Wake Up Dead (25 page)
Authors: Roger Smith
Near the bottom, under the narrow bridge formed by the sidewalk above, public bathrooms had been carved into the stone. Locked at this time of night. There was nowhere to hide. Once he walked down the ramp he would be backlit, a perfect target.
But he knew that Piper would want him close. Blade length.
So Billy started walking, the Taurus held at his side, shoulder
throbbing beneath the sling. His legs still unsteady, the sweat rolling freely—from the heat and the fever and the fear. Not fear for his own life; he was long over that. Fear that he was close to Piper once more, and that he wouldn’t be able to finish him.
throbbing beneath the sling. His legs still unsteady, the sweat rolling freely—from the heat and the fever and the fear. Not fear for his own life; he was long over that. Fear that he was close to Piper once more, and that he wouldn’t be able to finish him.
As he walked, his shadow stretched tall as a tree in front of him, far more solid and substantial than he was. He saw the sand, heard the soft hiss of the ocean, the water hardly moving in this protected little bay. When he reached the bottom of the ramp he saw a bundle of rags lying beside a supermarket cart that had its wheels planted in the sand. It took a moment for the bundle to take on human form: a black woman sagging up against the cart. Asleep.
Blonde hair caught his eye at the far end of the small beach. Roxy and Maggott’s kid sat on the rocks. Roxy had her arm around the boy. Billy blinked, fought off a moment of nausea and dizziness, sure he was hallucinating again. Opened his eyes. Saw he wasn’t. Roxy was being guarded by Uncle Sam.
Billy stepped forward, crossed beneath the walkway.
A voice came from deep in the shadow to his left, from a place where the streetlights couldn’t reach. “Drop the gun.”
Billy let his fingers open, and the Taurus slid from his grasp and hit the sand with a wet slap.
“Put your hand on your head.”
Billy obeyed, and a figure sucked itself out of blackness. Another Uncle Sam. But no minstrel costume or makeup could disguise the man walking toward him. It was more than a physical thing. It was an atmosphere. The way he poisoned the air around him. A being soaked in death.
The man stopped and smiled, gold teeth glinting like the blade in his hand.
“Billy.”
“Piper.”
S
HE SAW THE SHADOW FIRST, A LINE OF INK DRAWING ITS WAY DOWN the ramp. Roxy sat up, took her arm from around Robbie. She needed to be ready. Saw feet, legs, and then finally Billy Afrika’s face, his close-cropped bronze skull haloed by the streetlight behind him. He moved into shadow as he crossed under the sidewalk. It was only for a second, but he disappeared. As if she had conjured him up and then lost him.
HE SAW THE SHADOW FIRST, A LINE OF INK DRAWING ITS WAY DOWN the ramp. Roxy sat up, took her arm from around Robbie. She needed to be ready. Saw feet, legs, and then finally Billy Afrika’s face, his close-cropped bronze skull haloed by the streetlight behind him. He moved into shadow as he crossed under the sidewalk. It was only for a second, but he disappeared. As if she had conjured him up and then lost him.
Until he stepped out onto the beach.
It shocked her to see his left arm in a sling, and even from where she sat she could tell that he was moving slowly, his steps unsure as his feet found the sand. She heard Disco, pressed close against her, suck in a breath, his eyes fixed on the approaching man.
Roxy slid a hand under her dress and worked the sliver of glass free, palming it. She brought her hand back to her lap, cupping the jagged edges.
Waiting for her moment.
BILLY STOOD WATCHING the man who had scarred him. Killed his partner. Butchered Clyde’s family.
Piper glanced across at Disco and Roxy and the child before he turned his gaze to Billy Afrika, like an animal sensing his prey. Then he was coming.
Billy saw there wasn’t going to be a preamble. Piper’s blade lifted higher than his shoulder, blade briefly yellow in the streetlight. Billy was about to make his own move when a wave of dizziness rocked him and his legs buckled. He fell like a condemned man through a gallows trapdoor. Took forever for his knees to hit the cool sand.
Instead of taking him in the heart, Piper’s blade struck Billy’s skull, slicing deep into the scalp above the right ear, glancing off bone. Blood flowed, thick and immediate, over Billy’s forehead, blinding his right eye and dripping down onto the sand.
He looked up, and through his good eye he saw Piper recovering his balance, setting himself, raising the blade like he was the reaper about to harvest.
DISCO KNEW HE must act. He had to use the gun in his shaking hand. Shoot Piper. A voice told him you couldn’t kill a thing that was already dead. That even if he emptied the gun into Piper, he’d just keep on coming with his Okapi knife and his 28 smile. That was crazy. Even Piper was flesh and blood and shit like any other fucker.
But just in case, as Disco brought the gun up from his lap, he leaned closer to the blondie, ready to tell her that she should take the kid and go, make for the ramp. Run.
ROXY SAW BILLY Afrika go down, saw Piper fall upon him. The creature next to her leaned in, his breath hot on her neck. Before she could think, she gripped the sliver of glass, swung her arm, and buried the tapering shard deep in his left eye.
Disco screamed, his voice filling the night in the lull of the foghorn. He stood, for a moment still holding the gun. Then he released the weapon, both his hands flying up to the glass, trying to pull it from his eye.
The gun seemed to hang in space. Roxy reached out, ready to grab it, fingers closing on the hot night air as the pistol rippled the water and disappeared.
THE KNIFE SANK to the hasp, deep in Billy’s chest.
He felt blood well and flow, spurting down his shirtfront. Spurting meant his heart was still beating. Maybe. Piper withdrew the knife, Billy’s blood beading the air as he lifted it high again. This would be the killer blow.
A scream. Wrenched from deep. Full of pain and the animal fear of death.
Piper paused, the knife frozen at the apex of its backward arc. He looked over his shoulder, toward his dying wife.
Billy thrust his right hand into the folds of the sling, his fingers slick with his own blood. He found the handle of the Okapi, set his grip, and pulled the knife free, blade already extended and locked. Positioned before he’d left Maggott’s Ford.
He rammed the blade home low in Piper’s gut, just above his pubes. Piper turned to look at him, as close as a lover, stale breath sighing from the mouth like a gaping wound in that painted face. Using the last of his strength, Billy forced the knife upward, feeling the blade lay open viscera, sinew, and flesh. Dragged the blade until it jammed against Piper’s sternum, jarring Billy’s hand.
Piper sagged toward him, lips working as if they wanted to form words. Words that were drowned in the blood that spewed
like black water from the mouth of a gargoyle. In the end, Piper died like any other man: coughing blood and breath as life slid from him with his voided waste.
like black water from the mouth of a gargoyle. In the end, Piper died like any other man: coughing blood and breath as life slid from him with his voided waste.
Billy sagged onto his back, feeling the weight of the dead man pressing down on him. When he tried to move, his clothes slipped across his skin, thick with blood. His blood and Piper’s. Billy managed to roll Piper onto the sand, lay fighting for breath, staring up at the moon fixed on him like an accusing eye.
A face blotted out the moon. A face fringed by blonde hair. Roxanne.
She was touching him. Speaking. He couldn’t feel her touch. Couldn’t hear her words. Saw her running toward the ramp, the child at her heels. The world was losing focus at its edges, darkening like an iris toward the middle of his vision. Before blackness closed on him, Billy saw one last thing.
Another knife blade catching the streetlight.
The homeless woman who had been sleeping next to her cart was on her feet, standing at the mouth of the ramp. She forced Roxy back against the wall and had a knife held high. Billy understood who she was. And what she was about to do.
He tried to shout. But the tide of darkness took him as he saw the long blade fall.
T
HE SILENCE WOKE HIM. DOC, SPRAWLED BENEATH THE KITCHEN table, the empty bottle of brandy lying next to him like an old lover, felt the familiar hangover throb at the base of his skull as he sat up. He tried to fit the pieces together. Why had he passed out under the table? Couldn’t remember.
HE SILENCE WOKE HIM. DOC, SPRAWLED BENEATH THE KITCHEN table, the empty bottle of brandy lying next to him like an old lover, felt the familiar hangover throb at the base of his skull as he sat up. He tried to fit the pieces together. Why had he passed out under the table? Couldn’t remember.
He eased himself to his feet, aging bones serenading the dawn, and walked out into the sitting room. The shattered window was a reminder. And the line of high-caliber bullet holes stitching the wall. His TV lay on its back, tube smashed.
No cricket today.
Doc’s house was a bad place to be during a gang war. Sitting as it did in this bit of no-man’s-land, between the 26s and the 28s, it was strafed by both sides as they lay down covering fire for the soldiers crossing Main Road into enemy territory. But now it was quiet.
Doc edged to the broken window and peered out. In the dawn light he could see all the way up Main. It was strewn with
barricades of wire and rocks, and a burned-out car lay on its side not far from his front gate. The body of a man sprawled facedown near the car, his blood dark on the sand. A woman in a Muslim headscarf scuttled across the road, carrying a plastic shopping bag and a tub of Kentucky chicken, and disappeared into Dark City. Otherwise the road was empty and silent.
barricades of wire and rocks, and a burned-out car lay on its side not far from his front gate. The body of a man sprawled facedown near the car, his blood dark on the sand. A woman in a Muslim headscarf scuttled across the road, carrying a plastic shopping bag and a tub of Kentucky chicken, and disappeared into Dark City. Otherwise the road was empty and silent.
Then Doc heard the flat slaps of an automatic rifle. Snipers were on the roofs of the houses on the White City side, firing across the road. He heard answering fire. Shouts. Breaking glass. Screams.
He wandered back into the kitchen, which had small, high windows that looked out over the dump. The safest place to be. He crawled back under the table and tilted the empty bottle, the last drop of brandy burning sweetly on his tongue. He was out of booze, and these gang wars had a way of dragging on. The cops were happy to let them take their own course, looking on them as a culling process. A way of getting shit off the streets. If a few innocents died, who gave a fuck?
It was going to be a long day.
Billy Afrika, if he wasn’t dead in a ditch, had a bucketload of blood on his hands.
IT WAS BAGHDAD revisited, Billy fading up out of darkness, a pale face swimming in front of him. But this was a man in a white coat, gray-haired and expressionless. Billy tried to speak, but he had something shoved down his throat. Knew he had to pull it out, tried to move his hands. Couldn’t. He faded out again.
Sometime later he floated back.
He was alone in ICU, with the machine hum of the monitors and the suck and click of the respirator, persistent as an obscene caller caught in a loop. His throat was dry and inflamed from the ET tube shoved down into his air passages. Two chest tubes poked out of holes in his right side, near the ribs, draining
rust-colored fluid into a plastic container near the foot of the bed. The fluid bubbled like a hookah pipe as the machine inflated his lung. He lifted his arms, saw the IV lines disappearing into the veins of his hands.
rust-colored fluid into a plastic container near the foot of the bed. The fluid bubbled like a hookah pipe as the machine inflated his lung. He lifted his arms, saw the IV lines disappearing into the veins of his hands.
There wasn’t a part of his body that didn’t hurt.
A dark-skinned woman in nurse’s gear came in. Gave him the once-over.
“Can you hear me?” she asked. He croaked a reply. “Don’t try and talk. You’ve got a punctured lung. And that bullet hole in your shoulder went septic. Bloody near killed you. Next time you have backyard surgery, don’t come here to make it nice.”
He wanted to ask her about Roxanne Palmer. But the nurse was gone. He lay taking stock of the pain. Feeling the emptiness inside him now that Piper was dead. Nothing like hating somebody to give you a reason to go on living.
Billy did the arithmetic. Added up the tab. He had been back home four days. He’d killed two men and a girl. And he’d caused the death of many others. But he had survived. So what did that mean?
Maybe it was a sign. Or maybe it meant sweet fuck all.
He listened to the respirator.
Suck. Click
. Felt his chest expanding, despite himself. Felt life go on.
Suck. Click
. Felt his chest expanding, despite himself. Felt life go on.
As sleep ambushed him, Billy Afrika saw a road ahead and him on it. His feet sucked and clicked as he walked, the blacktop tacky with blood.
THE CANNIBAL WATCHED the dogs, three of them, the size of small ponies. Muscle and sinew playing beneath their shiny coats, their long tongues lagging and flapping as they wrestled on the grass. He stayed well back, near the railing on the oceanfront.
Bertrand Dubois Babakala didn’t trust white men’s dogs. The animals often barked at him, sometimes tried to nip his black flesh, the proxies of their masters. Giving expression to what
was now forbidden in this country, but decrees and laws could never contain what seethed beneath.
was now forbidden in this country, but decrees and laws could never contain what seethed beneath.
He was relieved when the dogs ran off and started worrying at the frayed blanket that hung from a wire cart stranded under a shriveled tree, wheels akimbo. A bulky homeless woman lay facedown a short distance from the cart, unmoving, arms spread wide, as if she had been dropped from a height.
Babakala lit another Gitane and leaned on the railing, watching the activity down in the little bowl of Three Anchor Bay. Groups of uniformed cops like jellyfish washed up on the sand. Figures in suits and white coats. Cop vans, ambulances, morgue vehicles parked on the ramp. Media clotted the parking lot above, and a white helicopter swooped down low, like a scavenging gull. The door was open, and a man with a video camera leaned out, the lens flaring for a moment as it caught the sun.
Babakala had started his day the way he started every day. He had brushed his best suit and put it on over a white shirt, trying not to notice the fraying at the sleeves. He shined his loafers, bought in Milano some years before. The leather was cracking, and the sole of the left shoe sported a hole the size of a dog’s puckered anus.
He left his apartment and wandered down to the main road in Sea Point, to the little coffee shop where he took his morning café au lait and read a page or two of André Gide’s
Travels in the Congo
. The cannibal found the Frenchman’s loathing of his colonial countrymen bracing.
Travels in the Congo
. The cannibal found the Frenchman’s loathing of his colonial countrymen bracing.
He sat at a table on the sidewalk, not because it seemed more Parisian, but because regulations forbade him to smoke inside. After a few sips of coffee, he listened to his voice mail messages. He’d slept with his phone off, unperturbed when Tatiana hadn’t returned. She sometimes had what she called “sleepovers,” where she spent the night with a client. These earned her more money.
He had to play the message from Tatiana twice to understand it. She was at Three Anchor Bay. She had found the American woman. Babakala felt the coffee curdle in his gut, and he pushed the cup away, half full. He left change in the saucer and hurried down to the oceanfront.
Where he now stood. Smoking.
He feared the police even more than he feared the dogs that were tugging at the blanket, one of them up on his hind legs, long snout rooting inside the cart. There was no way that Babakala was getting any closer to the action down there on the beach. He tried Tatiana’s phone, for the tenth time that morning.
And for the tenth time heard her recorded voice: “This is Olga. You leave for me a message after the beep.” Olga was her working name. The clients seemed to find it easier to remember.
He slipped his phone back in his pocket.
“Hey, Blackie! Come here!”
Babakala heard one of those white voices, dripping with entitlement, and thought at first he was being addressed. But the voice belonged to the owner of the dogs, a man with sandy hair, two small children, and a tired-looking wife sitting with him on a picnic blanket on the grass.
All three dogs were now up on their hind legs, desperate to get at what was in the supermarket cart. One of them—the darkest of the three—jumped higher, his hind paws finding purchase on the wire frame, trying to climb inside. The weight of the dog’s body toppled the cart onto its side, and the contents spilled out.
The dogs jumped back, startled. Then they pounced, and each dog grabbed something in his mouth and they ran back to their owner, side-by-side like the hounds of hell, and proudly deposited three stinking, fly-covered, decomposing human heads in the middle of the picnic blanket. The white woman screamed and gathered her children. The man stood, backed away, tripped over his own feet, and ended up on his backside.
Something drew Babakala closer to the blanket. One of the heads was fresher. It lay looking up at him, framed by hair dyed the color of egg yolk.
Tatiana.
The cannibal blinked, fought rising vomit, and walked away quickly, feeling the brick of the sidewalk through the hole in his shoe.
Heading toward the Waterfront and that job as a doorman.
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