He straightens.
– Whaddya say ta a song?
He opens his pipes, belts his tenor, echoes in the tunnel making him a chorus.
– Ye haven’t an arm, ye haven’t a leg, hurroo, hurroo
Ye haven’t an arm, ye haven’t a leg, hurroo, hurroo
Ye haven’t an arm, ye haven’t a leg, Ye’re an armless, boneless, chickenless egg,
Ye’ll have to be put with a bowl to beg,
Oh Johnny I hardly knew ye.
After midnight is what Predo said.
And at his disposaclass="underline" four enforcers in cop uniforms, those action-movie types with their body armor and grappling hooks, the others in coveralls, sweat suits, business casual. One big Vampyre costume party.
Figure he can play it a couple ways. Lead with the fake cops. Put them up on the stoop to knock on the door, force their way in, make way for whichever masqueraders have been planted on the street. Commandos will be on the roof already. They can come straight down, or just sit up there to pick off anyone who tries to get out through the fire exit up top. Plenty of extra bodies to spread around the streets in case something sloppy happens and they have runners that need to be snatched away. Biggest problem with that play is the cop uniforms. Neighbors see them out their windows, they’re gonna pull up a chair to see what it’s all about. As long as the action stays inside the Cure house, it’s not all bad. But can you count on that? No. Best to count on shit getting all fucked up in this kind of scenario. Not that there’s ever been this kind of scenario. So figure he might play it straight paramilitary.
Commandos blow a hole in the roof, pour inside, start flushing everything to the bottom. Fake cops are outside, ready to do “crowd control” on anything that comes out. Some of those coveralls had ConEd logos. Guys might be set to cut power to the house, maybe the whole block.
How good are Predo and his enforcers?
One-on-one, they’re good as it gets in terms of being fit and well trained and inclined to want to hurt a person, but not big on independent thought. Rote fighters. Counterpunchers most of them. Fight dirty enough and you have a good shot. Pretty good in small group, but the same weaknesses apply.
But this?
Who the hell knows.
Mean, they haven’t done it before. And hard to figure where they’d practice. Chances are, once they pull the trigger and start this thing, it’ll all be theory they’re trying to make work the way they want it to. Counting on Horde’s people being disorganized, starving, poorly armed.
Predo had any idea how far gone things really are in there, he’d probably not be bothering. Just keep his embargo in place and wait a little longer.
Heat. He’s feeling it.
What Hurley had to say about the news. That stuff has always stung the Coalition more than it has the downtown types. Psycho-killer headlines, that tension on the streets, the feeling out there that something’s not right. Predo doesn’t like it. And if he doesn’t like it, his bosses on the Coalition Secretariat like it less.
Old schoolest of the old school. Bunch of top hat and evening cape boys sitting on the top floor of Coalition HQ. Fancy Upper East town house just around the corner from the Guggenheim. Calling shots that knock balls over the whole Island.
Used to be, I pictured them smoking big cigars and drinking port. Like from a nineteenth-century political cartoon. Red noses, round bellies, resting their feet on the backs of the slobs. Nothing wrong with it if you can get a seat at the table, I suppose. Not my style, but I get why people want to be on top. Means there’s no one overhead to drop a load on you when their bowels get loose.
Got a different picture of them now.
Lean. Burnished. Dipping fingers into bowls of something that looks like looped purple licorice ropes. Putting them at their lips and sucking.
Sucking cord blood from harvested umbilicals.
Hole-raised kids with chains on their necks scattered around the room.
Not a picture from satire, but something literal. Like I’m thinking that’s what it’s really like up there on that top floor. Very much just like that.
Types living that way, you might figure they have a vested interest in avoiding the kind of headlines Hurley mentioned. So yeah, figure again that Predo’s feeling heat, needs to get the situation under control. Minimize risks and exposures. Start with what’s right there in the middle of their turf. The Cure house.
A quiet play. Clandestine. That’s what he’ll be going for. The fake cops, they won’t lead, they’ll hold back for an emergency. Whole thing will be invisible if Predo has his way. Commandos first, dead of night, figure between three and four. Time for us to make the scene before it goes down. Get inside, make a deal with Horde and Sela, and be waiting for Predo’s enforcers when they come in.
And once they’re in and the bullets fly, I grab the girl with her baby, try and take the boyfriend if I can, and get the hell out.
Who’s thrashing?
Not me.
I have a plan.
– You said you knew the way.
– I do.
– It’s almost three in the morning.
– Just be quiet, I’m trying to smell something.
– Oh, I’m sorry, is my voice interfering with your sense of smell? Is it getting in your nose and distracting you?
– Lydia.
– Joe.
– If you’d had given me that gun, I’d be shooting you again right now.
She turns to Terry.
– He’s lost. He’s cracking wiseass now because he’s lost and it’s what he does when he knows he’s fucked up.
Terry sloshes closer.
– Joe?
I hold up a hand.
– Just shut up for a minute and back off.
A cramp hits my gut and I fold over it.
Terry presses the heel of his hand into his forehead.
– How long since you had anything?
I unfold.
– Too long what with the ass-kicking I’ve been taking. So I’m maybe not at my sharpest. So I need maybe a little space and quiet here.
He turns to Lydia.
She looks at me, jabs a finger.
– Time’s almost up.
And works her way through the water back to her Bulls.
Terry tugs the edge of his watch cap.
– Getting late. Another thirty minutes and the risk and reward elements on this will have seriously eroded. We’ll have to turn back and, I don’t know, negotiate some kind of settlement. Me and Lydia, I mean. You.
He looks at the water.
– To be honest, Joe, you’ll be staying down here. Metaphors aside, saying it like it needs to be said, get us the fuck up into the Cure house or Hurley is going to beat you to death with his hammer.
A few yards away, Hurley turns. Shows me his hammer.
– If it must be, Joe, so it will. An nothin’ personal.
I nod.
– Yeah, sure, I’ll play the nail. No problem. Just give me a shot at this with no one on my back.
Terry raises his hands and backs away.
– Hey, I’m the last one to want to get on anyone’s back, man. That’s not my thing. Just that we have a timeline. Structure is tough, but once you get into it, you have to stay there.
Another moment when it might be better I don’t have a gun, but I’d still be happy to see one come floating by on a raft of shit. Nothing pops up, so I close my eyes, try to ignore the ache that’s creeping into my marrow, try and find a scent of dry air.
Something sears my cheek.
I open my eyes.
A flicker of white at the edge of my vision, down the tunnel.
I look back at Hurley, leaning against the far wall, hammer cradled in his arms, whistling Irish war ballads to himself.
The heat wavers in the air. I touch it, feel it dissipating, but know the course.
I raise my arm and point.
– This way.
Seven minutes later we’re in the Second Avenue line above Sixty-eighth. Minutes after that we’re in the access shaft, making our way past Phil’s corpse.
Terry looks at the mangled body.
– Sela did that?
I walk away.
– I did that. Finally had enough of his double crosses.