfortable silence. “I’m going to pay it, Danny,” Turner said. He looked at him. “And you are going to take him the money when he tells you when and where.”

  “Me?” Danny said, feeling sick. “Shouldn’t we call the police, sir?”

  “The police?” Turner snapped, glaring at him. “Are you out of your fucking mind? It’ll leak to the press ten minutes after you call them. And the photo will be in one of the supermarket tabloids the very next day.” He paused, grimacing. “With parts of it blacked out, of course.”

  Danny was almost wild-eyed with fear. “Sir, what if the photo is a fake …”

  Turner cut him off. “It’s not fake,” he said, glaring at Danny. “It’s real.”

  “But …”

  “Danny, all of us make mistakes,” Turner said, impatient. “You made a mistake getting involved with that punk rock shit, and I made a mistake once or twice when I was younger. Had too many drinks, made a couple bad choices, and shit can happen. Shit happened.”

  Danny stared at him.

  “This Ezra guy, or whatever his name is, is like a million other guys out there,” Turner said, waving a big hand at the Jeep’s windshield and, presumably, the world outside. “He’s had this picture for a while, and he’s been waiting for the right moment to use it. If I weren’t doing well in the primaries, we might have never heard from him. I’m doing well, so he’s decided to make a million or two.” Turner actually shrugged. “That’s how this business is sometimes.”

  By “business,” Danny assumed Turner meant politics. After he’d worked on the Earl Turner campaign for a few months, Danny learned that politics was far dirtier than he ever imagined. But this?

  “You’re going to pay him? Isn’t he just going to keep coming back for more?”

  Earl Turner looked at Danny O’Heran, his contempt plain. “Of course he is. And of course we’re going to pay him,” Turner said. “Initially.”

  “Initially?”

  “Yeah, initially,” Turner said, looking in the Jeep’s side mirror at the Secret Service’s vehicle and straightening his tie, already getting ready for his first meeting of the day, with a bunch of antiabortion zealots from Vermont. “We need to get through New Hampshire and Iowa. We need to get through the next couple weeks. And then we’re going to erase any sign that he ever existed.”

  CHAPTER 36

  Ring ring ring.

  Click.

  “Hey.”

  “Hey! How are you? Are you okay?”

  “I’m good.”

  “How are the others?”

  Pause. “They’re good. Some more than others.”

  “He …”

  “Yeah.”

  “Was it bad?”

  “It was bad.”

  “Where is he now?”

  “Being watched. He’s okay. He’ll be okay.”

  “Good.” Pause. “Will it happen again?”

  “The way he’s going, probably.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “Yeah. Me, too.”

  “Where are you now, if you don’t mind me asking?”

  “In the States … you’re not home, right?”

  “No. No way. Pay phone. Different one than last time.”

  “Good.”

  “You been following what’s going on?”

  “Hard to miss. Yeah.”

  “Yeah. It’s crazy, man. It’s fucking insane. It’s …”
<
br />   “What? Is something wrong?”

  “What you said would happen has happened. Couple days ago.”

  “How did it go down?”

  “That’s a good question. It was … weird.”

  “But you’re okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m okay. Thanks.”

  There was a long, long pause. Almost a full minute.

  “You don’t have to do this, you know.”

  “I know.”

  “You can quit and come home. I will protect you.”

  “I know,” he said. “But you can’t protect me from everything.”

  I was in the passenger seat at the front of the van, still feeling strung out. I wasn’t stoned or anything, but I felt disconnected from planet Earth, sort of. I was this crumpled-up piece of paper, blowing around on the ground, and there was all this garbage around me, and I didn’t know how to stop it.

  I coughed. I felt like shit.

  We were bumping along a road. I looked out the window of the Econoline. The buildings were kind of ramshackle, scattered here and there. Out front, there were dogs running around and lots of dark-haired little kids. They all stopped to watch the van.

  “Where the fuck are we?” I asked, not for the first time. “What is this place?”

  Mike, who was driving, said nothing. Bembe, who was seated right behind me — to keep me from jumping out of the van and locating the nearest dealer, I suspected — was silent, too. Neither of them had said much to me since we’d left Toronto city limits, about ninety minutes before.

  In the back of the Econoline were Sister Betty, Leah Yeomanson, and Sam Shiller. One of the members of Tit Sweat was in the back, too. I’d forgotten her name. She had been calling out directions to Mike once we got off the highway.

  “Welcome to Six Nations, Kurt,” Leah said. “This is the home of the Six Nations of Grand River.”

  “I’m where …?” I squinted out the windows as Mike started driving onto a dirt road. “What the fuck?”

  “You’re a guest,” the Tit Sweat chick called up to me. “Fucking act like it.”

  I wasn’t expecting that, to tell you the truth, so I stopped talking. I saw Mike and Bembe exchange a look in the rearview mirror. Bembe smiled. Mike chuckled.