Strange City Page 11

  Fat-and-greasy nodded vigorously and a stupid grin cut across his bloated face

  "Yes, Arizona. That's where George and I met. I remember that particular dub very well"

  Who are you?" The new boy spoke for only the third time in almost two weeks.

  "My kind are friend to George and friend to you all. George and his associates travel across the country visiting secret clubs like this one, always accompa­nied by a special friend like me. Tonight, George and I are here in Northrock. In five weeks, we will be in Tom's River, New lersey, and Paul Todd Earley will be here in our place '

  'Who's Paul Todd Eariey?" asked Ash-eye, trying to take the dark man's eye off the new boy.

  "You know him as the Red River Ripper, Chatterjack," Despite Ash-eyes best efforts, the dark man's attention soon returned to the new boy. So far, George and I have visited Pennsylvania, New fersey, and Connecticut."

  "And Delaware," added Ash-eye. "The books say Delaware, too."

  'Yes, but I'm afraid the books are wrong. George had nothing to do with that woman in Delaware Sometimes journalists get a bit carried away."

  "How do you know where to go next?" asked a petite blond girl seated near the shed door.

  "Again, I'm afraid you wouldn't understand if I told you."

  Gradually, the new boy came to notice something His classmates were completely silent and attentive, almost reverent He could feel them clinging to the dark man and his words, reaching oat for attention, guidance . . . something.

  "There's something else you should know, Little Cobra. George and his associates are not the only men and women with a mission You and the other members of this club have a mission as well It is George's job to make people go away." The red light that inhabited the dark man's eyes grew so bright that the new boy was now sure it was not a reflection of the Mickey Mouse lamp. "It is your job to decide who goes away."

  The new boy's classmates were obviously growing anxious, Each was coiling as if to spring upon some unseen prey.

  "So." The dark man produced a thick Culver Country phone book from under his seat. "Who wants to choose?"

  The moment the invitation was extended, the assembled children lashed out like sprinters starting a race. Each was trying to attract the dark man's atten­tion by waving, grunting or shouting lust before the noise level grew loud enough to attract the staff mem­bers stationed at the nearby dormitory, the dark man cut it off with a cold stare that quieted all the children save for the small blond girl who spoke earlier.

  "I don't want to use the book," she mumbled. "I want George to make Peter Pan go away."

  A few of the other children giggled, but the dark man remained patient. "We needn't use the book, but I'm afraid George can't make Peter Pan go away, dear, Peter Pan is only a story,"

  The little girl hung her head and slumped to the back of the crowd. The new boy noticed a pair of tears start to slip down her face.

  "I have an idea, my young friends. Since this is Little Cobra's first meeting, why don't we allow him to choose?"

  The children obviously didn't like the idea, but they were afraid to question the dark man's wisdom. A!) eyes were drawn to the new kid "So Little Cobra . . who should go away?"

  The new kid paused and stared into the Mickey Mouse lamp. He had questions, As long as he could remember, he had questions But something in the dark man's eyes told him that answers were finally within his grasp. He realized the dark man was right. One day, he would figure it all out for himself. Like George. He sank into the dark man's shadow and reached out for the phone book.

  At the last moment, the dark man snatched the book away and tilted his head upward, obviously deep in thought When he finally looked down to face the children again, there was a hint of a smile on his lips Something was wrong. The dark man's voice grew ten­tative, almost inquisitive "I think your classmate is right, Little Cobra. Let's not use the book this time. Who should go bye-bye?"

  Suddenly, the new kid felt like an outsider again. What did the dark man want from him? Why did he take away the book? More questions. Why no answers? He needed answers more than anything in the world. He struggled to remember a name, but the only name he knew was his father's, and his Father was already gone His eyes darted around the shed in a nervous panic, looking from child to child, silently asking for help. When he noticed Ash-eye and the touch of amusement in the boy's expression, it came to him He knew exactly one name.

  Little Cobra cleared his throat. "Urn, Mrs, Tremond . she's our teacher." The blond girl resumed her sobbing The other children were quiet and interested, almost fascinated

  The dark man seemed to relax again. A broad smile cut across his face. "Mrs. Tremond it is," he said, shooting a glance toward George. "Our business is concluded then. Goodnight, children. You must return in exactly five weeks . . ." For a moment, his expres­sion grew sour ". , , and I'm sure I needn't remind you of what happens to boys and girls who talk to anyone about our club meetings "

  The other children slowly filed out of the shed and started sneaking back down the path to the dormitory, but Little Cobra couldn't leave—not yet. There were still so many questions. The dark man gave George a nod of assurance, prompting the greasy whelp to make his own exit. On the way out, George grabbed the Mickey Mouse lamp.

  Little Cobra and the dark man sat alone in the shadows, staring at each other. Little Cobra was afraid to speak. After a full fifteen minutes, Little Cobra finally mustered his courage. "What. . ."

  The dark man cut him off in mid sentence. "No."

  A knowing smile took root in his dark iips. "One day, lit­tle one." The dark man gave Little Cobra a comforting pat on the head before standing and exiting the shed. A moment later, Little Cobra came to his senses and followed. As he stepped out of the shed, he tried to catch a glimpse of the dark man walking off into the night, but there was no man in sight. He saw only what appeared to be a large, black dog bounding across the courtyard toward the highway.

  "I said give it to me right now, you cunt!" Little Cobra tore the seasheil from the new kid's hand while Ash-eye watched the hallway. Feeling his grip slip away, the new kid burst into tears and started Hailing his limbs. A wild left fist caught Little Cobra in the lip, but served only to enrage him,

  "Quick! Someone's coming!" Ash-eye heard the click of high heels against the polished floor of the corridor. At first, he presumed that Ms. Suarez, the boys' teacher, had finished her daily chat with the social worker a bit early, though it was actually the hefty, graying administrator who rounded the corner, heading toward the classroom.

  Ash-eye leapt toward his seat, but Little Cobra was too interested in the beating he was dishing out to the new kid. He was still pounding his fists into the boy's chest when the administrator entered the room.

  As she crossed the threshold, the administrator froze for an instant, then bolted for Little Cobra "GET OFF OF HIM, YOU DEVIL!" She remained surprisingly strong for her age—one swipe of her long arm easily separated the two boys. She grabbed Little Cobra's shoulders and brought her face within inches of his eyes, as if she was trying to peer into his soul to uncover a clue explaining his behavior, "You'd think you of all people would have some sympathy for a new face. You've only been here a couple of months yourself." Little Cobra just stared back. Sensing she'd get few answers from the boy, she turned to face the new kid. "Now, what's this all about?"

  "He ... he ... he stole my favorite shell"

  The administrator rolled her eyes, grabbed Little Cobra's ear, and gave it a tug. "Did you take the sheil?"

  Grabbing the administrator's wrist to ease the pain, Little Cobra gently shook his head "no.'

  "Empty your pockets!'

  Little Cobra stood motionless, staring at her with clearly defiant eyes Already tired of the whole inci­dent, the administrator reached into the boys hip pocket herself and tugged outward, spilling the pocket's contents on the ground. Maintaining her grip on the pocket, she stooped to pick up three items: the seashell, a plastic kaleido
scope, and a curious flat stone emblazoned with an unsettling painted rune in the form of a tight black spiral. Something about the stone sent a chill down her back. When she first touched it, its purpose and nature seemed to lie on the fringe of her conscience, just out of reach. Then, an instant later, the feeling was gone "Where did you get this thing?" she asked, rolling the stone through her fingers.

  "A friend gave it to me."

  Once she decided she couldn't unravel the mystery of the stone, she placed it and the kaleidoscope back in Little Cobra's pocket and held the seashell in front of his face.

  "Didn't steal it, eh? What do you have to say for yourself?"

  Little Cobra stood quiet and defiant.

  "Nothing at all?"

  Unexpectedly, the boy's defiant expression melted away, replaced by an unsettling grin. "Nothing to say, ma'am, but may I ask a question?"

  The administrator felt a sudden chill and took an unconscious step backward. "You may.'

  Little Cobra's grin melted away. "What's your name?"

  The Way It Goes

  by Thomas Kane

  Suddenly, I found myself outside Waiter's Restaurant once more. It was morning again in San Francisco, just like the first time, and the colorless full moon still hung behind thin clouds My target was sitting with Von Roon and three of his men in a corner booth, and the five of them were eating Number Two Breakfast Specials, The target had her back to me, so all I saw of her were soft golden curls and the pale-blue vinyl of the restaurant furniture. I felt the weight of the pistol in my back pocket.

  Its no big deal, killing people, it happens every day.

  Besides, nobody asked me to think about what I was doing. DNA Incorporated doesn't pay people to think, and neither does Mr. Praeger I was nothing but Praeger's property—indentured servitude is a way of life in the modern corporation. If you don't accept that, you flip burgers all your life.

  It's not as if I was going to make some kind of stand for high principle, Thou skalt not kill—what kind of garbage is that? I was living in the real world. If you fight reality, you end up like the target in there.

  And so, i brushed the damp from my wiry mus­tache, and wiped the lenses of my glasses, which had fogged in the morning air. My hands were pale and the tendons stood out. When I looked at my skinny arms protruding from the dark gray sleeves of my imported trench coat, I knew that I was a killer, but I would get myself smeared in any kind of a real fight.

  Every now and then I wondered whether I'd made the wrong decisions—whether I really had to end up as a guy who made a living by shooting people from behind. But when I looked at my arms, I knew I had the body of a coward. [ remember exactly why I ended up the way I did. I never had a choice. Or, if I did have a choice,! didn't know it at the time

  I positioned myself for the shot. The waitress kept messing up my line of sight, but my position gave me the best view I could get of the target's head.

  The target's name was Julie Rochon.

  It didn't matter that I knew Julie's name. It was her own fault that this was happening. Julie worked in Strategic Planning, and she'd seen all kinds of the company's most secret garbage. She should have known Praeger wouldn't let her quit. Nevertheless, there she was, trying to skip out on her job at DNA and pick up a new job with another firm. She was meeting with Von Roon. of all people. Von Roon recruits executives for the Ries-Dillon Consortium. And as far as Praeger is concerned, Ries-Dillon isn't just the competition, it's the Antichrist.

  Julie had been bitching for months I wasn't sur­prised that she actually tried to quit—she was the kind of woman who seemed to think she had some kind of right to make herself happy, Julie was an idiot, and she deserved exactly what she was getting.

  I reached into my jacket and gripped the pistol. The gun Mr. Praeger had given me was a hodgepodge weapon, cobbled together from the parts of half a dozen automatic pistols. It was the size of a toy. A mass of sticky cloth tape gave bulk to the handle Even if I had owned a silencer, the gun's barrel wouldn't have held one. This was the kind of weapon that nobody could ever trace back to DNA Inc.

  I cut my eyes in each direction, pulled out the pis­tol, gripped it in both of my gioved hands, pivoted back a step and fired. Even as I squeezed the trigger, I knew I'd botched the shot. Maybe the [ury-rigged gun had a crooked barrel. Or maybe it was some kind of subconscious thing . . . because I knew Julie's name. Either way, the gunshot sang in my ears.

  The bullet punched through plate glass My shot missed Julie. The round hit the skinny, middle-aged waitress, who stood all the way on the other side of the restaurant from where I aimed. The waitress col­lapsed in a heap, knocking dishes off a table, spurting blood all over her white apron.

  The waitress fell, and time seemed to stop. I stared at her as she flung back her head, her face all squeezed into a rictus of agony. People live a million different ways, but everybody dies the same. Cheap psychologists talk about "accepting death" but I've never really seen why it matters. When you die, it doesn't matter if you're brave and noble, You're still going to die like everyone all over the world, whimper­ing, helpless, and aione, with your own urine stream­ing down your legs. And then there's nothing.

  Before I could even level my gun again, Von Roon shoved Julie down behind the booth- Chaos broke out in the restaurant. Some people headed for the wait­ress' body and others ran away from it. A table top­pled over, and three or four plates full of breakfast dashed across the floor. [ didn't have even a remote chance of getting another shot off. Von Roon's three men were fanning out, and one of them was on his knees, poking buttons on his slim cellular telephone

  [ didn't notice anyone with a weapon, but I could see this vivid image of Von Roon's men returning fire, and I could practically feel gunshots rip through my body. I didn't want to die, I'd seen people die, and I knew that there was no such thing as a good death. There was no such thing as honor and no such thing as redemption. Once you die, nothing you have or did or thought matters anymore. Death just grinds you down to nothingness, So I didn't wait to see what would happen next. J ran.

  I took off pell-mell up the street, stuffing the gun in my pants-pocket, my lungs screaming for air, expecting to hear sirens at any moment, if not to feel a bullet There were a couple of shade trees just up the street. I dove into them, looking for cover. As I crashed through the moist leaves, a blue-gray pigeon burst out and flew away, squealing, into the morning stink.

  I leaned up against the moist earthy bark of the tree, panting Wfty did I ever gel into the business of killing people for a living? That's just a stupid question. I knew the reasons why. For three years, I had worked my tail off at DNA and got nowhere. Then Mr. Praeger invited me to his office, the one on the thirtieth floor. Praeger looked down from his big leather throne, smiled like a frog, and asked me if I was serious about working for DNA Then he told me about an executive manager who was a problem for him, and asked me if I could help him "deal with the man.' What was I supposed to do, say no to Praeger?

  The real question is why I even bothered to run away after missing Julie, i had just failed a mission. When you fail Praeger, you don't get a second chance The moment I shot the waitress, I had killed myself.

  That thought hit me like a thunderbolt. Then my memory stream got foggy.

  Everything that had happened since ! went to Walter's seemed familiar to me. I had lived through the scene at Walter's Restaurant a million times, as if my life was a movie playing over and over again. I wandered back onto the pavement My foot came down over a lit­tle blister in the sidewalk. Cracks radiated out from the blister in all directions, Every time I relived this scene, I always looked down to see the rifts below my feet, like a Grand Canyon in the bumpy, black pavement

  My stream of memory ends with me gazing at the crack. As i stare into its recesses, I lapse into night­mares. I sink through the ground into a nauseous, whirling world of madness. If the shooting scene was a movie, the part where I hide in the trees would be where the film starts m
elting in the projector.

  I can't describe the nightmares. There's nothing to talk about—just long strings of fevered dementia. I don't know how long this lasted At last, I forced the madness from my mind. I saw the city again. The streets of San Francisco still did not seem quite real, bat at least I managed to keep them from dissolving into dreams. I wandered the streets as I wandered my memories, looking fora way to get around fate. The next thing I heard was a ringing telephone. The phone drew me like a magnet. It was the tele­phone in my own apartment. Suddenly, I realized what happened after the shooting After I had gotten away from Walter's Restaurant, I had gone back to my own place I collapsed onto my sofa in the damp trench coat, and lay there feeling like ] was going to be sick. When i think about it, it seems really stupid to screw up a murder and then just go home. On the other hand, I don't suppose that J had any better ideas. I picked up the phone. "Yeah."

  "Hello. I wish to speak with Mr. Stephen Myers, if you please." The voice on the other end was cultured and mellifluous. I recognized the tone at once It was Mr. Donald Mozyr, who was supposed to be my boss, although everybody knew that Praeger ran the show.

  "Hello Mr. Mozyr." I squeezed up my face, trying to soften my voice and steady it, while I wondered what was about to happen to me. "It's me, speaking. What can I do for you, sir?"

  "Ah, Mr. Myers. You aren't busy, are you?" I swallowed. "No, sir, not at all I had today off..." "Oh, splendid. If it wouldn't be a terrible inconve­nience, I was hoping you'd come down to the office for a few hours. It seems there is something Mr. Praeger wants to speak with you about." Mozyr's voice sounded like a cheerful, beckoning songbird.

  "Sure." My hand shook a tittle, and I accidentally rapped my mouth with the phone. "Is something, you know, wrong?"

  "Oh, no, nothing like that." Mozyr laughed in a lovely, reassuring bass tone. Mr. Praeger simply wishes to go over some matters with you—nothing very serious I'm sure. But I do wish you'd hurry. Mr Praeger does seem eager to get started."