Avenging Angel Read online

  Things didn't get much more exciting in the gallery. After six spritzers the barman informed me I'd reached my limit, so I wandered into the anteroom in search of adventure and fortune. There was standing room only, and everyone seemed to be loosening up a bit. That infectious alcoholic laugh was starting to make its rounds, and its hectic drug-inspired cousin wasn't slouching, either. I robbed passing trays of their drinks until the servers made a point of avoiding me. A table against a wall teemed with snacks, and I helped myself to a handful of thumb-size beef sandwiches. I expected to hear trumpets and bells when I rolled the meat on my tongue but I didn't. It tasted salty and bland.

  I discovered a liquor cabinet in a lonely hallway while looking for the bathroom. On the way back I helped myself to a tall glass of vodka and red wine, an old Ranger favorite.

  Most of the crowd had fled the gallery and were whooping it up in the anteroom by the time I got back. Every time I got near Joe, he laid a frog eye on me and scuttled away. I leaned against a wall underneath a big cuckoo clock and watched people. The spritzers were sneaking up on me, and by the time I finished the first Brutal Hammer, my face was numb and I was ready for another. I was hunched over the liquor cabinet mixing up a fresh hammer when someone came up behind me.

  "You're not supposed to be doing that," a voice said.

  I didn't look up. "I know it looks like I'm using too much vodka, but believe me, I know where I'm going."

  "No, I mean you're not supposed to be in that cabinet."

  "I didn't see any signs."

  "You should have assumed…"

  "I don't like making assumptions," I said, and turned around with my fresh drink. I stared at my accuser. "Do you always come on this way?"

  "I hate to think I'm that obvious," she said, fluttering her big brown eyes. Long brunette hair spilled off her bare shoulders, framing a face that screamed for a camera. I tried not to let it happen, but my eyes fell to her feet then snaked their way back up. She was in full possession of the kind of body I'd have to see bereft of rude cloth to be sure it was really that spectacular.

  I slid over a little to make room on the cabinet for her. Smiling demurely, she leaned beside me. She turned her head in my direction, using one hand to hold long locks out of her eyes. Her energetically mischievous smile demanded imitation.

  "You're the visiting French doctor," she said.

  "Oui," I said.

  She jabbered at me in rapid-fire French for fifteen seconds.

  "Oui," I said because it sounded like a question.

  "Do you know what I just said?" she asked.

  "You said you thought it absolutely essential that we frolic nakedly through the plastic grass, laughing drunkenly and making impetuous double entendres until dramatically overtaken by mad, irresponsible passion that bid us make wild, bestial love in the moon shadow of plastic birch trees."

  She laid her head back and laughed, baring perfect white teeth. "Not exactly."

  "Was I even close?"

  "I'm afraid not. I asked you why I had never heard of this painter called de Merde."

  I shrugged and took a drink. "It's a big world."

  "I thought it curious because merde also happens to be the French word for excrement, and I thought I'd remember someone with that kind of name, especially a painter."

  "Kind of bizarre coincidence, isn't it?"

  "You know, Robert isn't that bad of a guy once you get to know him."

  "Yeah, I'm sure he's a real barrel of laughs when he gets a skinful," I said, and took a swig.

  "What are you drinking?" she asked.

  "It's called a Brutal Hammer," I said. "It's not for young ladies."

  "Let me try." She reached and I passed her the glass.

  "You were warned," I pointed out.

  She took a sip. "Yuck! That's horrible. How can you drink that?"

  "You have to have the desire to — that's the key thing. You can get used to anything, given time and desire."

  She leaned back and gave me a long look. "You're from the City, aren't you?"

  "How can you tell?"

  "The way you carry yourself. Like you don't care about anyone else."

  I reappraised the woman sitting next to me. Attractive and perceptive both.

  "I think you're very attractive," she said.

  "You're stealing my best lines," I said. "But I salute your good taste."

  She smiled that energetic smile again, and I tilted my head slightly forward and gave her my smoldering up-from-under James Dean look.

  "Are you going to kiss me?" she murmured.

  "Will you pull a knife?"

  "Only if you spill that horrible drink on me," she whispered, tilting her head back and closing her eyes. I leaned toward her trembling red lips just as a door down the hall opened.

  "Marlene!" a nasal voice called. The girl jumped up, and I bemoaned my fate that made sure I never had an even break.

  "Just a minute," she called back. She turned back to me. "I wish we could talk longer, but I have to go."

  I looked down the hall. It was Robert. "You're with Robert?"

  "Kind of," she said, and smiled her embarrassment.

  "Call me if you ever want to see the City," I said, trying not to sound too hard up for a date.

  "I will." She took my card and fronted me a big smile full of promises before rushing over to Robert. I sat back on the cabinet and thought about my luck some more.

  I finished my drink and became suddenly tired of the hallway. I wandered back to the anteroom. Marlene was nowhere in sight, so I hunted down Joe. He was passed out in the arms of a woman twenty years his senior and twice his body mass. I wrestled him from her meaty arms, though she didn't look too happy about it. Slapping him around until he found his feet, I then half carried him to the car and stuck him in the passenger seat, where he promptly started snoring. I spun out of the parking lot, but to my vexation I couldn't raise enough gravel to spray the parked cars. The car rocketed down the cobblestoned drive and did a wide, screeching turn onto the main road. I powered all the windows down to keep me alert and began throwing all the trash on the floor out into the darkness. By the time I got near the gate, I was reasonably alert and the car was reasonably clean.

  16

  The guard station loomed out of the blackness, an island of white fluorescent glare. The road was deserted in both directions, and I began wondering if Dash had made a phone call after I'd left. My excellent memory recalled what Joe had said about legal killings and secret trips to the protein vats. Steering with one hand, I pulled out the bundle from under the seat. I unwrapped the coat and put the gyrapistol in my lap. I thumbed off the safety, switched the selector switch to Automatic, then covered the pistol with the coat. Joe was still sleeping. I powered the windows up.

  I reduced speed as the car slid into the white glare. The huge fluorescents scorched away color; all was bleached white or lost in inky shadow. As I neared the gate, two ghostly looking guards with submachine guns stepped in front of the barrier and signaled me to stop.

  For a split second I felt the instinctual urge to stomp on the accelerator, catch both of them on the grille and take my chances with the barrier. The feeling passed, replaced by a gut tension. I could sense that my world was about to take on a very sinister twist.

  I stopped the car five meters from the barrier and left the engine running. The spectral guards approached cautiously, one to each side. The downward cast of the fluorescents made their faces appear grinning skulls. The one on my side rapped on the window with a knuckle. I powered it down six inches.

  "A little bored tonight, boys?" I asked with a smile. The guard could have been the brother of the one I'd talked to on the way in, or maybe they all looked that way.

  "Your pass, please," the guard said. There was something unnatural about his voice; it was too high and tight for a guy his size. I took the pass from the dash, handed it to him, then returned my hand to my lap. He looked at the pass long enough to read my name. />
  "Mr. Jacob Strait?" he gasped, my name seeming to excite him.

  "Doctor," I said firmly. "That's Dr. Jacob Strait." My right hand began creeping under the coat on my lap.

  "Step out of the car," the guard said.

  "No, thanks. I'm fine in here." I pretended to adjust the rear-view mirror with my left hand, and out of the corner of my eye I located the guard on Joe's side. His subgun was unslung and pointing rudely. He stood two meters toward the rear of the car, positioned so that if he decided to spray the driver's compartment he wouldn't kill his buddy in the cross fire.

  "You don't seem to understand, Mr…" my guard began.

  "Doctor."

  "I don't give a fuck if you're Party chairman! Get out of the fucking car!"

  My fingers closed around the rubber grips of my pistol, and it was like shaking hands with Jesus. "Not until you say the magic word."

  The guard said something else, took a step back and unslung his subgun. He was about to bring it to bear when he noticed the 20 mm snout of the gyrapistol peeking at him from under the coat. He froze with the barrel of his gun still pointing at the ground.

  I watched his eyes. If he decided to try his luck, it would show there first. The other guard, sensing trouble, began rapping on Joe's window with what sounded like the barrel of his subgun. I heard Joe stir but I couldn't spare a glance to see if he was conscious or not.

  I knew the penalties for shooting a spif. If I made it through the gate alive, I'd be on the run the rest of my life, which wouldn't be a particularly long one. Even if I hid in no-go sectors, there would be an A-1 warrant on my head and I'd be nervous about going out for drinks with my bogeyman acquaintances.

  I had it in my head, however, that if I got out of the Chevy, the next vehicle I'd get into would be a powder blue van with the reclamation symbol on it. I estimated my chances of killing both guards. Getting the guard on my side seemed certain enough, but if the other one had any reflexes at all he would spray the driver's compartment before I could swing around to blast him. The subgun he carried was a Mitsubishi Rota, a popular model designed for close-in urban warfare. It fired at a cyclic rate of 1200 rounds per minute, which meant he could fire all forty teflon-coated 9 mm rounds in his magazine in two seconds. I didn't think I could duck that many.

  I smiled at my guard. We both knew I had the drop on him. He was sweating profusely and in the lights he looked like an ice statue melting in the midday heat. He was undoubtably aging at an incredible rate, the howling tension grinding years off his life. In the big chess game of the moment we were pawns about to be traded, and he seemed uneasy about it. His jaw worked furiously, but nothing came out of his mouth. I couldn't think of anything to say, either.

  The tension was building up to a hellish intensity, and somebody was about to start shooting when the door to the guardhouse opened. A tall figure stood in the doorway for a moment, as if for effect, then began slowly walking toward the car. He must have summed up the situation for what it was because he moved in a nonthreatening sort of way, his hands well away from the pistol on his hip. He sidled up next to the guard on my side and leaned forward a little to look inside the car. His eyes flicked to the snout of the gyrapistol.

  "Is there a problem here?" he asked.

  "Naw," I said. "Just sharing a few jokes with the boys. They invited me in for doughnuts and coffee, but I've got to get my companion back to his cage before the tranquilizers wear off… and, well, I better be off." I shrugged as if the truth of what I said was self-evident.

  The guard I had the drop on started to tell his side of it, but the new guy cut him off with a chop of his hand. On his epaulets he wore the rank of a SPF captain. His hair was cut in a high and tight: shaved sides and back, a half inch on top. His face was freshly shaved at two-thirty in the morning. He had the look of a professional soldier, who might have served in a paratrooper or marine unit before they were dissolved into the SPF.

  He stared at me for a moment, then shifted his body between me and the guard. He barked a command over the roof of the car, and a moment later the barrier began to rise. He leaned down to address me. "Don't come back to the Hill."

  "You don't reckon there's room enough for both of us, Sheriff?"

  "Things won't be so pleasant next time, Strait."

  "Ah, you know my name. Are you a psychic or just lucky?" The barrier was up, and I started pulling away.

  "Remember what I said, Sergeant Strait," he said. "You won't be as lucky as you were in Houston."

  I wasn't sure he actually said "Houston," what with the engine noise and distance. But it sounded like it. I drove out of the glare and into the night, then put the pistol back under the seat.

  It looked as though Dash had made his call after all. Whether I was to be detained, roughed up or killed, I'd never know. The fact that the officer let me go seemed proof that I wasn't to be killed. He wasn't the type to ignore orders, even if it meant a messy scene at the gate. I was probably supposed to get a session with a cattle prod and rubber hose in a back room of the guardhouse, just a little something to remind me of my place in the big order of things.

  I shrugged my shoulders repeatedly to throw off some of the built-up tension and kept checking the rearview mirror, half-certain I'd see the lights of a SPF pursuit machine closing the distance.

  A tiny noise came from the passenger seat, and I looked over at Joe for the first time since we'd pulled up to the gate. He was sitting bolt upright in the darkness, staring straight ahead. His lips were moving, and I realized he was saying something over and over again under his breath. I couldn't blame him for being a little shaken. Waking up from a pleasant high to find a spectral goon rapping on your window with the barrel of a submachine gun could be a very negative groove.

  "Holy shit!" Joe whispered, amplifying his voice. "What the hell was that about?"

  "I'm not sure. I think someone saw me litter."

  Joe shook his head scornfully. "You're messing with the wrong people, Jake. You shouldn't be a smart-ass to people with guns and power. Why do you have to make everything so hard?" He looked out the window at the pretender houses lit up like Christmas trees and squinched his nose at them disdainfully. "I just hope you didn't blow my meal ticket."

  I looked over at him. "You really enjoy those parties, don't you?" I said. "I don't just mean the free booze, drugs and real food. You like being with those people."

  "Don't lay that righteous-proletariat-hero crap on me," Joe said. "Oh, I know what you're thinking. Joe the lapdog, begging for scraps under the table." He twisted in his seat and faced me. "Let me tell you something, Jake. I eat right at the table with the rest of them and if I have to blather some banal crap about some shit I could have done in grade school, hell, I'll do it. I'd rather eat with the tyrants than starve with the peasants."

  "Nobody's starving," I said, and it was true. There hadn't been a food shortage to speak of in ten years. The markets were always well stocked. There just wasn't a whole lot of choice.

  "Oh, yeah," Joe said, squinting at me through his pink tints. "Cannibals never starve."

  I glanced at him. "What do you know about that?"

  "I hear things on the Hill," he said, and looked out the side window.

  I thought about that. There were always those jokes around that if your soy burger tasted funny you were probably eating a comedian. Or if you wanted real Chinese food you had to wait until there was a riot in Chinatown. But that's all they were supposed to be, jokes.

  "Yeah," I said. "And there's going to be elections next year, and there's four-ton cows paddling around in vats of saltwater in Kansas."

  "I know there isn't any shortage of beef on the Hill!" Joe snapped. "Good beef, too, not that garbage the crime lords pay five hundred creds a pound for and think they're getting sirloin."

  I thought about the bland hors d'oeuvres. "So everything's better on the Hill, eh?"

  "That's goddamn right! Those people know how to live. And stop using that goddamn patron
izing voice on me. I may kiss some ass but I haven't killed anyone for them." He clamped his teeth down on the last word, but it was too late.

  It might have been the booze, tension or fatigue — it didn't matter which. The words were out and they hung between us like the stinking corpse of a week-dead cat. I tried to force a laugh, but it crawled back down my throat. An uneasy silence muscled into the car and sucked up all the oxygen. Joe lit a joint. I cracked a window. The car tires hummed on the asphalt as the burbs slid by.

  "I didn't mean it like that," Joe said.

  I thought about looking over at him but decided I liked looking at the road better. "No reason to apologize," I said. "What you said is true. I kill people for a living." I adjusted the rearview mirror. "I like my work."

  "I know," Joe said, exhaling smoke at the windshield. "You can't help it. They made you that way."

  We drove through the burbs and into the City. It felt like a Christmas homecoming. We whipped past huge buildings presiding over filthy streets, everything gray and black like an old grainy black-and-white photograph.

  God, I love this city, I thought.

  Joe pawed his coat for another joint but didn't come up with one. He said, "Jesus, I'm still really wound up. I need to get high. Let's find a drug shop."

  Better judgment told me to keep right on driving, pick up the Caddy and wheel straight home. Watch some TV then go straight to bed. But my better judgment was a brutalized and ignored pariah as of late, so I wasn't surprised when I found myself detouring toward the river.

  17

  I knew a place on the waterfront that would suit our needs. It had been a wharf house once, but its current function was that of a drug den. A strong, fortified wine was brewed on the premises, legendary for its mind-numbing qualities. The place didn't have a name, but some of the regulars called it the Hole.

  "This place looks like hell," Joe said as we ducked into the dim interior.

  "Yeah," I said as I led him to the bar. "It's pretty trashed, all right."