Flood (28 page)

“Endurance means you can last a long time,” she said.

“So? I lasted this long . . .”

Flood turned her head back down, opened her mouth so I could feel her hot breath between my legs. She put her teeth around me and bit down—not hard enough to threaten amputation, but close enough. She kept her mouth on me until she was satisfied with her work, then she flowed up into that lotus position facing me. “Let me take a shower. Then I want to see just how good this famous endurance of yours is.”

She walked toward the bathroom, pulling the black robe from her shoulders as she did. I sat there and smoked another cigarette and felt the pain flow back into me and pulse around my mouth—and I knew she was going to stand up.

The shower stopped before I got through the next smoke, and a dripping wet Flood padded into the room, holding a towel partially around her waist. She smiled—it was a good smile this time—and crooked her finger at me in a come-over-here gesture and I stubbed out the cigarette and followed her back into her small space.

She dropped the towel and came to me, still damp and even more of a handful than usual. Her kiss was sweet and tender, sucking the pain from my mouth. She pushed the jacket off my shoulders and pulled the T-shirt over my head, unbuckled my pants, and knelt to take them off after my boots. I kissed her and rubbed her and her body began to glow in the early morning light.

She turned and walked over to the little table, bent over and thrust her backside into the air, looking at me over her shoulder—telling me she was finished with Goldor’s demons and she had herself back.

I climbed into her as she waited, carefully at first. But the woman warrior took my hands and put them on her breasts and rolled her hips until I was fitted to her. I took her soft neck gently in my teeth and tested my endurance.

43

IT WAS JUST past ten o’clock by the time I was ready to move out. Flood and I had been through what had to be done a few dozen times, and I could see she was finally ready to sleep. I told her I’d call when I had something and went out the door. I rang for the elevator, sent it back down to the ground floor, hit the switch to call it back to me. I stood there waiting, smoking another cigarette. When I finished I ground out the butt on the floor and slipped it into my pocket. Still dead quiet.

I took the stairs down and walked to the car—it looked different in daylight, streaked and dull like it needed a bath. By now the Volvo we had used to visit Goldor would be nothing but scrap metal. Still a lot of traffic on the street, but I couldn’t wait for the night—too much to do.

The Plymouth found its way back to the office on auto-pilot. I locked it up, climbed the stairs, checking everything as I walked. Still okay. Pansy wasn’t even impatient but she stalked out the back door and onto the roof readily enough. I picked up the desk phone, cleared it for hippies, and dialed Mama’s—no messages.

Pansy rolled in the back door, I found her something to eat and I sat with her while she snarfed up the mess I’d made for her in her steel bowl—trying to think, and drawing a blank.

I went into the side room to the chest of drawers, made a hook out of a coat hanger, looped it around one of the handles on the bottom drawer, and gently pulled it out. The twin razor-tipped barbs shot out of the opened drawer like a striking snake, but they hit only air—I was standing two feet away. It wasn’t really too likely that anyone would get past all the security devices and Pansy too, but if they did I figured they should pay a little extra toll for the trip. The spring-loaded barbs would stab through anything, even padded gloves, and the solution I’d carefully painted on each tip would induce dizziness and nausea in a minute or two after that. It wouldn’t kill anybody, but it’d make them think of poison right away—and head for the nearest hospital instead of going on with their work. I only set up the bottom drawer—professionals always start that way so they don’t have to close one drawer to go to the next one—saves a few seconds on each job. For a pro, a few seconds saved on a job can mean a few years saved somewhere down the road. You learn a lot of things in prison.

Part of my stash was there. I counted the bills a couple of times. This was my case money—for emergencies only, not bullshit like food or gas. More than enough to smoke the Cobra out of his hole,
if
it didn’t take too long. I took some of the bills, replaced the rest, set the springs for the barbs, and carefully closed the drawer. I went back inside to the desk, got out a yellow legal pad and some felt-tip pens, pulled an ashtray close, and started to map out the campaign.

Pansy came over to me, slammed against my leg in what she thought was a friendly gesture, put her massive head on my knee and growled encouragingly. She was wasting her time—I wasn’t going inside to watch television, I had to work.

An hour passed and the yellow pad stared up at me, laughing at my blankness. At this rate I’d have to wait for the dirtbag to die of old age.

I went back into the side room and took a shower, using the time to think. Still nothing. I took an old Con Edison uniform, one of those jumpsuit outfits they used to wear, climbed into it, and sat on the floor. Pansy came over and stretched out next to me. I patted her head absently, knowing I couldn’t force it.

Finally I got up and went back to the desk, rummaged around until I found an old draftsman’s compass and a piece of cardboard. I stabbed the compass point into the cardboard and drew a two-inch circle. I used my razor knife to cut out the circle, took it back into the side room, found an ice pick, and stuck the whole thing to the wall. Another couple of minutes and I found a little can of spray paint I’d used on a videotape surveillance camera in one of those luxury apartment buildings a few months ago. I held one palm flat against the cardboard and sprayed, using the open circle as a stencil. In a minute I had myself a round black dot stark against a white piece of wall.

I found a blanket, folded it over a couple of times, and sat down. Then I looked into that dot, breathing in through my nose, forcing the air down deep into my stomach and groin, holding it there, exhaling so that my chest expanded each time. I did it again and again, in slow, steady rhythm until I found myself relaxing, looking deep into the dot. It grew larger and its edges disappeared—I was going inside the black hole and using my mind to probe out ahead of me, looking for the Cobra. Black holes are dangerous—I took Find-the-Cobra with me instead of a mantra, and I went away from this earth for a while.

Pansy’s snarl brought me out of it—something was thumping against the back window in the side room, softly but insistently. I could see an indistinct shape against the dark curtains. I got quietly to my feet, reached in the top drawer, took out the flare pistol I keep there, checked to make sure it was primed, and moved over to the window. Pansy was at my side and just ahead, on point and ready. I parted the curtains ever so slightly, leveling the gun.

It was a goddamned pigeon, trapped in the maze of wire I had built around the windowframe. Only one of his feet was caught—his wings were free and they flapped like insanity let out of a bag. If he had a bit more strength he would have triggered the electrical circuit and some wino in the alley below would have had a fried squab dinner.

I went back inside and threw the switch to the Off position—it’s clearly marked On in case some clown got in the front door somehow and decided to leave by the window—then I reached out to spring him. Pigeons are nothing more than rats with wings—I’ve never seen a city or a prison without them—but they know how to survive. I held him firmly in a gloved hand but he didn’t even try to peck at me. He looked okay, so I tossed him into the air and he fell like a stone for a few feet, stuck his wings out experimentally to break his fall and then banked into a river breeze and headed for another roost.

I went back inside, lit myself a cigarette, and praised Pansy for her vigilance. She probably knew it was a miserable pigeon all the time and just wanted to get me out of the trance. It took me a few drags of the smoke before it hit me. I had it worked out all the time—if you’re going fishing, you need worms, right? Now there’s about three good ways to get them: you can buy them from someone who’s selling, you could dig around in the ground and hope you got lucky, or you could wait until it rained and the worms came to the surface and you could take your pick.

That’s how I could find this freak—all three techniques, with the emphasis on the last one. Only I wasn’t going to
wait
for it to rain.

I went back to the desk and sat down to compose a few ads for the Personals column of some local papers. I couldn’t wait for the nationals, although it was easy enough to figure what kind of reading matter would be on Wilson’s list. It takes three or four months from the time you submit the copy until you see it in print, and he could be long gone by then. I permanently rent a few post office boxes around the city for freelance fundraising, and they would do the job here too.

First, the old reliable “SWF, widowed, young-looking 32, petite and shapely, financially secure, with two lovely daughters, ages 9 and 7. Looking for a strong man with life experience, possibly ex-military or law enforcement, to take charge of her life. Can we meet and talk about it? Letter, with picture ONLY to Box X2744, Sheridan Square Station.”

Then in the
Daily News:
“COURIER needed. Must be reliable, with prior military experience. Out-of-country work, must have valid passport. High pay and bonus to the right man.” And another box number.

An ad in the
Times
for a general houseman, good driver, competent with firearms, to serve as chauffeur-bodyguard to two young children on a Westchester estate. With another box number.

A couple of blind drops in the S&M rags, looking for “military” or “police” types for “special work” and promising high pay and great opportunities, including European travel, to the right man.

I didn’t know Wilson’s mind completely, so I also prepared some ads for a school-bus driver for a childrens’ camp in the Catskill Mountains and for a director of security for a private daycare center in Greenwich Village. Still another from a freelance writer looking for military vets who wanted to discuss their experiences with foreign child-prostitutes in exchange for a $300 interview fee.

I could have written lots of ads that might have eventually attracted the Cobra, but I wanted him under pressure and looking for a way out, not just hunting for new victims. I put the ads together in separate envelopes, addressed them using the Pantograph I keep for such occasions. The post office supplied me with the money orders I needed, and the ads went out. From past experience, I knew they would surface within a couple of days.

I wheeled the Plymouth toward the docks and started looking for some of my people. I prowled under the West Side Highway, the part that the environmentalists are still fighting about, near the blank sandy slab that’s supposed to be luxury housing someday. Luxury housing in this city is perfect—they fill part of the river with garbage to make a foundation and then they fill the buildings with more garbage, only the new garbage pays rent. Nothing showed. I made the full run up to Fourteenth Street, turned around, and headed back downtown.

As I stopped at a light I saw a working girl sitting on one of the concrete bases that anchor the steel I-beams that hold up the highway. She had short reddish hair, a hard thirtyish face, dark lipstick, a quarter-inch of face powder. A rust-colored sweater bulged out over huge tightly cinched breasts, the ensemble finished off with a thick leather belt, faded jeans, black leather boots almost to the knee. She was smoking a cigarette, blowing the smoke toward the river—waiting. Her partner, a skinny black girl wearing a turquoise knit dress and apparently nothing else, was standing by, hands on hips. The black hooker was anxious to get working, jawing with every car that stopped, but the big woman sat like she was part of the concrete.

I pulled up and rolled down the window, giving the big pros a look at my face. She asked, “Want to buy some pussy?” in a half-asleep voice like she didn’t give a damn one way or the other while the black girl ran her tongue around her lips.

“How much?”

“Twenty-five for the pussy, ten for the room.”

“Hey, I want to rent it, not buy it,” I told her, and the black girl giggled.

“I just want to talk to you,” I told the white woman.

She looked at me. “No sale, pal. I’m self-employed.”

“Do I look like a pimp to you?”

“You don’t look like
nothing
to me,” earning another giggle from her pal.

“You want to talk about it?”

“For twenty-five bucks in your car, thirty-five in the room,” she said in the same monotone.

“Deal,” I said, opening the door for her. She slowly pulled herself off the concrete cushion and walked over to the Plymouth. She was about six feet tall, had to weigh 170 pounds.

As soon as she stood up I knew who she was.

I drove down by one of the abandoned piers, killed the engine, and turned to look at her. She said, “The twenty-five, man,” and I reached in my pocket while she fumbled in her purse, and I had my gun out before she came up with hers.

“Take your hand out of your pocketbook, okay? Nice and slow. Nobody’s going to hurt you.”

A resigned light flashed in her eyes for a split-second, but she didn’t move. I cocked the pistol—the sound was harsh in the closed car. She took her hand out of her pocketbook, threw one massive thigh over the other, and put her folded hands on her knees where I could see them.

“You’re not a cop, right?”

“Right.”

“So you want this one on the house . . . or is this payback?”

“It’s neither one, JoJo. Just be cool. Give me the purse.”

“There’s no money in it.”

“I know what’s in it.”

She tossed the purse at me, right at my face. I didn’t move—my gun didn’t move. The purse slapped against my face and fell into my lap. I snapped it open and found the tiny .25-caliber automatic—I put her piece in my pocket and tossed her purse into the backseat.

“Not much of a gun, JoJo.”

“I don’t need much.”

“You want to know what this is all about?”

“I figure I already know. Some sucker sent you, right? You don’t figure to blast me right here, and you don’t look tough enough to whip my ass, so I figure it’s got to be about money.”

“It’s about money all right, but money
for
you, not
from
you. I want you to do some work for me.”

“Twenty-five for the pussy, ten for the room.”

“Cut the shit, JoJo. I know you run a one-woman badger game, okay? I’m not going to any room with you. I want to buy something and I’m willing to pay.”

“You know about me?”

“Yeah.”

“From where?”

“From around.”

“Then you’re around the wrong people.”

“And you live in the suburbs, right?”

“I’m listening,” she said.

“I’m looking for a guy, okay? I’ve got his picture, got his description. You turn him up, I pay you a grand in cash. That’s it.”

“How much up front?”

“What do I look like, a fucking commuter? I’m not asking you to go out of your way—just do your work. You happen to see him, you make a call, you get your money.”

“I can get the same deal from the
federales.”

“Bullshit. Don’t be so cool—there’s no way you’re talking to the Man. I’ll front you a quarter for the phone call, that’s it.”

“And if I don’t?”

“You can haul your gigantic ass out of here and back under the highway.”

JoJo sat there like she was thinking it over—like she had all the time in the world. She said, “Got a smoke?” and I nodded towards my shirt pocket. She reached one hand toward the pocket, bringing her face close to mine. There was nobody home behind her eyes. I brought the gun closer to her face.