“You recognize this?” Morgan asked. “It’s a Randall Number One custom made fighting knife. It’s seven inches of the best steel available, high carbon 440C stainless, hand forged and hand ground, and tempered to a hardness of sixty on the Rockwell scale. I can put an inch of the tip of this blade in a vise and stand on the handle without bending or breaking it. Do you think I keep it sharp?”
He stretched out his right hand, keeping the pistol in his left centered between Griffith’s eyes. He was impressed that the ex-Marine’s hand remained completely steady. He rested the edge of the blade against Griffith’s skin, tilted it to a sharp angle and slid the knife toward himself. The harsh scraping sound filled the otherwise silent diner. With one long slow stroke, Morgan removed all the hair from the offered arm starting two inches above the white wrist. Tiny red dots rose from the razor burn of a dry shave. While he wiped his blade clean on Griffith’s pants, Morgan again made strong eye contact.
“Now we can go to the meeting place you had arranged with Stone,” Morgan said, “or, I can drag you upstairs and gag you and tie you up real tight. You friends out front would assume you were working me over in here. Or maybe they’d think I escaped and you followed me. Eventually they’ll knock that door open and find Tommy over there. Eventually they’d just leave. Then I could spend the next three or four hours making one inch cuts, an eighth of an inch deep everywhere on your body. Everywhere. When I got through you’d be covered with blood. Hands, feet, genitals would become useless. You’d hurt like hell. For months. But you know what? You wouldn’t die. You’d never walk or work or fuck again. But you wouldn’t die. Now. Shall we go?”
For the next several seconds Griffith’s eyes wandered the room, as if he was considering his options. Morgan waited patiently until Griffith slowly rose from his chair.
“I didn’t like the food here anyway,” he said.
A door at the top of the stairs provided easy access to the roof. No one paid any attention to them trotting down the fire escape stairs. Once on the street, Morgan pocketed his gun. He put his left arm around Griffith’s waist, with the Browning in his right side pocket pointed at the Marine across the front of his body. Then he ordered his captive to hail a taxi. He did not worry about their appearance. Hacks cruising the village would think nothing of a couple of guys looking for a ride who were embracing, or even holding hands. When a cab pulled to the curb in front of them, Morgan was confident he would soon meet with his betrayer.
Apart from an unduly talkative driver, Morgan’s taxi ride was uneventful. They took the local route, up through midtown Manhattan. Griffith began to relax a little, which Morgan took as a bow to his own professionalism. The tense moments of capture had passed. Now Morgan wanted Griffith to know he was in no danger as long as he didn’t try anything stupid. So they sat in silence, watching the busy city go by.
New York passed in an even flow of images, through clean and dirty neighborhoods. By moving at exactly thirty-two miles per hour, the streetwise driver approached each traffic light just as it turned green. He dodged around jaywalkers, cursing them in Armenian as he sprinted past. A local bus briefly barred their way, but by swerving around and past it, between the bus and a little Honda, the taxi freed itself. Morgan was thinking that the little stores and shops, so boldly ethnic, were the same in every major city in the world.
Traffic filled in as they left Manhattan and suddenly, they were in the Bronx. Morgan had seen the results of urban guerrilla warfare up close many times. Here, in the world’s richest city, was an area that bore an unpleasant resemblance to downtown Beirut. He knew those crumbling tenements he was riding past had spawned some of the most hardened fighters civilization had to offer. The broken windows were empty eyes staring out of pockmarked stucco faces.
The people here were black or Hispanic. They walked quickly, alert as any jungle animal, ready for an attack. When they moved around the neighborhood, they traveled in packs. They roamed these mean streets as warily as if there was a war on.
The driver lapsed into silence as he pulled the cab over to the curb. Morgan paid him, and the two passengers, captor and captive, stepped into the littered street. The men locked eyes as the taxi pulled away.
“I recognize this feeling, this emptiness,” Griffith said in hushed tones.
“Yeah,” Morgan said. “It’s that feeling, like when the choppers take off and you’re left in that LZ, inches from the forward battle line, unprotected.”
Griffith nodded, pointing a little up the narrow avenue. The empty lot directly across the street was covered with broken glass, broken bricks, broken bottles, broken boards. To its right stood a crumbling four story tenement building filled with broken windows, broken doors, and, Morgan imagined, broken dreams. Beyond the building was yet another empty lot.
The building stood like a single tooth, sticking up out of a rotting mouth. The number 1313 was painted on the door.
“So this is the rendezvous point,” Morgan said, his voice invading the silence. “Good thing I’m not superstitious.”
“This is where I was to bring you. Second floor left.”
“Well, let’s not disappoint him.” Morgan pulled out Griffith’s pistol, dropped the magazine and pulled the slide back, popping out the chambered round. As that lone bullet spun to the asphalt he extended the gun toward its owner. “Now take this. I’ll holster my gun. You walk me in like I’m a prisoner. Once I make contact with Stone or his representative, you’re free to go. Right?”
Griffith seemed to consider the situation for a moment. “You know, even if I lay off you, even if Stone don’t get you, my men will be after you,” he said. “They’re very good and very loyal.”
“I’ll take my chances,” Morgan said. “You in?”
“Okay. I’ll play,” Griffith said, reaching to accept the empty automatic.
Morgan wondered if any of the local citizens were watching as a military looking white man marched one of their black brothers across a pothole-covered street in the South Bronx. As they stepped through the rickety front door, he noticed a junkie crouched in the far corner of the unlighted hall. The junkie ignored the two intruders. They ignored him.
The odor of urine almost overpowered them. Morgan led the way up the stairs, stepping over the broken ones. On the second floor landing, Griffith thrust the impotent gun barrel into Morgan’s back and nodded toward a door.
“Good-bye and good luck,” he muttered. Morgan thought he might mean it. Griffith reached around Morgan and hit the door with three fast knocks and two slow ones.
A bolt shot back, a latch turned, and the door swung inward. Morgan expected to see Stone or an underling, seated comfortably, waiting to take him to some unknown Big Man. Instead, he stepped forward into a room even darker than the hallway. On the left, he made out a couch canted away from the wall. To his right sat a big torn up chair and a small table. As his eyes became accustomed to the deeper gloom he thought he saw a doorway about twenty feet ahead, perhaps leading into the kitchen.
Almost too late, all of his internal warning lights went on. A short, squat figure appeared in the far doorway. A flash of light glinted off of something as he swung it up. Morgan had just enough time to realize that Griffith was in the line of fire. These bastards would toss him out to get Morgan.
“Jesus!” Morgan said through clenched teeth as he dived desperately to the left. The blast coincided with his leap. Two or three stray shotgun pellets raked his right side ribs. His left shoulder crashed into the wall and he slid down behind the sofa. He had time to catch only a glimpse of J.D. Griffith pointing his useless forty-five before a swarm of angry twelve gage hornets blasted him into, and all over, the hall.
For Morgan, there was no way out. The couch provided some concealment, making it tough for anyone to pin down his exact position. But concealment is not the same thing as cover. He knew that riot gun in the kitchen would find him before too long. Twenty feet away, against the opposite wall, the backup man lay prone under the small table. He fired his small caliber pistol occasionally into the sofa. The crossfire was simple, smart, and inescapable. To stand and get a shot at one, he would have to expose himself to the other.