Conspiracy of Angels

by Laurence MacNaughton

  “Wasn’t no Thunderbird, then.”

  “Huh. Well, hell if I know.” Mitch rubbed his eyes. “Jesus. What a day.”

  “Come on, man.” Lanny realized he was still holding his shot glass. He set it down. “Let’s get some fresh air, all right? All this talk is draggin’ me down.”

  He led Mitch out into the back parking lot, where Clean leaned against the wall, eating Doritos from a blue bag.

  “Thought I told you to check the place out, dog.”

  Clean shoved a handful of chips in his mouth and crunched down. “Checks out,” he said around the chips. He kept munching. “Don’t see any cops, do you?”

  Lanny ignored him and walked Mitch to his car. It had left a trail of broken glass from the shattered back window. “Damn, dog.” He whistled. “You think the insurance company gonna send their man out tonight, take care of that for you?”

  Mitch shoved his hands in the pocket of his bathrobe. “You got any ideas?”

  Lanny smiled. “Lucky for you, I’m in the insurance claim business these days.”

  “Lovely.”

  “Beats working for the Man.” Lanny laughed, glad to let the mood lift off of him. “Look, I got a dude can hook it up for you tonight, get you your fine Toyota automobile back to you tomorrow in mint condition. No uncomfortable questions, like where you get all the bullet holes from.”

  “Huh. What’s that gonna cost me?”

  Lanny put an arm around Mitch’s shoulders. “It’s karma, dog. Karma.”

  *

  Mitch had to stare when the bald doorman brought Lanny’s vehicle around. It was a black SUV with deeply tinted windows and a giant Lincoln emblem in the grille. It was lowered so far it practically scraped on the ground, which was quite a feat considering the size of the chrome wheels squeezed under the fenders. The stereo thumped out a beat that Mitch could feel through his feet as the thing rolled up. The bald guy got out and left the door open for Lanny, got in the back seat.

  “Peep this, dog,” Lanny said, grinning. “Huh? Huh?”

  “Huh. So Lincoln builds minivans these days?” Mitch got in the passenger side.

  Lanny slid behind the wheel looking just a little bit miffed. “Ain’t no damn minivan, dog. This is what you call a real, genuine pimp-mobile.” Lanny turned on the stereo, and the rest of what he said was lost in the noise.

  A couple of blocks down the road, Mitch reached over and turned the music down. “You want to introduce me to your, ah, associate back there?”

  Lanny looked up in the rearview mirror. The bald guy scowled back.

  Lanny grinned. “That smilin’ ray of sunshine back there is my man Bobby Cleanbach. Call him Clean.”

  “No kidding.” Mitch looked over his shoulder at the big guy with a shaved head, bushy eyebrows and a gold earring. He couldn’t resist. “Anybody ever call you Mister Clean?”

  He gave Mitch an icy blue stare. “Not more than once.”

  Lanny, oblivious, held up a hand. “Homeboy here used to be a pro wrestler. Twenty and two. Ain’t that right, bro?”

  “Four years. Then they drummed me out on a piss-ant violation.”

  “He broke a dude’s leg. On two different occasions.” Lanny shook his head. “Same dude.”

  “Different leg, though,” Clean said.

  Mitch cleared his throat. “You know, just to play devil’s advocate, I can see where they might take issue with that.”

  Clean grunted. “Sons of bitches.”

  By the time the Lincoln got to Mitch’s neighborhood, he felt a strange sort of calm. Not safe, by any means. But calm, because he felt like his life was finally moving again. As if he’d been dead all these years, disconnected from the world and withdrawn inside himself. And now, finally, things were changing. Even if he had no idea why, or how to control it.

  But rolling down the street in a ridiculously plush truck, music thumping beneath his feet, he finally felt alive again. It was all the more bittersweet because he couldn’t shake the feeling that unless he started thinking fast, all of this would get him killed.

  Lanny pulled up in front of Mitch’s driveway and killed the engine. Hunched over the wheel, he squinted up at Mitch’s house in the darkness. “Been a while since I been back here.”

  “What, you never wanted to stop by and hang out with Bryce? Play some Super Mario Brothers?”

  Lanny grinned, teeth shining in the dashboard lights. “So. You think those boys came back?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t even know who they are.”

  “Tell you what, dog. Apparently you got a beef with somebody.”

  “Yeah. Let’s go find out who.” Mitch opened the door and got out.

  Lanny and Clean got out and came around, pulling out guns, Clean with that big chrome cannon, Lanny with a little .38 revolver. Clean racked a round into the chamber and then tilted his head to either side, stretching his neck. Bones popped.

  Lanny looked at Mitch’s empty hands. “You ain’t packing?”

  “I’m wearing a goddamn bathrobe. What do you think?”

  Lanny motioned to Clean, who dug in his jacket and pulled out a gun for Mitch.

  “Yeah,” Lanny said, warming up. “It’s on now.”

  Mitch took the gun, a cheap black nine-millimeter. He popped out the magazine, checked it, slapped it back in and pulled the slide. He took a deep breath and headed up the walk. “This is stupid.”

  “What’s that?”

  “All us walking in the front door like this. Might as well pin a big freakin’ bull’s-eye on our shirts.”

  “Come on, man. This is your house. Your castle, you know? You got to defend it. You got to come on like, yeah, bitch!” Lanny thrust his chest out. “Uh!”

  Mitch put a hand out and stopped in the middle of the front walk. “When did you get like this?”

  “Like what? Mitch. This is your house, man. You with me?” Lanny patted him on the shoulder. “Come on, do it. Like this.” He did the chest thing again. “Uh!”

  Mitch rolled his shoulders. “Huh.”

  “No, man. Like …” Lanny frowned. “Here.” He lifted Mitch’s gun arm up and gently turned his hand so he was holding the gun sideways. “There. Now you’re good.”

  Lanny followed Mitch up the walk and covered him as he tried the doorknob. It turned. He let it swing in a couple of inches, then kicked it open.

  “Hey!” Mitch shouted. “You looking for me?” He found the light switch and flipped the lamps on. He stepped inside, and his sandals crunched on broken glass.

  Everything looked exactly the way he had left it this morning, even though it felt like a hundred years ago. There were empty mugs on the coffee table, newspapers piled on one end of the couch, and pieces of the TV all over the floor.

  Lanny made a big production of sweeping his gun around the room. “Place looks empty, man.” He went halfway up the stairs and shouted, “Yo! Come on out! Feel my heat!”

  Clean filled the doorway. He let out a bark of laughter. “Looks like somebody did your TV, gang style.”

  “That’s right, Sherlock.” Mitch studied the broken glass, the way it was crushed in spots, as if someone else had walked on it, too. There were a couple of tiny streaks of mud in the carpet. Somebody had definitely been in his house.

  He went upstairs past Lanny and checked the bedrooms. The light was off in Bryce’s room, but the computers were still running. One of the screen savers showed a little Enterprise getting chased around the galaxy by a giant laser-spewing cube.

  Mitch got his .45 out of his nightstand, surprised it was still there, and popped the clip out. It was still loaded. He went back downstairs. “Doesn’t look like they were here all that long. Probably just waiting for me to come home so they could get a good shot in the dark.”

  Lanny nodded. “So you got wise and bounced, they had to chase you down, huh?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine.”

  The three of them stood around, looking at the place, no one saying anythin
g.

  Finally, Lanny shook his head and went to the door. “Tell you what, man, you get some sleep. Call me when you got this straight, we’ll talk.”

  “Yeah, sure.” Mitch watched Lanny and Mr. Clean stroll away down the walk, back to the black Lincoln with its huge chrome wheels. He shut the door, locked it. Looked around the living room. “Sleep. Right.”

  SEVEN

  Geneva yawned. She glanced at her oil-smudged wrist, but she’d taken her watch off. Whatever time it was, it was late. She blinked and leaned over Brutus’s fender again.

  The shiny new clamp she’d put on the heater hose was giving her trouble. It was tough to get a good angle to tighten it. She cursed herself for working on it this late, but she didn’t trust the old hose, and anyway Brutus couldn’t move now until she was done.

  The old hose lay at her feet like a rubber snake, soft in the middle, pinched at the ends from the old rusted clamps. One of the clamps was crusted white with dried coolant, and that’s why she had decided to replace it.

  She finally got the clamp screw turning. Got it tight, and tried to turn it a little more to be sure. The screwdriver slipped and nicked her finger. She sucked in a breath.

  She straightened up and held her finger under the light to see. Just a scratch. She stepped back, pushing the hair out of her face with the back of her hand. She was finally done. Except for cleaning the carburetor.

  The carburetor sat exposed, without the big chrome dish of the air cleaner to cover it. Its brassy throat showed a tinge of grime around the edges. She’d need to spray it out, fire a few squirts of carburetor cleaner down inside it with the engine running, rev it up and let it burn off the dirt.

  She wished she could do that to her whole life. Hose it down and let the engine burn everything clean.

  Michael had taught her about carburetors. It was years ago. She’d been sitting on the floor in the condemned garage they’d camped out in, beneath the light of a battery-powered lamp, wiping Brutus’s tailpipe clean with an old rag, her stomach clenched up with worry.

  Michael had wandered in, carrying a little metal flask. He sat down on the step of a dusty old ladder and watched her for a while, not saying anything. She could feel the weight of his gaze on her back, while she sat there cross-legged on the cold concrete floor. She wiped as much of the powdery black soot out of the tailpipe as she could, then turned the rag inside out and went to work on the streaks of soot on the floor.

  Finally, Michael broke the silence. “The floor’s plenty dirty all over, Genie. No sense bothering yourself about it.”

  She leaned her head against the soft fabric that covered Brutus’s metal skin. “Something’s wrong with his engine.” She felt the wave of worry rise up inside her when she finally said it out loud. “He’s been burning something, leaving all this soot everywhere I go. I look in the mirror when I hit the gas, and I see black stuff shoot out of the tailpipe. I’m not going to have to …”

  His forehead wrinkled. “To what?”

  “Michael, I need Brutus.”

  He stopped with the flask halfway to his lips. “Is that what’s been eating at you? A little puff of soot?” He took a swig and grinned. “Just running a little rich, is all. We can fix that. It’s all in the carburetor.” He used the Russian word, karbyurator, rolling the “r” ever so slightly. He did that sometimes, on those rare occasions when he let his guard down, let the real Michael show through.

  “We can fix it? Really?”

  “Well, yeah, really. Come on, you’re not really all torn up about this, are you?”

  “No.” She dropped the soot-blackened rag on the floor. “Yes.”

  “Come on.” Gently, he pulled her up off the floor. “We’ll have Brutus fixed up in two shakes. Go ahead and start him up. And get me a screwdriver, will you?”

  She started up the engine and came around the front, feeling the first stirrings of hope. She watched Michael carefully lift the chrome air cleaner off and set it on Brutus’s roof. He smiled at her, as if he was letting her in on a little secret.

  He pointed to a pair of small screws sticking out of the front of the carburetor. “Now, these two are your idle screws. They control how much fuel gets into the engine when you’re not actually going anywhere. Now listen carefully to the engine.” He tightened each screw a bit, and Brutus’s engine slowed down. “See? Too much fuel for the amount of air we’ve got. Too rich. That’s what makes the soot.”

  He tugged the accelerator linkage on the side of the carburetor, where the cable from the gas pedal attached. The carburetor hissed, and the engine revved up, then settled down into a steadier rhythm. “Hear that? Smoother. Lot smoother.” He took another hit from the flask and hummed to himself, some deep-throated tune she had never heard.

  She watched him, fascinated, as he worked, his strong fingers gentle on the dirty metal. He turned each screw a little tighter, then sometimes looser, playing with the mixture, revving the engine and listening, eyes closed.

  “There we go, Brutus,” he whispered. “There’s a good boy.” He revved the engine once more, as if for emphasis, and when he let go, the engine settled down and purred.

  He opened his eyes and smiled down at her. The heady smell of his liquor filled the air around them. She put her hands on his scratchy cheeks, pulled him down and kissed him.

  Geneva held onto that memory as hard as she could. She didn’t want to let go of that feeling, that it was just her and Michael against the world, that everything was simple, and pure, and clean. Back then, Michael and Brutus were all she wanted, all she needed to be happy.

  But somehow, everything had gone dark and wrong. Somehow, lies and secrets had wormed their way in, leading to wounded looks and shouting matches. All along, she thought she could fix it somehow. All she needed to do was learn enough, work hard enough, and she could make everything come out all right. Just like tuning a carburetor.

  But that was before Michael had started taking prisoners at gunpoint.

  Behind her, the garage door rattled open to the cold night air. The van pulled in, its grille all smashed, one headlight broken. Raph got out and slammed the van door hard, pacing as if he could barely contain his rage. He pulled the garage door closed and hammered the latch shut with the heel of his fist. Gabe shut off the van and got out. The two of them traded looks, and Raph stalked past Gabe without saying anything.

  Geneva caught Gabe’s eye and nodded at Raph. “Not a good night, huh? You guys been playing bumper cars?”

  Gabe didn’t smile. “Not a good night, no.” He looked a little pained, then shook it off. “Just bad luck, is all.”

  Raph came around the other side of the van and stopped, pulling at his straggly beard. “Luck?” He came over and leaned on Brutus’s fender. “Luck? Maybe if Gabe knew when to pick up a gun and use it, we wouldn’t have this problem to deal with, uh?”

  Gabe didn’t look at him, just kept staring at a spot somewhere between Geneva and Brutus’s engine. “Just drop it. You’re out of line.”

  “Oh, am I?” Raph said, holding his arms out wide. “So what do you plan to do, hmm? Shoot me? Yeah? Or maybe you should go right to the source of the problem. Like you should have done in the first place.”

  Geneva knew there was something bad going on. She’d always known Raph was a psycho, but now she was getting a weird vibe from Gabe, too. “Gabe?” she said, backing up a step, “What’s going on?”

  Raph looked at her like he was thinking about killing her right there.

  Gabe stepped between her and Raph. “Nothing you need to worry about. Okay?”

  She nodded, feeling completely the opposite.

  Gabe patted Raph on the back, telling him, “Come on, let’s go in. Come on.” They walked off. Raph kept looking over his shoulder at her.

  He knew.

  He knew she’d gone to talk to Jocelyn’s dad. He must have guessed what she’d asked him. But how could he know? Had they followed her? Had Michael hidden some sort of tracking device in Brut
us?

  She shut Brutus’s hood and leaned on it, her heart beating fast. If she ran, Michael would know she was a traitor. They’d hunt her down, and Raph would kill her. Michael wouldn’t protect her anymore, because she was a security risk. She’d compromised the mission.

  But deep down, she knew something was wrong with the mission. There were too many things Michael wasn’t telling her. Why would he want to risk capturing the creature, rather than destroying it? That’s what they’d agreed on all along, since the night he’d saved her life.

  She started to remember, to relive it again. The smell of blood. The way it soaked into the floorboards over her head. She pushed those thoughts away and grabbed her tools. Tossed them back into her old red toolbox. Screwdrivers, wrenches, scratched-up army flashlight. She couldn’t run now, and leave that poor guy tied up in the next room. They’d kill him.

  But what was she going to do, break him loose and just take off? No, not unless she had some real answers. She had to learn what she could, fast. Because the moment she left, there was no turning back.

  She’d never seen Michael kill anyone, and part of her couldn’t believe he actually would. But she had a bad feeling about the way things were going. She’d learned a long time ago to trust her feelings.

  She shut the drawers of her toolbox one by one, pausing when she got to her brake tools. A plan blossomed in her mind. But it was too extreme, too dangerous. Too close to crossing that line. She shut the drawer.

  But a little voice kept telling her she could protect herself. She could open the bleed screws on the van’s brakes. It wouldn’t do anything right away. But if she took off in Brutus, and they tried to chase her, the van’s brakes would bleed out in seconds. Then again, if she worked everything out and stayed, she could close the screws back up and undo the sabotage. Nobody would be the wiser.

  It was wrong. She knew that. It could get somebody killed.

  But the longer she thought about it, the more Raph’s cold eyes haunted her. He would kill her, if he got the chance.

  She swallowed the lump in her throat. She slid the drawer open and picked up the angled chrome brake wrench. The cold steel chilled her fingers. Her chest felt tight, like the air had suddenly gotten a lot thinner.