Flood (33 page)

51

THE STREETS WERE still calm and quiet when I hit the sidewalk, heading down Fifth toward Twenty-third Street, looking for a newstand. There’s a little park right across from the Appellate Division Courthouse between Fifth and Madison. Usually it’s packed with three-card monte operators and soft-dope dealers, but it was nearly deserted at that hour. I spotted an old man wearing four or five layers of clothing, catching a piece of sleep, guarding his plastic shopping bag full of God knows what. He opened his eyes as I approached, too tired and too weak to run, probably thanking whatever he still believed in that I wasn’t a kid looking to douse him with gasoline and set him on fire for the fun of it.

The weather was changing, you could tell. In the country they look for the robins—in the city we look for the old men coming out of the subway tunnels into the daylight. Those abandoned tunnels are nice and warm, but the territory belongs to the rats and it’s hard to sleep. Somehow the bag ladies can operate above the ground even in the winter, but the old men can’t cut it. They have to go for the Men’s Shelter down on the Bowery or the TB wards or the subway tunnels. So when they finally come up for air you know the good weather can’t be too far behind.

I cut through one of the crosspaths in the park, walking slowly. When I stopped to light a smoke I spotted a youngish white man slouching on one of the benches. He was wearing an old army jacket and a light-blue golfer’s hat, engineer boots, dark glasses. Smoking a joint. I knew the type—too heavy for light work and too light for heavy work. He was out there watching—a finger for some kind of operation, not a face-to-face man or a planner. I walked past him, puffing on the butt, hands in my pockets. I could feel his eyes focus behind the sunglasses, but I kept rolling along out of the park.

I found a newsstand on Twenty-third where I bought a copy of the late edition and the coming night’s racing form. This was unfamiliar territory, so I turned and headed back through the park until I found a bench behind the punk in the army jacket, stretched my arms, and took a deep breath to give myself a chance to look around. The park was still quiet and empty. I opened the racing form, took out my pen, and started on the evening’s handicapping. I wanted to have the form well-marked in case some strolling cop got inquisitive.

I was working on the fourth race, the newspaper still untouched next to me, when I felt something going down. I glanced parallel to the ground. Nothing. Everything was static, the park was still. And then I heard the rumble of the armored car as it pulled off Fifth and turned on Twenty-third, heading for the West Side. The punk was still on the bench but sitting straight up now. As soon as the truck was out of sight he got up and walked away fast, checking his watch. Amateur.

I’d seen enough. I wrapped up my papers and headed back to Michelle. I wasn’t that impatient to see if the column was in the paper—either it was or it wasn’t. I couldn’t change anything by reading there in the park.

Michelle opened the door even as my soft tap was echoing in the dead-quiet corridor. When she saw the racing form in my hand her eyes flashed instant disapproval so I quickly held up the copy of the paper to show her I hadn’t forgotten why I’d gone out. I sat down in the chair in front of the Mole’s telephone unit with Michelle perched on the arm as I leafed through. Sure enough, next to the kid’s smiling photograph was his semiweekly column. The thick black headline read UNCLE BIGOT WANTS YOU! Michelle and I went through it together.

Master Sergeant William Jones, a crewcut spit-and-polish veteran of the Korean and Vietnam wars, sits alone in his ground floor recruiting office in Herald Square, patiently waiting to explain the advantages of the “new” army to enough young men to make his quota for the month. Sgt. Jones is able to offer a truly staggering array of inducements to potential recruits—guaranteed choice of training, overseas or stateside assignment, a deferred enlistment program, an improved G.I. Bill, a college assistance deal where the army contributes towards tuition, and “more money than a captain used to make, including combat pay.” His office is attractive, centrally located, and the atmosphere is friendly.

But business hasn’t been too good for Sgt. Jones and his fellow recruiters around the city. Even with massive unemployment infecting the ghetto, young men are simply not opting for a military career these days. Sgt. Jones says the problem is the army’s insistence on educational standards that are not related to the needs of a fighting force. For the “new” all-volunteer army, only bonafide high-school graduates need apply. Says Jones, “When I went in the service, I hadn’t even finished the ninth grade. So what? The army taught me how to fight, made sure I knew everything I needed to know, taught me to be a man. I finished high school in the service, the same way most of my friends did back then. Today, it’s ridiculous. There’s no such thing as simple patriotism anymore. The kids today want everything handed to them on a silver platter.” When asked how today’s all-volunteer army would fare in a combat situation, Jones just shrugged, but all observers agree that the goal of developing a “professional army” has fallen well short of expectations.

Meanwhile, a few blocks downtown, at 224 Fifth Avenue, in a shabby two-room office on the 14th floor, recruiting for a vastly different kind of army is going on. This army makes no promises of “training.” Indeed, it expects to hire only fully trained and experienced men—no women or rookies need apply. And unlike the U.S. Army, this army is pointedly not an equal-opportunity employer. The location where the recruits will serve is not even disclosed at the time of enlistment. Pay is a flat thousand dollars per month, with additional pay for “specialists” and some unexplained “bonuses.” Term of enlistment is “for the duration” and the only promise made is that all recruits will see action against the enemy, described by the recruiters as “terrs,” short for terrorists. Yet the men who run the little office say business is booming.

The office of Falcon Enterprises hasn’t been around too long, and the man in charge, a suave individual who identified himself only as Mr. James, freely admits that they don’t expect to be in business too much longer. James and his associate, a hulking individual who calls himself “Gunther, no mister,” will not discuss the purpose of their recruiting efforts, but they acknowledge that they are hiring “soldiers of fortune” to work outside the U.S. They don’t advertise, saying that true professionals will have no trouble locating them. Both men are understandably discreet about their own backgrounds, but there are occasional references to “African work” and it is clear that their operation is a thinly disguised front for one or more outlaw operations being formed in and around Zimbabwe (formerly Rhodesia) to resist black national rule.

When a reporter asked James if the Rhodesian groups were similar to the KKK that sprang up in the South after the Civil War, James, speaking with a faint British accent, replied, “You Americans are so strange about such things. Do you remember that scene in your
Gone With The Wind
where a wounded Confederate soldier asks for a lift from a carpetbagger and his darkie friend? Remember the darkie says, ‘You’d think they won the war’? The winners write the history books, and the history of Rhodesia isn’t ready for you writers yet.”

And his associate Gunther, pointing to a vicious-looking knife half-buried in the top of a wooden desk, flatly stated he didn’t expect any picketing from “Communists.” James was willing to discuss the Rhodesian situation at length, claiming that the blacks in power did not represent the true majority and that many “good coloreds” would prefer things as they used to be. But details as to his recruiting operation were not forthcoming. When asked what it would take to be accepted for enlistment, James said it would require a valid passport, military or law-enforcement experience, and “a certain something in a man—we know what to look for.”

Sgt. Jones reports that enlistments are down for the past year, but the mysterious Mr. James seems unworried, even though “only one out of five applicants is good enough to meet our standards.” Makes you wonder.

I looked up from the column at Michelle. It was perfect—if this didn’t bring the Cobra into the daylight, nothing would. The only way it could have been better would have been if the recruiters promised every new man the child of their choice to sodomize, but maybe Wilson would read between the lines and start thinking about the spoils of war. The column was all we could have wanted. I had to believe it—if the Cobra read the paper, he’d be coming around.

52

I LIT ANOTHER smoke and reread the column just to make sure there was nothing in it to spook our target. It stood up just fine—including the right amount of liberal outrage at the recruiting effort.

Michelle poked at my shoulder to get my attention. “Am I going to be here much longer, baby?”

“Not too much, I don’t think. Why?”

“Well, I’m not staying here another day without some cleaning supplies. Honey, this place is a dump. I am accustomed to better. I don’t need much—just some spray cleaner and some paper towels, maybe a dust mop. And some plastic bags for garbage. Actually a vacuum cleaner would be just the—”

“Would you forget that? Another day or so won’t make any difference.”

“Burke, I’m
telling
you—I don’t like being in dirty places—not when I have to live in them. You know what kind of woman I am,” she said, her eyes snapping.

“Just another day or so. I have to go out and dig up the Mole. He’s going to stay up here with you for a while, set up some things for me.”

“Does he play Scrabble?”

“I don’t think so. Ask him to build you a ray gun or something. I’ll call you by early this afternoon, see how things are going. If the freak doesn’t bite in a day or so, we close this down, okay?”

“Okay, baby. Listen, I meant to tell you before. I saw Margot and she asked me to ask you if anything was happening on her case. She said you’d know what she meant.”

“Yeah, I know. This comes first, then I’ll see—”

“And I should tell her . . . ?”

“Tell her that you saw me and I was working.”

I drove the Plymouth to the Bronx, found the Mole, and made arrangements for some work to be done on the car—remove all the paint and coat it with dull primer. If the cops ask you about the primer you just tell them you’re doing the repainting yourself and the primer was as far as you got. You can see cars like that all over the city. But they’re a bitch to see at night—the dull primer just eats artificial lighting. The Mole had some kind of paint-remover that worked in a flash. Every once in a while I try to get him to patent some of his stuff but he never wants to discuss it. Money doesn’t race his motor. I told the Mole I wanted him to stay with Michelle until I called off the Cobra-trap—he just kept working on the car like he hadn’t heard but I knew he’d do it.

Simba stuck his wolfish face into the shed where the Mole was working, checked me out briefly, and strolled over to a red metal box in one corner. The beast sat before the box, then slapped his right paw twice on the top, waited a few seconds, then slapped it twice with his left. The top of the box popped open and he stuffed his evil-looking snout inside and emerged holding a fat T-bone with pieces of meat still sticking to it. He looked up at the Mole, who nodded, then trotted out the door with his prize. I couldn’t train Pansy to do that in ten years.

“Hey, Mole—how does the box know the dog’s supposed to use first his right paw and then his left?”

“The box knows nothing. I know,” said the Mole, directing my eyes to a pneumatic tube running the length of the shed’s floor and then to a fat bulb near his foot. When the Mole was satisfied I’d made the connection he stepped on the bulb and the top of the red box popped open again. “I put the bone in there myself,” he said.

“And Simba doesn’t know, right?”

“Simba doesn’t care,” said the Mole, going back to his work.

While I was waiting for the car to be finished we talked about the Cobra-trap. When you talk politics with the Mole you have to speak in generalities. He knows there was this black guy in Africa who built a statue of Hitler and he has some vague idea that South Africa is one of Israel’s biggest supporters, so it’s narrow, tricky ground. I asked him once why he didn’t just go to Israel where he could live in peace, and he told me that there was no sacred ground, that it was all a myth. The Mole said that the Jewish tribe was destined to roam the earth, not to settle down in any one spot. “Not in a concentration camp, not in a country,” was the way he put it. In a way it made sense—it’s tougher to hit a moving target.

As soon as the car was ready I headed back for the city and Flood’s street, from which I phoned that I was coming. She was waiting downstairs. When we got into her studio she started to pace like a caged beast. Like the polar bears in the Bronx Zoo—they don’t want to get out, they want to get you in there with them.

“Flood, sit down, okay? I got a lot to tell you.”

“What?”

I handed her the copy of the newspaper, then quickly realized it was folded open to the evening’s racing entries. Flood slapped the paper out of my hand. “Burke!” It was a wail, like she was a little lost kid and I’d let her down. Flood wasn’t too keen on strategy. Combat was her style and she wanted to get on the battlefield—fuck the travel arrangements.

“Come here, babe. Listen to me. We’ve set the trap, all right? The freak may walk into it today, maybe tomorrow. I don’t know. But soon. If he doesn’t, he’s either gone to ground or he’s gone south, you understand?”

“Yes. You mean it’s almost over for this place, one way or another?”

“Right. Now listen, we’ve got to play this like its going to work—assume it’s going to come off, yes?”

“Why?”

“Because if it does and we’re not ready, it’s all for nothing.”

“I just want—”

“Hey, Flood. Fuck—I
know
what you want. I don’t have to hear it a thousand goddamned times. Just get your stuff, okay? You’re coming with me.”

“My stuff?”

“Whatever you need if you meet up with him.” Flood nodded and started putting some things in a blue-and-white vinyl duffel bag. When she got it all together she threw it over her shoulder.

“Burke . . . tell me it’s really going to happen. Please?”

“It’s going to happen, Flood.”

And the sunburst smile came out on the face of this plump little blonde girl who was hoping, finally, to get her chance to fight to the death.

We drove to the warehouse—slowly, carefully, no need to attract any attention right now. As the Plymouth hummed and I felt Flood’s warmth beside me, I was thinking how fine it would be for me to be taking her to the racetrack instead. Or the zoo. I get enough pain in my life from other people—I don’t need to put any on myself, so I stopped thinking like a fucking citizen.

I pulled the car right into the warehouse, all the way up to the back wall. The door closed behind us before I turned off the engine, and I knew that Mama had reached Max.

“Come on, Flood,” I said, extending my hand for her to take. She held out her hand as trustingly as a child. A soft, slightly damp chubby little palm—and on its other side, two enlarged knuckles with a faint bluish tinge. Would her hands be like Max’s someday, when she finished her training? I pushed that thought into the part of my mind that dealt with questions like that, questions like my father’s name.

Flood followed me into the back room. I motioned her to sit down on the desktop, lit a cigarette, and waited for Max. She opened her mouth to ask me something and I told her to be quiet.

Max the Silent materialized in the doorway wearing a black silk
gi,
a duplicate of the one he’d given Flood. Flood came off the desktop without moving her hands, flowed to her feet, opened her hands to Max, bowed. Max bowed in return, deeper than Flood.

I told Flood, “This is Max the Silent—my brother. He knows what you want and he has agreed to allow his temple to be used for your ceremony.”

Flood spoke without taking her eyes off Max. “Tell him thank you, Burke.”

“Tell him yourself, Flood.” And Flood brought her two hands together in front of her face, bowed over her hands, saying thank you as clearly as any speech.

Max pointed at Flood, curled his pointing finger into a fist, tapped his head. Flood nodded yes. They were of the same school. Then Max pointed at me, turned the finger back on himself, curled into the fist again, tapped his heart twice, half-smiled. Flood understood that too.

Max turned and we followed him out of the back room around to the stairs. Up one flight, then another. We came to a door covered only with a bamboo weave. Max pushed the bamboo aside for Flood to enter, and we were in Max’s practice room. The rough wood floor was hand-sanded and bleached so it was clean as an operating table. Flood didn’t have to be told to remove her shoes. The floor was slightly rough to the touch. Against one wall was a giant mirror, against another were Indian clubs, long wooden staves, a pair of fighting swords. A heavy bag like prizefighters train on was suspended from the ceiling in one corner.

Max approached the center floor, arms at his sides. He swept his hand to cover the surroundings, bowed toward Flood with an after-you-please gesture, and Flood knelt in front of her duffel bag and brought out the robes Max had given her. She shucked off her outer clothes, stuffed them into the bag, and put on the black robes.

She sprang onto the floor, spun into a
kata
that vibrated with grace and power. Her kicks became hand-thrusts so smooth that I couldn’t see the transition—her breaks were as clean as surgery. She worked against the mirror as she was supposed to, finishing in a deep bow to Max. No change in breathing, like she was at rest. A lioness returned to the jungle, and glad of it.

Max bowed in respect. He opened his hands, caught Flood’s nod and stepped onto the floor. He knife-edged one hand, blurred it toward his own neck and pulled it to a dead stop maybe an inch away. He bowed again to Flood, motioned her forward to him.

Flood stepped onto the floor, twisting her neck from side to side to get loose. Max moved his hands in gently waving patterns in front of his face and chest—like he was carefully gathering cobwebs. He held one leg slightly in front of the other, bent at the knee.

Flood danced in on her toes, twisted her body to the side and faked a left-handed chop, then spun into a kick from the same side, her foot darting like a snake’s tongue. Max took the kick on the outside of his thigh and moved behind her in the same motion, firing a two-finger strike at her face. Flood fell forward, her hands caught the floor and she back-kicked at knee height. Max flowed under the kick and his elbow whipped back with the power of a piston, stopping a millimeter from Flood’s temple. Finished. Real duels between top
karateka
don’t take more than thirty seconds—except in the movies. They move too fast and there’s no margin for error. If Max hadn’t pulled his last strike short, Flood’s skull would have been crushed.

They both got to their feet. Bowed. Bowed again. Flood’s face was flushed with joy—Max’s eyes were bright with approval. He held out his hands, palms up. Flood put her hands in his and he turned them over, examining closely. Max drew his hand across his waist, patted his legs, nodded emphatically. Then he held out his hands, nodded again, but with reservations.

Flood said: “I know. My kicks are better. My teachers have told me that I’m lazy. That I work with what works for me, not with what doesn’t.”

Max pointed to my wristwatch, and Flood understood. It was too late to learn new tricks—she’d have to fight the Cobra with what she had. Flood was ready. She went back to the duffel bag and brought out the picture of Sadie and Flower, the piece of silk, and the candles. I handed over a copy of the Cobra’s mug shot, and her quick flashing smile told me I was on her wavelength. For a change.

Max left the room and came back with a low red lacquered table that had tiny dragon’s claws for legs. He placed it in the far corner so the mirror would reflect the icon no matter where you stood.

I left Flood and Max in the temple and went downstairs to hook up the field phone and check in with Michelle.