Flood (14 page)

22

WHEN I WOKE up a couple of hours later, Flood was still out like she’d been drugged. I wish I could sleep like that—maybe it was because her conscience was so clear. We still had a bit of time so I got out my cigarettes and sat by the big window looking down at the street. I held the butt below the windowsill and blew the smoke down in case there was some freak out there looking for a tiny red light in the darkness that meant
go
instead of
no
to him. I still had to think of a plan that would get Flood her raw meat and keep me away from the government. Nothing came to me.

The sounds of the shower brought me back inside, where I waited for Flood to come out. When she did she was wearing some big fluffy white towel and walked past me to the large room where I’d been smoking. I followed her and watched while she dropped the towel, walked nude over to the wall with all the mirrors, and started her workout—a complicated
kata
with spinning kick-thrusts and double hand-breaks, knife-edged and clenched fist. A
kata
is a martial arts exercise: some of the Japanese styles use them to qualify for higher degrees, like a black belt; some use them as stylized practice. When an amateur does a
kata
it’s like watching a spastic robot, but Flood’s was a death dance. I watched her quietly, not moving. The only noise was the occasional hiss of breath through her nose.

Flood’s
kata
was steel-edged white smoke. She finished by landing into a split any cheerleader would envy. Stayed perfectly still on the floor, concentrating on something. Then she looked up at me, “Can you throw me those pants I bought?”

I went back into her space and brought them out. Flood worked them back up over her hips. Her body had a light sheen of sweat and it was still a struggle. It didn’t look funny this time. She zipped them up, snapped the front button closed, walked over to the wall, and took down a pair of heavy leather gloves, something like catcher’s mitts. She tossed them to me. I knew what she wanted me to do, so I took off my shoes and walked out onto the gym floor. Standing in a semi-crouch, I held the gloves out toward Flood, one at my right knee, the other at my left shoulder, the palms facing her.

Flood came to me with her hands open in front of her, bowed slightly. I nodded that I was ready. She approached with small, light steps, floated up on her toes and sideways into a cat-stance, and suddenly lashed out with her left foot at my right knee. She caught the open glove squarely with a harsh
pop,
spun on her right leg, planted her left foot, and whipped the right up at my right shoulder. It never came off—the skin-tight material held her legs together at the crotch and she fell, immediately rolling to the side, hands clasped near her head, elbows out.

I knew what she was going to say. “It’s no good. I can’t get any speed or leverage above the knee. We have to get something else.”

“Okay, Flood, I don’t want you to feel helpless.”

“It’s not a joke.”

“It doesn’t bother you to fight with no clothes on, but—”

“I had to train for a long time before it didn’t. We all have to practice like that, so that we don’t think about ourselves, just about the task.”

“So didn’t you ever train to fight wearing clothes?”

“Burke, listen to me. I could fight no matter what, yes? At least I could defend myself. But I need room to move or I can’t develop any power.”

“So when you fight this Cobra freak . . .”

“Yes.”

“Flood, I’m not promising it will end like that.”

“You just find him for me.”

I went back to the window and sat down on the floor, lit up. Flood padded over to me, floated down into a lotus position, sat there quietly for a while. Maybe keeping me company, maybe thinking too. She didn’t understand a fucking thing.

“Flood,” I said, “you know how to fight an attack dog?”

“I never have.”

“There’s just one secret, okay? When he bites you—and he
is
going to bite you—you have to ram whatever he bites back into his mouth as deep and as hard as you can.”

“And then?”

“And then you use whatever you have left to cancel his ticket.”

“So?”

“So the dog expects you to do just one thing—pull away as hard as you can. He’s a hunter and that’s what his prey is supposed to do. Panic and run.”

“So?”

“So there’s no such thing as a fair fight with a dog.”

“Wilson’s not a dog.”

“You know what he is, Flood?”

“No.”

“Well, I do. So you do it my way—you listen to me.”

Flood’s eyes narrowed, then relaxed with a calmness that reflected through her body as she spoke. “There’s a right way, a correct way to do anything.”

“There’s a right way to rape little kids?”

“Burke! You know what I mean.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean—and you’re out of luck, kid. The only way to do anything is to do it so you walk away from it.”

“And if I don’t agree?”

“Then you walk
into
it alone.”

Flood’s eyes bored into my face, looking for an opening. There was none. I didn’t know why I’d even come this far, but I wasn’t going past my own limits. The only game I play is where winning means you keep playing. She smiled. “You’re not so tough, Burke.”

“Endurance beats strength. Didn’t they teach you that over in Japan?”

She thought about it for a minute, then flashed a lovely, perfect smile. “You think they make these kind of pants in some stretch material?”

“I don’t know. Why don’t you check it out early tomorrow morning before you go to court?”

“We’re going to court?”

“Not me, just you. I have something to do on my own and besides, I don’t like to go to court in the daytime.”

I lay down on the floor, put my arms behind my head, and blew smoke rings at the ceiling. Flood leaned on one elbow and rubbed the side of my face with her knuckles while I told her how you look up a docket number in the Criminal Court Building. It was quiet and peaceful there, but I had to make that call around six. I kissed Flood good-bye, got my stuff, then climbed the stairs to the roof, where I checked the street. Nothing. I rang for the elevator and hit the stairs down as soon as I heard it move.

The car was just as I’d left it. Must be a pretty crime-free neighborhood—this was two times running.

It was almost evening and I wanted everything secure before I called this James character, so I stopped at a pay phone on Fourteenth Street to reserve a ride for the night. I have this arrangement with the dispatcher—I call him, he gives me a cab for the night shift, and I don’t have to return it until morning. I keep whatever I earn for the evening on the meter and he gets a flat hundred bucks. I also keep a hack license for Juan Rodriguez (the same guy who makes his living working in that Corona junkyard) behind the false wall at the rear of the Plymouth’s glove compartment.

You have to be fingerprinted to get a hack license in New York. It costs you an extra fifty to bring your own fingerprint card already made out for the inspectors. I have a couple of dozen cards stashed, already fingerprinted, but with no names or other information on them. I don’t know the real names of any of the guys who would match those prints, but I know the cops would have a hell of a time interviewing any of them.

The old man who works as a night watchman in the city morgue told me how the cops sometimes fingerprint a dead body while it’s still fresh so they can make an identification. He showed me how it was done. I got the blank cards easily enough, waited a few weeks, and the old man let me make a few dozen prints from a corpse that came in on the meat wagon one night. Nasty car accident—the guy was headless, but his fingers were in perfect shape.

Driving a cab in New York is the next best thing to being invisible. You can circle the same block a dozen times and even the local street-slime don’t look twice. The cops do the same thing in their anticrime cars—only trouble is their union won’t let them work the cars alone, so when you see two guys in the front seat of a cab, you know it’s the Man. Very subtle.

I drove past Mama’s to check her front window. Usually there are three beautiful tapestries of dragons on display—one red, one white, one blue. Tonight the white one was missing—undercover cops of some kind were inside. If the blue was gone, it would mean the uniformed police. I kept rolling like I was supposed to do. I could have gone inside, since only the red dragon standing alone meant danger, but I needed to find Max and he wouldn’t be inside, at least not upstairs with the customers. When Max wanted to leave he climbed down to the sub-basement, below the regular storage area. It was pitch-dark down there, and dead quiet. I was there once when two uniforms came looking for him. The young cop wanted to go down there after him but his partner had more sense. He just told Mama to ask Max to stop by the precinct because they wanted to talk to him. Going down in that basement after Max would be about as smart as drinking cyanide and have the same long-term effect.

I pulled into the warehouse with the headlights off, rolled down the window, lit a cigarette, and waited. It was quiet there, so quiet that I heard the faint whoosh of air before I felt the gentle thump on the car’s roof. I stared straight ahead through the windshield until I saw a hand press itself against the glass, fingers pointed down. I told Max that one day he would break his fool neck jumping from the second-story balcony on to the roof of cars. He thought that was hilarious.

We went into the back room and I pointed to one of the chairs, then spread my hands to ask “Okay?” When he nodded, it meant he’d wait there for me. He knew I’d explain when I got back.

The basement of the warehouse was my next stop. The only light down there came from the diffused rays of a streetlight through one of the dirty narrow windows, but it was bright enough for me to find the exit door behind a pile of abandoned shipping pallets. Inside one of the pallets was a rubber-covered dial telephone with two wires ending in alligator clips and a set of keys. One of the keys let me into another basement halfway down the alley, and the second got into the telephone wire box for the commercial building on the corner. It was peaceful—the collective of Oriental architects who inhabited the place in the daytime never worked at night. I checked my watch. Another three or four minutes until James would be expecting the call. I opened the telephone junction box, hooked up the handset, checked to see if anyone else was on the line, got a dial tone, and waited. At fifteen seconds to six I dialed the number James had given to Mama. Someone answered on the first ring.

“Mr. James’s wire.”

“This is Burke.”

“One moment please.” I was supposed to think I was calling an office. James came on, another voice, so at least two of them were in on the game. “Burke. I’ve been trying to reach you. You’re a hard man to catch.”

“Why didn’t you just stop by the house, pal?”

“I don’t know where you live.”

“That’s right, you don’t. What do you want?”

“I’ve got some business for you; something right up your alley. There’s a considerable sum involved. Can we meet?”

“You know somebody I know?”

“I don’t want to say names on the phone. But let’s say I know your reputation, and this would be something you would want to do.”

“I don’t think so.”

“I do think so,” his voice turning what he thought was hard and forceful, meaning that he was going to be a continual pain in the ass and stay on my case. It was better to meet him once and have done with it.

“Okay, pal. Tonight—all right?”

“Tonight’s fine. Just tell me where.”

“I’ll send a cab for you. The driver will bring you to me.”

“That’s not really necessary.”

“Yeah, it is.”

There was silence as he thought for a minute, not that there was much for him to think about. He was probably going to tell me to send the driver to some fancy hotel and he’d be standing out in front like he belonged there. It was time to show him we weren’t going to spend the evening being stupid. “Look, here it is. The cab will be there at ten o’clock on the dot. You and your friend just get in the backseat, don’t say anything. The cab will have its off-duty light on and it will blink its lights twice when it comes up on you. Just get in and it’ll bring you where I am. You get out when the cabby stops, wait on the corner, and I’ll pick you up and take you to the meeting place.”

“That sounds a bit complicated.”

“Suit yourself.”

Another short silence. Then, “Okay, Burke, tell your cabby to meet us at—”

“Never mind all that. The cabby will be at the same corner you’re standing on right now. And don’t waste your time trying to talk to him, he won’t say a word. Yes or no?”

Silence, a muffled conversation. Then, “Yes, we’ll—” I unhooked the alligator clips, terminating the conversation. If they weren’t on the same corner as the pay phone when the cab rolled up, that would be the end. I went back the way I’d come, returning the equipment and the keys, and rejoined Max in the warehouse.

When I put the hack license on the table in front of Max his face broke into a joyful grin—he loved to drive the cab. I got out paper and a marking pen, showed him the corner where he’d pick up the two clowns, and gestured that he should bring them back to this neighborhood. He nodded and I diagrammed that he should bring them only to the far corner, make the turn, stash the cab in the back of the warehouse, then go back and escort them inside.

Max patted his face with both hands, shrugged his shoulders, and spread his palms out wide, asking me if they wouldn’t recognize him as the driver of the cab when he brought them inside. I held up one finger, got up, and walked over to the big trunk where we kept our supplies—hats, wigs, false beards, face putty, stuff like that. Max was in seventh heaven now. This was perfection—not only would he get to drive the cab, but he’d have a disguise too. We brought the mirror out from the bathroom and tried on a few different versions of Max’s face. His favorite was the Zapata mustache, which, together with mirror-finish sunglasses and a fat cigar in his mouth, made him impossible to recognize. I added a jaunty beret in a dashing shade of pink. Max wasn’t crazy about the color but he did smile at the sight of the hat, no doubt remembering the would-be mugger who had donated it to our collection one dark night last summer.