“The Magicians?”
“Ceil would say ‘Do it in my memory,’” Oster says. “She’d be like, ‘You and Bobby O get down to the Park ‘n’ start kicking some ass. In my name.’”
“Ceil didn’t talk that way,” Gilrein says.
“The point is,” Oster says, “you’re home now. And once I talk to my people, we’ll have you reinstated in a week. There’s a hole in Administrative Vice right now. We’re all over AD, Gilly. We own that goddamn department and we’re branching out. The boys’ll help you move your stuff in here next weekend. You can be on the job by Friday. I got stuff in the pipe for you already. Swear to God.”
The air runs from Subash’s lungs, empties his body with an awful speed, and sends him down, full weight on both knees. He tries to hold up a flat hand, a panicky stop sign, but his balance is gone and he topples onto all fours, gasping. Rafael is over the edge. He lets a foot kick out, smacking into Subash’s side, knocking him over onto shoulder and head.
One of the ponytailed betting agents runs up to Oster and thrusts a wad of bills at him. Bobby crams the stash in a rear pocket, slaps the cashier on the ass as she turns, and calls to her back, “Two more minutes, Dolores, then close it down.”
He stands up, waves to Danny Walden, mimes some cryptic body language like a paranoid base coach, then asks over his shoulder, “So, what, is it in the Checker?”
Though expected, the question rocks Gilrein and he asks, “Is what in the Checker?”
Oster turns to look at him and says, “C’mon, Gilly, don’t jerk me around tonight. You can see I’ve got my hands full here.”
Rafael’s chest is heaving as he circles his downed opponent. Stewie Green has told him to wait at least fifteen minutes before the kill, but Green’s Spanish isn’t the best and time has a tendency to get distorted in the penal colony. So he stomps down on the Pakistani’s stomach with his heel, follows this up with a kick in the face that breaks open a run of blood vessels along the right eye. The crowd’s shrieking pushes toward maximum volume and Rafael goes into his act, pretends to suddenly spot something glinting in the spotlight, something metal shining up out of a matted pile of old leaves and blown-up bricks. He grabs hold and picks it up, an old piece of piping, about the size of a small baseball bat, threaded at each end. He wraps both hands around one end, chokes them up an inch and takes a cut through the air that makes a wonderful whooshing sound.
A few feet behind him, Subash is moaning and moving, trying to get back on his feet. Rafael turns to see the adversary grabbing hold of a brick. He starts to walk toward Subash, taking warm-up swings with the pipe bat, practice for a swat to the skull that will put the Pakistani down for good.
“I’m not jerking you around,” Gilrein says.
Oster waits a long time before replying, seeming to study the fight like a stern dance instructor. He runs a hand over his mouth, then says, “’Course you’re jerking me around. You’re not stupid enough to come back here without the book—”
“I don’t have any book, Oster.”
Rafael’s chest is heaving and blood is running down his chin nonstop. He brings the pipe back over his right shoulder. Subash forces his way to his feet, lifts his brick back behind his right ear in a pitcher’s stance. They start to slowly circle each other, the crowd loving it, screaming down advice or insults at the two fighters in a language that neither one can understand.
Oster stands up slowly, catches Stewie Green’s eye, makes some kind of hand gesture that Green confidently nods a response to. Green climbs up on a pile of bricks and starts to call out three equally accented and slightly elongated syllables: Raf — a—el, Rat — a—el—and the crowd picks up on it immediately, making it into a group war chant that grows louder in volume with each recitation, a ceremonial egging-on of the kid with the pipe, an aural talisman with the power to turn a desperate refugee with little understanding of how and why he ended up in this moment, into some kind of mythic warrior ready, with the aid of a length of planted lead water pipe, to dispense a messy death to a weaker enemy.
Bobby Oster sits back down and says, “I’ve always thought you and I were a lot alike, Gilly. Almost like we’re brothers. Like one of those old stories, you know? We’re separated at birth and we meet up years later …”
He trails off, shaking his head.
Gilrein says, “I don’t think so. I think it’s more like one of those not-so-old stories where one of us has to rip the heart out of the other. And I think both of us know that.”
“You really didn’t bring the book, did you, you asshole?”
Rafael hesitates, makes a noticeable glance up to Walden. Walden gestures slightly with the Winchester, tipping the barrel down toward the ground. Subash senses something and panics, charges blindly with his brick. But Rafael is too fast. He steps into the charge and bunts Subash in the throat, putting him back down on the ground, choking without sound. Then Rafael straddles the quaking body, a foot on either side of the Pakistani’s hips. Rafael chokes up on the pipe, holds it cocked for several seconds like a young Ted Williams posing for what will become an enormously valuable trading card.
“I wish there were some other way we could have resolved this,” Oster says, staring, unblinking, down on the pit.
Gilrein listens to the chanting die out in an instant, as if by some unseen signal. He says, “You’re going to take me out right here? Some of these people were my friends …”
Bobby Oster says, “Don’t flatter yourself, okay?”
Subash tries to move, his head rolling on his neck as understanding flows back into the brain. He makes a futile and stuttering attempt to gain balance up on an arm. Rafael is blocking Gilrein’s view. Oster moves a few steps to the side, maybe to see if the doomed man’s eyes are open or closed.
Gilrein moves up behind him and says, “I’m not going to just roll over, Bobby.”
Oster shrugs, intent on watching the finale.
“Doesn’t matter what you do, Gilly,” he says. “We come after someone, there’s nothing they can do.”
And then the pipe comes down, flies to the skull with a vicious and simplistic arc, a chop down through the air, fairly graceless but completely effective.
Subash’s skull cracks open. Blood explodes. And to make sure the job is done, Rafael hammers home two more blows, leaving no doubt in the mind of the crowd as to who has won money tonight and who has lost.
26
All along the walk back through the factory and out to the Checker, Gilrein keeps waiting to hear the explosion of orgiastic bloodlust that the mob has been building toward since the prisoners were led into the pit. But the air behind him is void of any sound beyond the muted echo of Oster’s bullhorn announcing something unintelligible.
As he approaches the cab, Gilrein notices someone in the driver’s seat. He takes his gun from his rig and continues to walk, holding the piece down at his side. A few more yards and the face behind the wheel is recognizable. Gilrein leans on the passenger window and waits for an explanation.
When it becomes clear the intruder has no intention of offering the first words, Gilrein says, “I’m sorry, Inspector, I’m off duty.”
He gets a throat-clearing noise in response.
“You’ll have to find another ride,” Gilrein says, more forcefully.
The old priest reaches to the roof and switches on the cab’s dome light, then smiles and opens his mouth as wide as it will part to reveal a hole swollen with white, oozing pustules.
“Jesus,” Gilrein says, recoiling.
Lacazze lifts his hands in the air like a surgeon, or a monk ready to consecrate a wafer. The hands are covered with similar nodules and swollen to the point where the fingers resemble overstuffed sausages.