"Deuces Down" - читать интересную книгу автора (Martin George R. R., Cassutt Michael, Miller John J., Simons Walton, Snodgrass...)
FATHER HENRY’S LITTLE MIRACLE by Daniel Abraham
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 1987
James Spector-Demise-surveyed the carnage. The overhead light fixture had been shot during the attack, a bare bulb left shining from a neck of frosted glass with edges sharp as teeth. A low haze of gun smoke filled the apartment. Three jokers lay on the floor or the cheap kitchen table, red and green and florid purple blood spilling out of them. The Gambione men-both nats-lay among them. One joker moaned in pain, another tried to crawl for the kitchen at the back of the apartment-a dead end, but away from Spector’s slow footsteps. He walked among them, turning the bodies over with the toe of his new leather shoes, staring into the eyes of the dying, adding his own constant pain to theirs, pulling death into them a little faster.
“Could you not do that?” Phan Lo snapped from the front room.
“What?”
“Whistle.”
“I was whistling?”
“The song from
“Sorry,” he said and went back to killing people.
The apartment belonged to Zebra, a small time Jokertown drug dealer who’d thought the gang war was his chance to make it big by selling raw heroin to the Gambiones. But the Shadow Fist had found out about the deal, and Danny Mao had arranged a complication. Spector leaned over, peering into the eyes of a young Gambione. Nothing. The guy was already gone.
Zebra lay on the floor by the table, riddled with Phan Lo ’s bullets. Demise considered the corpse, the last blood blackening on its breast, and snorted. “Hey Phan. What’s black and white and red all over?”
“Go back to whistling.”
“How many you got up there?”
“Two,” Phan Lo said. “Maybe three. One of them looks like he may be-you know-two. One of those conjoined things.”
“I’ve got a five back here,” Spector said.
“Yeah, but you got shot.”
“A couple times,” Spector allowed. The wounds were already closed, and he’d been careful to wear a suit he didn’t care about much. “They all dead?”
The businesslike crack of a pistol split the air. “Yeah,” Phan Lo said. “Yours?”
“Dead as fish on Friday.”
“Great. Let’s get the shit and get out of here.”
“What’s the rush? It’s not like the cops are going to come to this part of Jokertown.”
 |
“The rush is I’ve got better things to do with my life,” Phan said, stepping into the room. He was young, maybe nineteen, perfect skin and black hair pulled into one of those little ponytails in the back. Spector wondered how he’d look with his hair like that. Phan put his gun back into its shoulder holster. The Uzi was slung across his back, magazine empty. “Where’s the shit?”
“Over by the table. Blue duffel has the money. The little suitcase thing has the horse.”
“Where?”
“Right over… um. Fuck.”
The patch of floor was empty, just a dead Gambione leg. Phan walked over to the spot, frowning. Spector stood beside him. Two oblong shapes were outlined in blood, but the bags were gone.
They glanced at each other, Phan remembering at the last minute to focus on Spector’s nose. No eye contact if he wanted to live. Spector suppressed a little smile and shrugged. “It was right there.”
“You take it?” Phan asked.
“No.”
“Well I didn’t take it. Check the bodies. See who’s missing.”
“How would I know who’s missing?” Spector said. “I didn’t take roll call. I just got in the door and started killing them, same as you.”
Phan wasn’t listening. He locked his hands behind him and began walking through the corpses, his lips pursed, his eyes shifting, searching like someone working a jigsaw puzzle. Spector scratched his moustache and sighed.
“The whore,” Phan said.
Spector thought back. He’d come in the room, interrupting the meeting. The bags had been there, by Zebra’s chair. Yeah, there had been a nat girl-black hair, pale skin-rubbing up against the joker. Then Phan had started spraying the room with Uzi fire and the whore had ducked under the table.
Spector hunkered down, peering over the dead bodies, hoping for a thin, pale-skinned corpse with a half-open blouse. He looked up at Phan and shook his head.
“I can’t fucking believe this,” Phan said.
“Hey, you were the one in the front room. You were supposed to be watching for people coming out.”
“She didn’t come
“Well, there isn’t a back way,” Spector said.
Phan moved back into the little kitchen without a word. Spector followed him. It was small-too small to hide in. But it did have a window; an open one with a thin ledge beyond. Spector poked his head out. It was eight stories down the street, but the ledge-thin as a sidewalk curb-led along the side of the building to a black metalwork fire escape.
“Oh,” Spector said, pulling his head back in the apartment. “Well, that sucks.”
 |
Father Henry Obst watched Quasiman stir the sauce. The steak sizzled on the grill and the scent of the meat and the fried onions in the sauce filled the small kitchen in the church basement. Father Henry’s spiral-bound notebook lay open before him on the table. He tapped the pages impatiently with his pencil.
“I was off my stride is all,” Father Henry said. “I should have come in a day or two earlier, just to get my bearings. It’s long drive from Alabama, and I ain’t the young man I once was. Threw my timing off.”
Quasiman looked thoughtfully over his shoulder as his leg flickered in and out of existence, but didn’t speak. Father Henry took off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose between thumb and thick, pale finger.
“Dammit, though, I have never in my life had anyone
The hunchback blinked, considered him as if they were meeting for the first time, then smiled ruefully, nodding his head in sympathy. “Jokertown makes for a rough audience, even in church,” Quasiman said.
“I’ll do better next week.”
“No, you won’t.”
“Oh, yes. Yes, I will. I’ve got better material. Y’all are always listening to Father Squid. Now he’s a fine man, but
“He is a killer, risen from the dead,” Quasiman said, his tone light and conversational. “Before that I think he sold insurance.”
Father Henry put his glasses back on and the hunchback swam into focus. His expression was placid and helpful, like he’d just passed on some interesting piece of Jokertown history. Father Henry closed the notebook and considered for a moment what to say to his caretaker and guide.
“What in Christ’s name are you talking about, boy?”
“I’m sorry,” he said, shaking his head like he was trying to sober up. “I thought you said something.”
With an apologetic shrug, the hunchback vanished. The spoon he had been stirring with slid into the sauce with a low plop. Father Henry looked at the sudden absence, shook his head, and went over to turn off the flame before the steak burned.
When Father Squid had called him with the news-the world tour with Senator Hartmann, the chance to see the fate of jokers in third-world hellholes around the globe-Father Henry had been half-afraid that the tentacled padre was going to ask him along. The request that he come up to New York and perform the Mass for a couple weeks had been such a relief that he’d agreed to it without really thinking. Now he found himself hundreds of miles from home preaching to a bunch of New York jokers and trying to keep a barely-present hunchback from scorching dinner.
He grabbed a fork and trawled the sauce until he pulled out the stirring spoon. It was too hot to hold. He found out by trying and dropped the spoon back under the surface.
The sauce wasn’t quite right. Stirring with the fork with his left hand, he took a glass off the sideboard with his right, reached over for the faucet and started a thin stream of water flowing. He set his mind to the clear ribbon until his wild card surged down his arms, through his fingers, and the water blushed, bloodied, and became a cheap Merlot. He filled the glass and poured half of it into the sauce to let the alcohol cook off. The faucet was running clear again when he closed the faucet down.
He hesitated before emptying the glass, but he did. A thirteen-year-old Alabama boy, finding he can change water to wine, never took it as a sign he should become a priest. Like any right-thinking Southerner in the situation, he became an alcoholic. A thirty-six-year old recovering drunkard and closet deuce, on the other hand, had been known to hear the call of the Lord. Even cooking with wine was actually against the rules, and tempting as it was to scootch a little farther off the wagon, Father Henry held to his resolve and had a pop with his dinner. The steak was good-juicy with just a little blood-and the sauce was tart and sweet, just enough to season the meat without drowning it. He’d give the hunchback that-the man could cook.
He cleaned his dishes when he was done and left the remains in a Tupperware box, in case Quasiman showed back up hungry. He looked over his notes one last time, sighed, and hefted himself up the stairs and out the rear sacristy door into the cool night air. Father Squid had lent him the use of the cottage for the length of his stay, and he strolled through the small herb garden and up to the locked metal door.
Back home in Selma, he would have taken a short constitutional, down to the coffee shop or possibly over to flirt for a few minutes with the Widow Lander, before going home to his own modest apartments, pictures of St. Peter’s and a lovely Roman sunset over his own simple wooden desk. He might read or write letters for an hour or two before packing himself off to bed.
Father Squid’s cottage was gray and close compared to his home, and it did smell like a fish market. His bags were still half-packed. He sat on the bed. It was barely eight at night, and still much earlier than he was used to going to sleep. He had hoped that the caretaker of the church might be put upon to show him around, but that had been before he’d actually set eyes on the man. Which left him with his present options.
Jokertown after dark, a lone yokel braving the meanest streets of New York or Takis or whatever you decided Jokertown was really part of. Sounded stupid. But ministering to the twisted bodies and souls around him without having the courage to meet them face straight on seemed like hypocrisy. With his luck, they’d find him floating in the bay, and Quasiman would have to find some poor Episcopalian to perform next Sunday’s mass.
He snapped his fingers and snatched open his notebook. Flipping to a clean page, he wrote “In this age of empty wonders, a real miracle is something small and precious. Like me walking through Jokertown at night and not getting killed.” He grinned, then frowned and crossed it out. Maybe when he got home. These New York jokers might not think that was funny.
He loaded up all the little presents his sister had sent him when she heard he was going to take the assignment-a hand-held stungun, a canister of pepper spray, and a large gaudy crucifix that mirrored the one above the pulpit with its two-headed joker Christ impaled on a DNA helix. It wasn’t the sort of iconography that went over well with the Archbishop, but here it might mark him as belonging. And, of course, a camera so he could give a slide show when he got home.
“Oh, Mother,” he muttered, “God bless you. You gave birth to a fool and a papist.”
Despite the chill of the night, there was a good bit more foot traffic than he’d expected. Most folks ignored him, hurrying along their own business. Some jokers had their bare faces out, however disfigured. Others wore masks. Father Henry found himself falling into his old habit of smiling and nodding to people as he passed, like he was back home.
He stopped by the Crystal Palace because it was famous and, once he introduced himself as Father Squid’s stand-in, had his picture taken with the eyeless bartender. The twist-spined, grey-skinned clerk at an all-night bookstore along the way home asked him with a genteel grace whether he was out whoring and still treated him respectfully when he said no. Even the thin figures standing around trash fires, rubbing their hands or tentacles seemed more benign than he’d expected. For all the fear and angry talk-joker orgies, gang war, streets it was death for a nat to walk down after dark-Father Henry could name three or four road-houses in Alabama that had felt more threatening to him than this.
There were some moments when he felt like he’d walked into a bad hallucination-once when a section of sidewalk yelped under-foot and shifted off to become part of a wall, another time when something like a giant tongue called to him from a storm-sewer grate and asked the time. Despite all that, by the time he stopped to buy a newspaper from a poor walrus-man, he felt almost at home.
“You’re new around here?” the walrus said, smiling jovially.
“You could say that,” he agreed. “Father Henry Obst. I’m filling in for Father Squid for a couple weeks.”
“Well, welcome to the neighborhood,” the walrus said.
“Thank you. That’s very kind.”
“And don’t worry about it too much. I’m sure next Sunday will go better.”
A true miracle would be a place without small-town gossip and slander, he thought, but kept his smile all the way back to the cottage.
The problem was, of course, how to get through the crust of anger and despair-and self-pity, worst of all self-pity-that came with drawing the joker. He’d spent enough years himself living with scorching self-hatred to know the smell when he was up to his asshole in it, as his sainted mother would have said. It was poison, but he’d seen strong souls overcome it.
The problem with despair, he thought, was that it wasn’t really despair when you could see your way clear of it. If he could only…
“Father?”
He blinked. The woman was crouched down beside the cottage door. Woman, hell. Girl was closer. Maybe eighteen years old with black hair and eyes and a tiny little skirt. She didn’t seem to be a joker of any stripe.
“Well now, miss,” he said gently, “what can I do for you?”
She stood up. Poor little thing barely came to his chin, and Father Henry had never been called a tall man. Her face, now that it was more in the light, was sharp as a fox’s and her shirt streaked with blood.
“You’re taking over for Father Squid, right?” she demanded, crossing her arms.
“Yes, I’ve agreed to help take up the slack, as it were.”
“So you’re the priest?”
“Yes. But there’s this other fella who’s really taking care of the place. I’ve only been in the city since…”
“I’ve come to beg for the sanctuary of the church,” she said, the phrase so formal it sounded rehearsed. “I’m in trouble. And I can’t take it to the police because I’m a Jokertown whore, and they wouldn’t help me.”
She stood there, her chin jutting out like she was daring him to send her away-back to her pimp or her family or whoever put her out on these streets. Eighteen might have been guessing high. She could have been younger.
“Well now. Let’s see,” Father Henry said. “There’s a room in the church basement you can stay in tonight at least. We’ll talk about this, see what seems like the best thing to do after that. You got a couple bags there? Let me help you with those.”
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 1987
Joey Piretta knew knocks. The cops, they knocked one way-bang bang bang like there was a pissed-off elephant coming through. Then there was the landlord, old man Fazetti; he knocked hard, but only once, showing his authority, ’cause he was the landlord and all, but still showing respect because if he didn’t Joey might kill him. The one that woke him up, though, wasn’t like either one of those. It was just a quiet double tap. That was Mazzucchelli.
Joey got up from the couch, adrenaline pumping, and didn’t quite knock over the half-empty beer cans on the coffee table. He grabbed the orange prescription bottle off the floor and pushed it down between the rough beige cushions. It rattled like a fucking baby toy. He delivered a quick prayer up the heaven that Mazzucchelli hadn’t heard it and crossed himself. The knock came again, a half a beat less time between the impacts. Joey pulled himself up, ran a hand through his hair, and tried to suck in his gut.
When he opened the door, Chris Mazzucchelli greeted him with a smile and a raised eyebrow.
“Hey,” Joey said, faking pleasure and surprise. “Chris! How you doin’?”
“Fine, Joey. And you?” Mazzuccheli asked, walking into the apartment. “The wrists still bothering you?”
“They still hurt a little sometimes. The scar tissue’s all messed up with the nerves. But you know how it is.”
Mazzucchelli smiled and nodded to the door. Joey closed it, apologizing with a gesture. The apartment looked like hell and smelled like a cheap bar. He wished he’d gotten around to washing the dishes last night. It just didn’t look professional the way they were all stacked up in the sink. Mazzucchelli walked into the living room but didn’t sit. Joey stood respectfully back, crossing his arms and scratching absently at the recent pink flesh the size of a quarter on his right forearm.
“You’re not still on the pain stuff,” Mazzucchelli said.
“Nah. Not for weeks. Just some aspirin sometimes.”
“Good. I have a job for you, Joey.”
Joey tried to pull himself up a little taller and deepened his scowl, just so as Mazzucchelli knew he was taking it seriously.
“Someone interrupted a negotiation last night. They killed some of our men and the jokers we were doing business with. They also took the merchandise we were picking up and the money we’d taken to pay for it. Half a million dollar, untraceable, and suitcase of heroin.”
“Ah,” Joey said, nodding.
“You understand?”
“Sure,” he said shrugging. “Find ’em. Kill ’em. Get the stuff back.”
“How about you start with just looking around. Once we find it, we can worry about killing people.”
“Just look around. Check.”
“You’ve been out of action for a while, Joey. You think you’re up for this?”
“No trouble. None at all.”
“Good. That’s what I wanted to hear. I’ll have Lapierre get in touch with you and…”
“Ah, c’mon boss. I don’t need some smart-ass college fucker hanging off of me. I got sources. I can do this.”
“You want to take this one by yourself?”
“Yeah. Look, if I find something, I’ll let you know. Don’t worry about before. The thing with Chrysalis and the arrow guy, that was a one-time thing. Never happen again.”
Mazzucchelli paused, then walked over and clapped him on the shoulder. “It’s good to have you back, Joey.”
“Thanks, boss.”
“Show some respect for yourself. Clean the place.”
“I will, boss.”
Mazzucchelli went out, closing the door behind him. Joey lumbered back to the couch and sat down heavily. He dug his hand into the cushions and came out with the rattling bottle of darvon. He popped two of the great big hot pink capsules into his hand even though his arms weren’t really aching much and swallowed them dry.
The pills seemed to lodge about halfway down his throat.
It just wasn’t starting off to be a good day.
 |
The Crystal Palace always looked worse in the daylight. Darkness and neon suited it better. Demise slouched across the empty lot beside it, Phan Lo two steps behind him and to his left. The day was overcast, but Phan wore dark Blues Brothers sunglasses all the same.
“Danny Mao was pretty pissed off, eh?”
“It’s fine,” Demise said. “I told him it was your fault.”
Phan went silent for a moment, only the sound of their footsteps over the constant murmur of the city.
“You’re fucking with me, right?” Phan said.
“Look,” Demise said, sighing, “let’s just get the shit back and then it won’t matter what I said.”
Demise reached the service entrance and pushed his way into the darkness. The storeroom was filled with kegs of beer and crates and boxes of harder liquor. A violet-skinned joker with a wattle like a rooster bent over a wooden crate of wine bottles, counting on his fingers. When he looked up, his eyes met Demise’s briefly and a shock of pain appeared in the joker’s face, the wattle shriveling and turning gray at the edges.
“We need to talk to Chrysalis,” Demise said.
The joker turned and ran back into the building. Phan Lo strode forward and barked his shin on a crate.
“Take the shades off,” Demise said. “You look like an idiot.”
“Nah, man. I like ’em.”
“Look, I
“What do you want?” a man’s voice demanded. Sascha, eyeless and frowning, walked toward them. Demise grimaced. Sascha always gave him the creeps.
“Where’s Chrysalis?”
“ India, I think,” Sascha said.
“
“What do you want, Spector?” Sascha asked again.
“What does anyone ever want from Chrysalis? We need some information. And we can pay for it.”
Sascha’s expression seemed to change. He nodded.
“There’s about to be someone trying to unload about twenty-five pounds of uncut white heroin at fire-sale prices.”
“And you’re looking to buy?”
“No. We just need to talk with the seller.”
“Since when are you working with the Fist?”
“Ran into the Sleeper a while back. He pointed out they might be hiring. The seller I’m looking for is an independent, though,” he said. “Anything the Mafia’s going to get pissed about has already happened. You’ll be out of the crossfire.”
“Leave a number,” Sascha said. “I’ll let you know if I hear anything.”
Demise took a card out of his pocket and placed it silently on a wine rack, then nodded to Phan Lo and headed back out. A thin, cold rain misted down, and Demise turned his collar up against it.
“You must really hate that guy,” Phan said. “He’d be a pain in the ass for you to kill. You’d actually have to shoot him.”
“I’d manage.”
 |
“All right now,” Father Henry said. “I just want you to listen here. Let me know what you think.”
The church was empty except for the two of them. Quasiman sat in the first pew, his misshapen back making him look like he was praying. Father Henry, leaning against the altar, cleared his throat, pushed his glasses up to the bridge of his nose, and read from his notebook.
“Jesus could change water to wine, but it didn’t put him in AA meetings the way it did me. These days, somebody walking on water would hardly get them looked at funny, and I know of two or three people who have raised folks from the dead. The virus has changed more than our bodies. It has changed what we mean by ‘miracle’ and… Now boy, you’re laughing, and I haven’t got to any of the funny parts yet.”
Quasiman’s attention had flickered away, his eyes fixed on a spot in the aisle. Something about the carpet seemed to have given him the giggles.
“Oh,” Quasiman said, pointing to the space and grinning. “That’s sad. I mean that’s just…
Father Henry closed his notebook and smiled, trying to swallow his annoyance.
“I’m sorry, son. Am I interrupting something here?”
Quasiman flickered rapidly for a moment, reappeared without his left arm, and frowned vacantly at him.
“I don’t know who you are right now,” the hunchback commented. “There was something I was supposed to do.”
Father Henry took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. Talking to the man was like preaching to an electrical problem.
“That’s all right. We can try this another time.”
“Try what?”
“You were showing me how to polka,” Father Henry said and headed back for the sacristy.
He paused at the head of the basement stairs. He’d talked with the girl more in the night-her name was Gina, she was seventeen and running away from her pimp. That wouldn’t have been difficult, except that the pimp was also an informant for the police, and so she wasn’t likely to get help from that quarter. She needed to stay in town for a couple more days until her brother drove in from Seattle to get her.
He believed about half of it. Still, it was clear enough that she needed help. And if the Church wasn’t there to help out whores in trouble, well then it wasn’t the church Mary Magdalene had thought it was. Besides, he had a feeling about the girl…
Which didn’t mean she’d be a good person to talk his sermon over with, but Lord knew she couldn’t be much worse. He rapped his knuckles on the wall as he went down the stairs.
“Gina?”
“Hey, Father,” she said. She sat on the cot, her legs tucked beneath her, watching a soap opera on the old, grainy television. He’d shown her where the clothing donations were, and she’d picked out a blue wrap-around skirt and an oversize white men’s shirt. The outfit made her look like a normal girl, maybe just about to start college.
“You feeling better today?” he asked.
She nodded and turned down the volume on the set.
“Fine,” she said. “Whatshisface got me a sandwich this morning.”
“Good, good. I was wondering… well, I had a little trouble with the sermon last week. And I was working on some material, as it were, for Sunday. And while Quasiman is a good hearted fella, he doesn’t listen for spit, and I was thinking, if it wasn’t too much of an imposition…”
“Cool,” she said and thumbed off the TV. “The show’s boring, anyway. Fire away.”
He smiled, nodded, and opened his notebook, searching for a moment to find the right spot. Gina tilted her head, her expression serious.
“Jesus,” he began, “could change water into wine…”
She listened patiently as he moved through the homily, cited the passages of the bible that supported him, cracked wise a couple times, then took the tone down to somber at the middle and ended with a bright, hopeful, but also realistic finish.
Gina leaned back, considering. He took off his glasses, polishing the lenses on his shirttail.
“No,” she said. “Sorry, father. You got it wrong. I mean it’s a nice talk, but it’s all about nats and aces. You’re preaching to
“But faith is a universal. The proof of Christ’s holiness…”
“No one gives a shit,” she said. “Sorry. I mean I know you’re a priest and all, but really, jokers don’t care. They want to hear about how even though they’re fucking ugly, someone still loves them. Or that they have beautiful souls. Or that the righteous are made to suffer. Like with Job. That kind of shit.”
“Watch your language, young lady,” he admonished, but his mind was already elsewhere. “So you don’t think it’d go over well?”
“You’re not selling what they’re buying,” she said. “They don’t want another challenge. They want comfort. It’s what they come here for.”
“I suppose…” he said, and sighed. “Yes, I suppose you’re right. I hadn’t looked at it like that. I’ll go see what can be salvaged.”
“Put in someplace how ugly men are better because the world makes them tough,” she said.
“Oh, I don’t know. That seems a little harsh.”
“Always works for me,” she said, shrugging. “We’re kind of in the same business that way. Making jokers feel better.”
She winked and lay back on the cot, turning the TV back on as she descended. Father Henry found himself speechless for a moment, then walked up the stairs laughing.
The revisions took the better part of an hour, but in the end, there was more that could be saved than he’d imagined. With a little work, he had his very first jokers-only sermon, and by God, he was proud of it.
So proud and so excited, in fact, that he forgot to knock on his way down the stairs.
“… unload it now, Randy. Don’t tell me you… buyer.”
Father Henry stopped, slowly easing his foot back to the step above. Gina’s voice was muffled, but he could still make out some words here and there.
“Hundred thousand… tomorrow… would never guess where I… shit, really? Is she okay? Shit… No,
The plastic clatter of the telephone handset slipping into its cradle ended the conversation, and Father Henry slowly backed up the stairs. That certainly didn’t sound much like her brother calling in from Minnesota.
He went back down, knocking this time. Gina was all smiles and pleasant company.
Oh yes. This little girl was going to take some watching.
 |
Joey smiled. Not a hey-that-was-funny smile. More like hey-I’m-gonna-take-your-eyes-out-with-a-fucking-spoon. Jerzy didn’t seem to know the difference.
“Human target, get it?” the skinny Jew said again, like repeating it would make it funny. “Like that guy with the arrows.” He pantomimed plinking a bow at Joey.
“That guy with the arrows killed my boys and tried to cripple me,” Joey pointed out coolly.
Jerzy’s shrugged, smile fading, and he sipped his coffee. It was the closest he ever came to apology. The foot traffic going past the café was pretty light for the garment district, but it was still early in the afternoon. Come five o’clock, the overflow from Times Square would fill things up a little more. Joey wanted to be out before then.
“You got the coroner’s reports?”
“Nah,” Jerzy said. “I don’t make copies. What you want to know, I’ll tell you. I got a photographic memory.”
Joey looked around. The whole place was the size of a school bus-the short kind for the dumb kids. The guy behind the counter looked archly back it him. An old lady in a puffy blue ski jacket was sitting right up against the window and muttering to herself. Other than that they were alone.
Joey leaned forward.
“Okay,” he said. “So I’m hearing there’s something about the way they got offed? Something about aces?”
“Everybody’s buying up aces. Mafia, Shadow Fist. Everyone,” Jerzy said. He wasn’t so stupid, thank God, that he didn’t know to keep his voice down.
“Okay, but it’s not like the ones the Mafia hired are gonna queer a Mafia deal, right?”
“Maybe yes, maybe no,” Jerzy said, waggling a bushy eyebrow. “Thing is, a couple of the guys that died? They shouldn’t have. It’s like they were hurt, but not so bad they woulda died. You see what I’m getting at?”
Joey scowled and shook his head. Talking to Jerzy was about as much fun as talking to Lapierre.
“People hiring aces?” Jerzy said, his hand moving in a little circular come-along motion. “Guys dead for no reason?”
“Hey Jerzy. How about you fucking tell me?”
The woman in the ski jacket glanced at them, scowling.
“Shouldn’t yell,” Jerzy said. “We’re in
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to. It’s the wrists thing. Pain makes me jumpy.”
“Demise,” Jerzy said and sighed. “Find whoever hired Demise, you’ll find the shit.”
“Demise,” Joey said, nodding. “Great. And, ah, what about the percidan?”
“I can hook you up next week. You got enough darvon to hold you ’til then?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“What? What is this with the long face?”
“It’s just the darvon pills are all pink,” Joey confided. “They make me look like a faggot, you know?”
 |
Randy McHaley lived in a basement apartment with six other jokers. Two of them were there with him when Demise and Phan Lo got there. They were happy, though, to give the three of them a little privacy.
The place looked like the worst of the 1960s left to rot for a couple decades. Beaded strands substituted for doors, old psychedelic posters of the Lizard King yellowed and cracked on the grimy wall. Sandalwood incense mixed with something close to wet dog. And Randy slumped on the low couch with his hands between his knees.
The wildcard hadn’t been kind to Randy. His greasy brown fedora rested on a forest of spikes like a hedgehog. His pale, fishy skin wept a thin mucous, soaking his clothes. Tiny blind eyes opened and closed along his neck and down behind his shirt, some staring, some rolling wildly. Demise could see the distaste in corners of Phan Lo ’s mouth and it made him want to draw the conversation out.
“I don’t know anything about it,” the sad joker said again, wagging his head.
“Okay,” Demise said. “Let me clear this up, fuckhead. A piece of shit like you can’t-
“I swear guys, you’ve got the wrong fuckup. I mean look at me,” the joker smiled desperately. “Look at the place I live. I’m not dealing with that kind of money.”
“You’re a junkie,” Demise said. “You and your buddies could blow that kind of money up your arms in a couple weeks.”
“I swear to Christ, you guys got it wrong. I’m really sorry. I wish I could help, but…”
“Could we just do this?” Phan asked.
Demise sighed and nodded. It had been fun while it lasted, but business being business…
Phan Lo stepped forward, drawing a pistol. The little joker squealed and pulled back, but Phan leaned in, pressing the barrel under Randy’s chin, forcing his head up. Demise stood, shot his cuffs, and leaned in close. When their eyes met, Randy was caught like a fish. Demise let the pain of his own death, the sick feeling of spiraling down into darkness, the visceral knowledge of dying flow into the joker for a second, two, three… and looked away.
Randy drew a long, grating breath like a diver who’s been under too long, then bent over and retched. Phan Lo danced back, disgusted. Demise sat down.
“The meet,” Demise said.
“Bryant Park. Noon tomorrow. She’s supposed to bring a sample. Please don’t kill me.”
“Where is she now?”
“I don’t know. She calls me.”
“You believe him?” Demise asked.
Phan Lo shrugged.
“The buyer’s a Brit. Looking to export. He’s gonna be wearing an Aerosmith t-shirt and reading the Wall Street Journal.”
“Probably won’t be two of those,” Phan said.
“Please,” the joker whined. “That’s all I know. I swear to God that’s all I know.”
“You know, Phan. I think that’s all he knows.”
Phan nodded and crossed his arms.
“You want to kill him, or you want me to?” Demise asked. Randy looked from one to the other, his jaw working silently, then curled up in a ball on the couch and started crying. Phan curled his lip and shook his head. Demise frowned and nodded toward the weeping joker. Phan shook his head again.
“If she’s not there tomorrow, we’ll be back,” Phan said, holstering his pistol. “You understand?”
Randy wailed wordlessly, his shoulders shaking. Demise stood and followed Phan out through the kicked-in front door and up the steps to the midnight-dark street.
“What the fuck was that?” Demise asked.
“It’s better for the mystique if some of them are alive and scared shitless,” Phan said.
“That’s the stupidest shit I’ve ever heard.”
Phan shrugged and walked to the car.
“You felt sorry for him, didn’t you?” Demise accused.
“Fuck you.”
“You did, didn’t you?”
“No. Get in the car.”
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 1987
The morning was warm for February, and the where the city didn’t stink of car fumes and urine, it smelled like the threat of snow.
He’d called Mazzuccheli with his information about the killer ace, and Mazzuchelli had come up with an address that fit with it. It was teamwork. For the first time since it all got fucked up, he was really working with the team.
He hated it.
For weeks, he’d been down. Even after the wounds in his arms were pretty much healed up, he hadn’t been able to focus or sleep through the night. He kept seeing his boys sprouting arrows, watching them die. And every day he couldn’t pull himself together, he felt the respect of the family dropping. No one said anything-not to his face. But he knew. And now Mazzucchelli was helping him out when what he really needed was to show that he could handle it without. He didn’t need a hand doing his work.
He stopped at the corner bakery for a pick-up breakfast before heading south toward Jokertown-the tastes of greasy, sweet pastry and bitter, hot coffee competing pleasantly, the chill of the morning pulling a little at the skin of his face. Joey pictured what it was going to be like.
He’d walk in to a restaurant, go over to Mazzuchelli’s table. He’d sit down. They’d talk a little, then Joey would pass over the satchel with the drugs and the money. And then, in a separate little bag, he’d have the right hands of all the fuckers he’d killed getting the stuff back. Mazzuchelli would grin and welcome him back. And Lapierre, the little fucker, would be somewhere in the background boasting about how he could have done just as good, only no one’s gonna believe him.
It was a pretty good daydream, and it got him to the flop. He dropped the nearly-empty coffee cup and the wax paper still dusted with powdered sugar into the trash and went down the steps to the basement apartment, flakes of rotten concrete scraping under his feet.
The door was open. Joey took the beretta out of its holster and went in. The place had all the marks of being left in a hurry-empty dressers, a half-eaten sandwich in the bathroom. The big stuff-the television, the old stereo-was still there, but anything portable was stripped and gone. The lights were all burning even though there was more then enough leaking through the windows to see by.
So it looked like Demise knew he’d been spotted. He and his Fist buddies had gotten scared and skipped. Joey smiled. It was nice having someone scared of him again. He put away the gun and took the rattling orange bottle out of his pocket and popped a darvon to celebrate.
The phone was one of those little lozenge-shaped ones. Joey guessed it had started out the usual colorless beige, but someone had painted it black. He scooped it up and dialed.
“What?” Mazzuchelli snapped after the second ring.
“Boss. It’s Joey.”
“What’ve you got?”
“I went to check out the place you told me about. Nothing there. I was thinking, though. You remember how you got those phone records on that guy in Soho?”
“How’d you hear about that?”
“I was there when you braced him, boss,” Joey said, trying to keep his voice from sounding hurt. “I helped you break his knees.”
“Oh. Right. Sorry.”
“I was thinking maybe you could do the same for this joint. See who’s been talking to them, see who they been talking to.”
There was a long silence. Joey shifted his weight from one foot to the other.
“Okay,” Mazzuchelli said. “Where can I get hold of you? You’re not calling me from
“Of course not, boss. I’m at a payphone. The number, though. It’s all scratched out.”
“Joey. If you’re lying to me, it’s going to be on the records that I’m just about to go get for you. You know that, right?”
“I’m sorry, boss. I’m at the apartment. I wasn’t thinking.”
Mazzucchelli muttered something that Joey couldn’t make out, but the tone of voice alone was enough to make him wince a little.
“Call me back in an hour. I’ll let you know what I find.”
“Okay. Sorry, boss.”
Mazzucchelli sighed. “You’re a good guy, Joey. Just stop being such a fuck-up, all right?”
 |
Gina snuck out a little before eleven. Father Henry watched from the cottage as she slipped out the sacristy door and started down the street. She’d picked out an old black Navy jacket, but she had the same blue wrap-around skirt and a weathered black purse. With her hair pulled back and no makeup, she looked totally different than the young whore he’d taken in off the street.
He watched as she strode calmly to the street, heading north. Once she was out of sight, he leaned back, took off his glasses and pressed the bridge of his nose. Eyes closed, he waited for a moment, giving the Lord one last chance to come to him with the sign or insight he’d prayed for most of last night and a fair part of the morning. All he saw was the dark back of his eyelids.
He sighed, finished his sandwich in two quick bites, and headed over to the church. A flock of pigeons took wing as he walked past. She’d left the door unlocked, and he closed it carefully before going down the stairs.
The cot was neatly made. A towel hung in the bathroom, still wet from her shower. He felt like a nosey parent sneaking into a child’s room to go through her dresser. And if it seemed like a betrayal of trust, well, she wasn’t playing perfectly straight with him either.
He found her bags stowed under the cot. Now there was a question. She’d been borrowing clothes from the donations, so that couldn’t be what she’d brought with her. With a sinking feeling in his belly, Father Henry pulled out the blue athletic duffel bag, its slick plasticized cloth hissing against the concrete of the floor. He crossed himself and undid the zipper.
The money was in rolls a little bigger than his fist-worn hundred dollar bills wrapped by thick red or beige rubber bands. At a guess, there were maybe seventy or a hundred rolls. He sat on the floor and hefted one, trying to estimate the sum, even just roughly, but his mind rebelled. When he put it back and closed the bag, he noticed the black-red stain on the cloth.
The little suitcase had a cheap lock, and Father Henry forced it with a penknife. Inside were nineteen small packages with a space where the twentieth had clearly been. They were white powder in carefully taped cellophane bags. Father Henry had seen enough movies to know that this was where he was supposed to poke his knife into one and taste the contents from the blade, and he even felt a slightly disembodied urge to go through the motions. Not that he had the first damn idea what drugs tasted like, but it was what they always did.
Still, it was pretty clear that Gina wasn’t carrying around baking soda. The rolled up bills were drug money, and these right here were the drugs-cocaine or heroin or something else. He couldn’t see as the exact chemistry mattered all that much. The question was still the same-what to do.
He crossed his legs uncomfortably and considered the packages. The obvious thing to do was call the police. (“I’m a Jokertown whore and the police won’t help me,” she’d said. Well it was clear enough now why that was, and it wasn’t about someone being an informant.) Yes, that was the right thing. There was no call for a simple man like him to go getting involved with this kind of thing. The police would know best what to do.
But it would mean that Gina went to prison, at the very least. Or maybe she’d get killed. It didn’t sit right. She was only seventeen, after all.
When he was her age, he’d been on a permanent drunk, so adept with his wild card talent that he could turn the water to wine when it touched his lips and the backwash wouldn’t even pink what was still in the glass. He’d been kicked out of school for being drunk in class, kicked out of the house to live in the apartment over Uncle Elmore’s garage.
He’d branched out a little after that-a few light narcotics and such, Valium especially being in fashion. If someone had come to him then with cocaine or heroin, Father Henry knew he would never have made it to twenty alive. He’d been at the age when you were supposed to be stupid and self-destructive. And with as low as he’d been, it was hard to say that Gina deserved a tougher break just because she was young and foolish here and now instead of thirty-odd years ago in Alabama.
Hard enough, in fact, that he couldn’t do it.
His right leg was falling asleep, tingles shooting down his thigh to the foot. He shifted his weight, but it only hurt worse so he stood.
Something had to be done though. Whatever else, nothing right or good would come from the drugs. And so maybe that was why God had sent Gina to him.
He pressed his lips together, leaned down, and closed the suitcase.
“Well, Lord,” he said aloud as he walked to the bathroom. “I hope this was more or less what you were aiming for.”
It took longer than he’d expected to flush all the powder down the toilet, but he managed it.
 |
The west end of the park butted up against the New York Public Library, the north end against 42nd street. Just about where the two met, there was a small building-a walk-in public restroom. They left the corpse of the British guy there, sitting in one of the stalls with a surprised expression and his jeans around his ankles.
The day was cold with low scudding clouds that seemed barely higher than the skyscrapers, but the foot traffic down 42nd was still thick. Demise sat in a chair on the brown, winterkilled grass conspicuously wearing an Aerosmith t-shirt and reading the
The girl showed up at noon. She cleaned up pretty nice-long black hair pulled back from her sharp features, a blue skirt that swirled a little around her ankles. She looked better without makeup. She was walking across the park toward him with a studied casualness that was about as subtle as blood on a wedding dress. An amateur.
He folded his newspaper and stood just as Phan and his cheap sunglasses sidled up behind her. The shifting emotions on her face were a joy to watch-confusion, recognition, fear, despair, calm all within a half second. Bitch should have been an actress.
“You know who we are,” Demise said as Phan-gun pressed discreetly in the small of her back-steered her toward him.
The girl nodded.
“You know why we’re here.”
She nodded again.
“Good. Let’s go someplace a little more private and talk.”
The whore didn’t fight, didn’t make a break for it. She just walked with them down to 41st where they had a limo with a Shadow Fist driver waiting in a loading zone and climbed in with them. Demise pulled a jacket over the idiot t-shirt as soon as he got in. He sat in the jump seat, facing her. Phan was beside her, gun no longer concealed and not particularly pointing at her. The driver pulled out into traffic.
“Okay,” the girl said. “So you going to kill me or what?”
Phan slammed the butt of the pistol into her face. The scream was short and high.
“We might, we might not. It depends,” Demise said. “You have the sample.”
She pulled a cellophane packet out of her pocket. Phan took it, turned it over in his hand, and nodded. Demise smiled. The girl’s cheek was puffing out where Phan had hit her, and she was sniffing back blood.
“Where’s the rest?” he asked.
She shook her head.
“I tell you that and you don’t need me,” she said. “Here’s the deal. You can have all the shit, but I keep ten percent of that cash as a finder’s fee.”
Demise leaned forward. She knew about him, and she tried not to meet his eyes. He waited. The limo hit a pothole and they all lurched a little. Phan sighed uncomfortably. Demise kept waiting, staring at her dark brown eyes and willing them up toward his. He got her when she glanced over to see whether he was still looking. He took her almost to the point of no return-farther than he’d taken Randy-before he looked away.
The driver looked back and Phan waved the pistol in a
“You understand the stakes?” Demise asked.
She nodded. The bravado was gone. She had stopped worrying about the bloody nose Phan had given her. Her mouth and chin were crimson, her eyes wide and empty. When she wiped her mouth on the black sleeve of her jacket, the blood smeared.
“We get all of it back by tomorrow at noon,” Demise said slowly. “The money and the smack both. You do it like a nice girl, and you can live.”
“Tomorrow,” she agreed.
“You can meet us in the same place. Just like today. You bring everything.”
“Everything,” she echoed. Tears ran down her face, but her expression stayed blank. He wasn’t sure she was taking in what they were saying, but then she went on. “I’ll have all of it for you, just don’t kill me, okay? That’s the deal. You don’t kill me.”
Phan smiled and holstered the gun. Demise leaned back and spoke to the driver over his shoulder.
“Jokertown. We’ll drop her there.”
The rest of the ride was in silence. The girl looked out the window, eyes vacant with fear. Phan leaned back. The ponytail really did look pretty sharp on him. Demise tried to picture the guy with a mustache, just thinking how the two would go together. Maybe he’d try it.
At the bleeding edge of Jokertown, the limo pulled over and Demise popped the door open for her.
“Tomorrow. Noon,” he said. “And wash your face. You look like someone beat the shit out of you.”
She scrambled out of the car and strode off down the street her head down. Phan leaned forward, watching her. The first flakes of snow pearled the windshield.
“Go ahead of her about three blocks and turn right,” Demise said to the driver. “You can drop us there.”
“Now what?” Phan asked as the limo forced its way out into traffic.
“Follow her,” Demise said. “She’s not thinking straight. She’ll head straight for the stuff. We get the money, get the drugs, and snuff the bitch.”
“Sounds good,” Phan said. “But I get to kill her.”
Demise raised an eyebrow.
“You enjoy it too much, man,” Phan said. “It’s not healthy.”
 |
Joey stood on the street outside Our Lady of Perpetual Misery shifting his weight from one leg to the other. Mazzucchelli had been pretty clear-the only calls coming into the apartment in the last few days that looked off were from the church. It only made sense to check it out.
The stone building loomed across the street, grey and impassive. He didn’t see any Shadow Fist operatives walking in or out. Didn’t see any heroin blowing down the street with the snow. It occurred to Joey for the first time that he wasn’t sure exactly what it was he was looking
Since when did the Fist work with jokers anyway? Fuck, since when did they work with Catholics? The whole thing didn’t make sense. The confusion nauseated him a little. He should have worked with Lapierre. This was a job for someone smart.
The urge hit him to take another pill like he was hungry and the pills were food. He took the bottle out and considered it. His arms didn’t really hurt-hell, they hadn’t really hurt in weeks-but the pills made him feel better. Some part of him knew that wasn’t good-even felt guilty about it. But that didn’t make him want the stuff any less.
Something huge and bright blue swooped overhead, shrilling like a flock of birds. Joey shrugged deeper into his jacket, pushing the drugs away. He hated Jokertown.
“Just go in and look around,” he muttered to himself. “Like you were just gonna go light a candle for some dead joker motherfucker. That’s the thing.”
Joey squared his shoulders, crossed the street and walked up the steps. He held the door open for a nice little piece of ass-definitely not a joker-who was heading in right after him. Dark eyes, dark hair. She would have been really pretty if someone hadn’t been beating the crap out of her.
 |
Of course he expected her to be upset. He’d have been naïve to think she wouldn’t. But he’d rehearsed what he’d say, some of it standing in front of the bathroom mirror so he could try out the facial expressions too.
He’d planned to start by scaring her. Then he’d take the moral high ground-she’d misled him, lied to him even, betrayed his trust in her. If she didn’t walk out on him right then, he could forgive her and explain why he’d gotten rid of the drugs and that the church would still protect her.
He’d also hidden the money, figuring it made it more likely that Gina’d be in the mind to hear him out.
“You get it back!” she screamed, leaning over him. “You crawl in the fucking sewer and get it back, you fat fucking sonofabitch!”
He lay on his back, his arms up to protect his face. Gina knelt on his chest, her weight making it difficult to take a breath. The cot was on its side where she’d thrown it, and his left ear hurt pretty bad where she’d hit him.
“Now, you… my trust…” he tried.
“You shit-sucker! You fuckbrained joker asshole! That was my fucking
She swung at him again, her hands in claws. Then she stood and kicked him in the small of the back-she didn’t quite get his kidney, but it still smarted pretty good-and started pacing the length of the small room, shaking her head, arms crossed. Carefully, Father Henry raised himself up to sitting and picked his glasses back up from the floor.
“Now, Gina,” he said. “I think you need to just calm down a mite.”
“Shut up before I kill you.”
He rose slowly to his feet. That kick was going to leave a bruise. He could already feel it. He straightened his shirt.
“I didn’t do what you’d have wanted, maybe,” he said, “but it was right. You can try beating on me if you want, but that won’t make keeping folks hooked on drugs a good thing. And these people you’re messing with, now, they’re not the sort of folks a girl like you should be… you know… messing with.”
Since she didn’t respond, he figured he’d gotten the moral high ground after all. It didn’t seem to have all the weight he’d hoped for. She muttered something, paused at the foot of the stairs, her eyes narrowed and calculating.
“I need the money,” she said. “I’ve got a few hours to make a run for it.”
“You’ve accepted the protection of the church,” he said, feeling a little better for being back on-script. “We’ll take care of you, but that means no more lying and playing fast and loose with the truth. I didn’t go to the police and you should see…”
“If you’d gone to the cops, I’d be dead already. I need the money, Father.”
She was looking at him now with a deathly calm. Her face was bruised, her mouth thin and bloodless. She’d never looked less like a child.
“Come on, then,” he sighed and walked up the stairs.
Quasiman was sweeping the aisles and between the pews, his hunched back moving irregularly as bits of him vanished and reappeared. Father Henry nodded to him as he walked up the pulpit and took out the duffel bag. Gina snatched it from him and slung it over her shoulder.
“Thanks,” she said and strode for the main doors. Father Henry sat down and watched her go, rubbing his sore ear.
It wasn’t how he’d seen things going. He’d had a scenario in mind where Gina would have been safe, where maybe he’d bring a little light into her life. A little hope. A chance, maybe, for salvation. Instead, the most he could really hope for was the existential appreciation of a city’s worth of drug addicts thanking him for thinning down the supply. He was out of his depths in Jokertown. That was all.
“Father Henry?”
Quasiman stood before him, broom in hand. He wore an expression of concern.
“Yes?”
Quasiman beamed.
“I thought I remembered you,” he said, and vanished. Father Henry shook his head and levered himself back up to his feet just as Gina came back down the aisle. Her face was ashen, her footsteps unsteady.
A blocky man in a black coat walked beside her, carrying the duffel bag full of money. He also had a gun to her neck.
 |
The priest stood up with a wobble, his face going paler. Joey felt something like pleasure and dug the barrel into the girl’s neck. She flinched.
“Well now,” the priest said, tugging at his collar. “And how can I help you, son?”
“Get in the back. Now!”
The priest grinned nervously like Joey’d said something clever, turned and trotted toward the back. Joey pushed the girl ahead of him, enjoying the way she stumbled. Joey really felt like he was getting back his stride.
The priest led the way down a flight of stairs to a little kitchen. Joey kept his back to the wall, his gun trained on the two of them. Without letting the barrel waver, he threw the duffel bag on the table.
“That’s the money,” he said. “So that’s a good start. Now all you gotta do to keep breathing is give me the shit.”
“Well now,” the priest began, “you see that might could pose a bit of…”
“It’s not here,” the girl snapped.
“Okay. So where is it?” Joey demanded, moving a step toward them. The priest flushed pink and looked away, shaking his head like he was talking to himself. The girl kept her eyes locked on his.
“It’s coming. My partner Jade, she’s supposed to be here with it any minute.”
The priest shot a look at her, eyebrows raised.
“Then I guess we’ll wait for Jade,” Joey said, grinning cruelly. He stepped close to them now. The priest was already flinching away in expectation of a blow. “If there ain’t no one here soon, though, I’m gonna start getting bored. And then I’m gonna start cutting off fingers.”
He walked backward slowly, a deep satisfaction flowing through him. He was back. For the first time since the fucking arrow, he was really back. It was like riding a bicycle. Just get a couple civilians shitting themselves scared, and it was like his body knew what to do. He had the money, it looked like he could maybe get the drugs. That’d show Mazzucchelli. Shit, that’d show all of them.
Close enough to start celebrating, he figured. He took the bottle out from his pocket and opened it one-handed. The priest raised his eyebrows.
“Good trick, opening them child-proof things like that,” the priest said. “Takes some practice.”
“You shut the fuck up,” Joey said.
“No offense. No offense.”
Joey glared as he sidestepped to the sink and tapped out two bright pink pills onto the counter. The priest was watching with an odd expression as he poured a glass of water with his left hand. Joey scowled, radiating menace as he popped the fag-pink pills into his mouth. He had to take his eyes off the pair for a second when he drank.
As the water washed the pills down, a strange warmth spread in his throat. Panic hit him and he was across to the priest, the barrel of the gun pressed between the fat man’s eyes, before he knew he’d moved.
“What the fuck’s wrong with the fucking water?” he demanded.
The priest managed a wan smile and shook his head.
“It’s got something in it. I can feel it. Like taking a drink.”
“Oh,” the priest said. “That’s not the water, son. That’ll happen sometimes with narcotics. Pain killers especially. The capsule cracks a little on the way down. That
“Shut the fuck up!” Joey said. The pills were warm in his gut, and the pleasant, loose sensation spreading to his arms and legs. He took another cautious sip of the water. It didn’t taste weird at all, didn’t make his throat feel hot.
“Try it, if you’d like,” the priest said. “You can just crack one open and wash down a touch of the powder. It does the same.”
“If you’re fucking with me…” Joey said, but he took out another pill, cracking it between his fingertips, and popped it into his mouth. It was viciously bitter, but when he drank the water, the warm feeling came again. It had an aftertaste like grapes. He licked his lips. The priest smiled and seemed to relax.
“Shit,” Joey said. “How’d you know about that?”
“My friends and I were known to sample some narcotics in our younger days. Before I took the cloth. Since then I’ve spent a certain amount of my time ministering to folks who shared my peculiar form of weakness. I’m Father Henry Obst, by the way. I’m filling in for Father Squid for a couple weeks while he’s away. This here’s Gina. She’s accepted the protection of the Church.”
“Yeah,” Joey said, sarcastically. “And how’s that going for her?”
“I recall the first time I took codeine,” Father Henry said. He was leaning back now, the air of fear almost entirely gone. “I was just a young thing back then. Grade school. Before I drew… well, anyway. My mama gave it to me in cough syrup. That was legal back when I was a pup.”
“Oh yeah?”
“It was a lovely feeling. Now I do have to say that you don’t seem the sort of fella to indulge, though. Not when you’re on the job as it were. I assume it’s for medical needs?”
Joey nodded. His tongue felt a little thick, but the warmth in his gut was relaxing and calm. He was in a perfectly calm place. He was in control. He was good. Hell, he was perfect. “Fucker shot me with an arrow,” he said. “Months ago. Scar tissue’s all messed up with the nerves.”
“Ah,” Father Henry said, nodding sympathetically. “Must be a trial for you.”
“Yeah.”
They were silent for a few minutes-Joey wasn’t sure exactly how many. Time seemed to be doing something weird.
“I recall when I myself was in terrible pain,” the priest said, reflectively. “It wasn’t physical, mostly, but terrible all the same. I could turn… that is… well, wine was a staple of my diet as a young man. Anyway, it took me some time before I understood I was an addict. I’d lost a great deal that was very dear to me.”
Joey laughed, and waved his gun languidly at the two of them. His hand seemed oddly far away.
“You were an addict?”
“Still am, son,” the priest said gravely. “Will be until the day I die. It’s just a disease, and no shame in it. You just need to get right with yourself and the Lord. You know, God takes care of his own. If you just let Him.”
“It’s not like I’m hooked or anything,” Joey said. “I just need them, you know? I mean it’s not like I take ’em for fun. It’s just… if I don’t… I just gotta get through the day. I just gotta show the guys I’m not… shit, I’m not making sense.”
“Yes, you are, son. You most certainly are.”
Joey nodded. The priest seemed like he was the center of the world. Everything else was narrowing around the thick, pasty face with its calm, accepting expression. Tears filled Joey’s eyes. The little kitchen was swimming.
All the weeks of being laughed at, the shame of his cravings, the nightmares of watching arrows piercing his guys, of being the only one left while his friends died around him-it all bubbled up at once. He lost track of where he was, where the floor was, whether he was standing up.
“Father,” he choked out as the darkness and sorrow enfolded him, “I think I’ve got a problem.”
 |
Father Henry stood over the collapsed thug who lay snoring gently on the floor. The relief mixed pleasantly with what he imagined was a somewhat prideful smugness at Gina’s open-mouthed wonder.
“Now you let that be a lesson to you,” he said. “Always read the warning labels when you get a prescription. Lot of times you mix alcohol with ’em, it’s a very bad idea.”
“Damn,” Gina said. “I mean that’s… pathetic.”
“Well now, give him a little benefit. He didn’t know no better. Gina, if… well now, if you’re going to be going, I think you might best be at it. This fine young man is only going to be asleep for so long.”
The girl looked at him, nodded, and picked the duffel from the table. She hesitated for a moment, then leaned over and kissed him briefly on the lips.
“Thank you,” she said, and was gone up the stairs.
Father Henry sighed and slowly dragged the unconscious thug to the cot, rolled him onto it and covered him with the blanket Gina had been using. It was odd the way God put things together and took them apart. But then he supposed that was what they meant by ineffable. The question of what to do with his new ward, now, was an interesting problem. He didn’t imagine there was a Hired Thugs Anonymous, but given his last few days, he wasn’t going to rule it out either.
When he lumbered up the stairs, he was surprised to find Gina sitting in the front pew, her head in her hands.
“He’s here,” she said. “Out on the street.”
“Who’s here?”
“Demise,” she said, and it came out like she was already dead. “And the other one’s out back. I’m fucked.”
She dropped the duffel bag and sat on the front pew, her head in her hands. She was weeping.
“Now you just tough back up there, miss,” Father Henry said. “It’s like I told you. You accepted the protection of the church, and that means me. I took care of things with that last gentleman, and I’ll take care of his one too.”
“Don’t be a shithead. That guy was some pill-popping dumbfuck. Demise is an ace.”
“Watch your language,” he said, picking up the bag and stowing it back behind the pulpit. “You go downstairs and wash yourself up. I’ll find us a way to settle this thing out.”
She looked up at him with a mixture of hope and disbelief on her face. He only raised his eyebrows-one of the expressions he’d practiced, so he had a pretty clear idea how it looked on him-and pointed to the stairs. She didn’t have much faith in him; that was clear enough from the way she moved. She went, though.
Once she was gone, Father Henry rolled up his sleeves and rubbed his hands together. “Quasi! Come over here, boy. I need to talk with you. Who exactly is this Demise fella?”
 |
Demise stood in a doorway across the street from the Church of Jesus Christ, Joker, where he could watch the front doors and the side. Phan was somewhere on the other side, keeping an eye on the other side and the back. The whore hadn’t come out, though he’d seen her poke her head out the door once. It didn’t seem likely that she’d actually stashed the shit in the church, but the longer she stayed in there, the more he was willing to consider it.
The snow was changing to sleet, freezing where it struck. He checked his watch. Fifteen more minutes, he figured, and they’d have to go in after her. He wondered how Danny Mao and the other bosses of Shadow Fist would feel about killing people in a church.
“Mr. Spector?” a distant voice shouted over the noise of traffic.
He looked up. A short, pear-shaped man with a clerical collar stood before the doors of the cathedral, waving over at him with a goofy grin. Demise tilted his head. “Now what the
“No call to be shy now, sir,” the pear-shaped priest shouted, a thick southern accent drawing out his words. “Come on over and let’s talk this here thing out.”
He hesitated for a minute, but then stepped out across the street, dodging cars, until he reached the opposite sidewalk. “Who the fuck are you?” he called.
“Father Henry Obst,” the priest said, beaming. “Lately of Selma. I’m taking over for Father Squid for a mite while he’s traveling the world. Come along inside now, sir. We’ve got a little matter of business to discuss, I think.”
“Do you know who I am?”
“Rumor has you’re a hired killer for some sort of Asian mob,” the priest said pleasantly.
“Well. Yeah,” Demise said. “Where’s the whore?”
“Oh, she’s in here,” the priest said. “I think we can get this whole thing taken care of to everybody’s satisfaction. Come on along, now sir. No reason to do this out in the weather.”
The priest turned and trundled back into the cathedral. Demise stood looking at the open door, then, shaking his head walked up and entered the church. The space was bigger than he’d remembered, and almost empty. The twisted, two-headed Christ impaled upon a double-helix cross seemed to writhe as Demise walked down the aisle, his footsteps echoing. The scent of car exhaust and snow mixed with ghost-faint incense.
The whore was there, sitting in the first pew with her head bowed. The little priest was still smiling and leaning against the altar rail.
“Now then, sir,” the priest said. “I understand there was something you were looking for.”
“The bitch stole something,” Demise said. “I’ve come to collect it.”
“Well now, you see that’s the issue that we need to look at, you and me. The drugs and the money-I presume that’s what you had in mind? Yes, well, they are no longer in this fine young woman’s care. I’ve taken them myself in the name of the church.”
“Okay,” Demise said. “So I should kill you instead?”
“It’s one of life’s little ironies that you and I should be the ones having this conversation,” the priest said, sticking his hands in his pockets and looking out over the pews. His round, puffy face had taken on a philosophical cast that looked like he’d rehearsed it in the mirror. “The virus has given me the ability to recreate Our Lord’s first miracle from the marriage at Cana, and you his final one in rising from his tomb. We represent the alpha and the omega, you and I. Not that it’s done either of us much good. I have a sermon I’ll be delivering on the subject come Sunday. You should come hear it.”
“Whatever,” Demise said. “How about we get back to business. Give me the shit and I’ll walk out of here. Nobody gets killed.”
“You forget sir that you are in the house of the Lord. You have no power here.”
Demise laughed, a little disbelieving cough, and locked his eyes into the watery blue of the priest’s. Father Henry met his gaze placidly. Demise pressed the pain along where the channel should have been, but nothing happened. He could see the priest considering him, could look into the black of the little man’s eyes, but there was no connection, no lock.
“God is stronger than a virus, sir,” Father Henry intoned, and for almost half a second, Demise got nervous. Then he noticed the red marks on the bridge of Father Henry ’s nose.
“You’re fucking nearsighted,” Demise said.
Father Henry’s expression froze and the whore gave out a little moan. “I knew this wouldn’t work,” she said.
 |
“You thought you could fuck with my head by taking off your glasses?” Demise said, almost laughing. “Christ, what a fucking hick.”
“The power… the power of God protects me. You just stand your ground there.” The priest’s voice was wobbling like his neck fat.
Demise stepped forward, took the little man’s chin in his hand, and lifted. Father Henry, eyes pressed closed, took his hands out of his pockets. Demise didn’t see the little black cylinder until it hissed, a stream of pepper mace already scalding his eyes and nose. The pain was nothing compared to the constant pain of death he carried with him, but the stuff did make his eyes water. The little priest pulled away, falling loudly over the rail, while Demise wiped at the tears and roared.
He never saw the whore coming up behind him.
The first jolt of the stun gun hardly stopped him-the pain was negligible. He spun, reaching out for the bitch, but she danced back and then swung in low, catching him just under the ribs. By the fourth shock, his muscles were going weak, and it was getting hard to breathe. The fifth one-a lucky shot on the back of his neck-made his whole right side go numb.
Demise gave out before the batteries did.
 |
Father Henry sat at the altar, wiping his forehead with a handkerchief. With his glasses back on, the assassin turned from a muddy man-shaped blur into an actual man, hog-tied in the aisle before the altar. Gina, smart girl that she was, had gagged him with a sock and a strip of cloth and covered his head with a pastel pink pillowcase. She’d moved fast, and it was a good thing. The man had never quite lost consciousness.
“So what do we do now?” Gina asked softly.
“Well, we have this gentleman here, the other one back in the kitchen,” he whispered back. “Seems like hitmen are what you might call thick on the ground just now.”
“There’s still the other one out back. The other one from the car.”
“Well that’s all well and good,” Father Henry snapped, “but I don’t think I’m much up for doing this a third time today. A man has limits.”
“I wasn’t saying that,” Gina said. “But we’ve got to do
“All right. Here, you keep an eye on this here miscreant and I’ll see whether I can’t work something out with our friend downstairs.”
Demise shifted, straining against his bonds, and tried to shout something, but Father Henry was damned if could tell what.
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 1987
“The whole thing was a setup,” Joey said. “I’m telling you, boss. I was lucky I got out of there at all.”
The restaurant was almost exactly the way he’d imagined it, except that he was empty-handed, Mazzucchelli was frowning, and Lapierre was over by the bar chatting up a waitress. Joey shook his head.
“And this priest got you out?”
“He woke me up after those four Fist guys jumped me and got me outta there.”
“Four guys?”
“Maybe five,” Joey said, trying not to wince with the lie. But it wasn’t like he could
“The cops were coming, and he was thinking the Fist might try to kill me. They’d went in there and
Mazzucchelli took a bite of his pasta and shook his head. Joey scratched at the scars on his left hand.
“Sounds like bullshit,” Mazzuchelli said.
“There was a Fist hanging just outside the back door,” Joey said. “And the cops-they picked up Demise there, didn’t they?”
Mazzucchelli took the starched white napkin off his knee and dabbed the corner of his mouth.
“Yeah,” he said with a long, slow, sigh. “Yeah, they did.”
“If I’d have jumped the gun and called in backup, they’d have ambushed us, boss. Demise was just the bait.”
“So how’d this hero priest get the drop on Demise?” Joey grinned.
“Yeah, he told about that too, when he was helping me get my feet. It went like this, see…”
 |
Demise walked out of the detention center in the late afternoon, pissed off. He still had on the fucking Aerosmith t-shirt. The car waited for him at the curb, Phan Lo at the wheel. Demise climbed in and slammed the door.
“What the fuck took you people so long?” he demanded as Phan pulled out into traffic. “I was in there overnight. How hard is it to post a little bail?”
“Gambiones,” Phan said. “They hit back yesterday.”
“No shit?”
“They torched five of our places. We lost twenty, maybe thirty men. Word on the street is they were trying for Danny Mao.”
“Still doesn’t explain why I had to spend a night in the lockup.”
“You weren’t the top priority,” Phan said.
They drove in silence. The day was clearer, but cold. Phan turned toward Chinatown.
“Did you, ah, mention to anyone…” Demise began, but the sentence trailed off.
“They know you got your ass kicked by a deuce priest and a Jokertown whore,” Phan said. “They laughed about it a little and got back to business.”
“Shit.”
“The whole thing was a setup. I saw one of the Gambione guys coming out the back right before the cops showed up. So we got suckered. Let it go, man. No one’s going to remember
“Yeah,” Demise said. “You know, that attitude is just like you. It’s just exactly like all of you. It’s not about who’s going to remember what. It’s about principle. If you let people fuck with you, pretty soon everyone’s going to think they can get away with shit.”
When Phan spoke, his voice was measured and careful. “I don’t think that someone who fucking kills people by looking at them is going to have a lot of trouble with people taking him lightly.”
“You don’t get it. The priest has to die. And I know where he’s going to be on Sunday morning. I’ll kill the little shit in the middle of Mass. ”
“Hardcore,” Phan said, sounding unimpressed.
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 8. 1987
Dawn threatened in the east, the light from the snowcovered trees making the kitchen window glow. Father Henry put the telephone handset back in its cradle just as Gina emerged from her room wrapped in a thick wool robe two sizes too big for her.
“Coffee smells great,” she said, then “It’s so
“That’s what we call the country. Haven’t you ever been out of the city?”
“Nah. I was born in Queens.
“You take cream or anything?”
“No. Black and bitter does just fine.”
Father Henry poured the coffee into a couple of Marriage Encounter cups and took them over to the table.
“The Archbishop says he’ll have tickets to Rome ready for us down in Albuquerque by Monday morning.”
“I thought there was a month wait for passports.”
“ Vatican passports,” Father Henry said, blowing on his coffee. “There are certain advantages to being a sovereign nation, after all. And a quarter million dollars is a pretty sizable donation. Exerts a kind of influence.”
“That was my money.”
“It was blood money and only the grace of Christ shall make it clean.”
“And the other quarter million?”
“I’m a man of Christ. It’ll be just fine right where it is. You need any-like maybe for tuition or something?-you just come see your Uncle Henry.”
“Tuition? Give me a break,” she said, laughing. Her face didn’t look so sharp, he thought. “I’ll go down on you for a hundred thousand, though.”
“I was thinking about cooking up some eggs,” he said, ignoring her. “Care for any?”
“Sure,” she said. “Over hard.”
He tried the still-scalding coffee and reached up for a good copper frying pan. Gina stood, her hands deep in the robe’s pockets, went to the window and looked out into the woods. He wondered what it would be like, seeing a pine forest at dawn for the very first time.
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