Internecine (37 page)

“No longer applies,” said Dandine. “We’re too far up the food chain for that, now. The people we need from now on are such hard targets . . .”

“That they never sleep?”

“Basically.”

In the parlance, a “hard target” was traditionally one shielded by every conceivable form of protection, and a “soft target,” with an almost Japanese simplicity, was “a hard target plucked from its shell.” In Rook’s guest house, I felt secure for the first time. Perhaps I was just running games on myself, but I found it insanely easy to drop off to sleep there
in my own little room, with Dandine across the living room, doing his mental exercises or pre– power nap, Doc Savage calisthenics, or whatever he did to unwind. If he ever unwound.

And just below us, the head-and-taillight snake of the Strip slithered onward, completely unaware.

The wife of a man named Horace H. Wilcox gave Hollywood its name in 1887. Daeida Wilcox Beveridge was known as “the mother of Hollywood” when she died in her home near the Boulevard and Wilcox Avenue (named after her husband) in 1914. “Hollywood” was the name of the country home of a woman Daeida spoke to during a train trip back east. Daeida was so enamored of the name that she used it for her own home . . . and Hollywood was born. The city has never honored or accredited her in any way, but there’s a plaque, if you know where to look, put up privately.

You think we remember anything, or learn from our past mistakes, ever? Think again. Think the way I was learning to, and say to yourself, what would
I
do?

Rook’s guest bathroom was provisioned much like a hotel one-shot—disposable everything. I no longer needed to bandage my wrists and my forehead had cleared of damage, but the keen of tinnitus in my right ear was distracting, pestersome, and still mildly painful. I had hoped it would heal down while I slept. Maybe I just didn’t sleep enough. I probed in there with a cotton swab and did not extract the blood crusts I feared.

On the sofa I found a fresh dress shirt still in crisp plastic packaging, and a silk tie that must have cost eighty bucks. Finally, I could retire from my stint in the Gay Mafia.

Dandine, per usual, appeared to have been up and functioning for six hours already. I imagined him stretching and kicking head-high at the door moldings for practice, then using a lava stone to sand off his outer layer of skin in an ice-cold shower, scrubbing right over the melted-wax, nerve-dead skin patches where his nipples used to be, feeling nothing there. I wondered what other blind spots he had; what other places in mind or body that had been scoured of the ability to feel anything. No looking back, there.

His black Halliburton was open, the center of a compact workspace. He had nasty looking bullets lined up in a row on the coffee table. Disassembled gun parts were scattered around, as well as cloths, plungers, cleaner, and lubricant. Arcane, specialized tools in a layout similar to field surgery.

“You might need to know about these, later,” he said, holding up one of the cartridges for my inspection. It was a little carbon-colored missile, with virtually no bullet head—just a flat steel dimple—and a yellow hazard stripe around the casing. “Minimal charge. It transports explosive over a short distance, then blows up when it strikes. Good if you want to throw light and concussion across a room. Like the firebacks in strength, but these impact the target, not the shooter. Sometimes it’s useful to plug these into a clip as a final shot. A full mag of these and you could make a lot of sound and thunder. The rest of the slugs are full-charge hollow points, government strength, max stopping power.”

He handed over what appeared to be a featureless pewter cartridge.

“Is this—?”

“Fireback,” he said. “Instead of gunpowder and a bullet head, it’s a fake shell packed with what is called ‘fuel-air explosive’ made by the Austrian company that makes Kaurit, which is your basic plastique. This has a small flash primary and the enclosed case multiplies the explosive effect by a factor of about seventy-five times. Little but big.”

When “Celeste,” a.k.a. Marisole, had experienced the joy of getting her face and hand blown off, the damage had looked (to my virgin eyes) the same as the blast from a small grenade. I was immediately wary of dropping the bullet.

“What the hell is that thing?” I was pointing at another pistol, but leery of picking it up, or even touching it. The clip hung out far below the butt. A scary looking, sharp jut of metal was mounted beneath the trigger guard, under the barrel. The stretch muzzle was vented. “Looks like a Beretta.”

“It is,” said Dandine, lifting it. “The M93R, built as an antiterrorist sidearm, basically a bodyguard gun for rich Italians who kept getting kidnapped in the eighties. This thing—” he swiveled the hinged metal piece until it locked into position “—is a handle, to stabilize the gun while you fire three-shot bursts, on full auto. Dumb idea.”

“You mean like a machine gun?”

“Just like a machine gun. Twenty-round mag. Otherwise it’s your basic nine-mil, except without the internal safety . . . so don’t drop it when it’s loaded.”

“I don’t think I’ll even touch it.”

He busied himself removing the metal handle. This required partial disassembly of the pistol, which Dandine accomplished with the swift deftness of a stage magician executing the Linking Rings trick—in reverse. In no time the handle was divorced from the gun.

“So much for stability,” I said.

Dandine did not look up. “It adds weight and bulk. Snags on clothing. Tempts you to blow off your index finger. Pointless if you have decent trigger control.” He demonstrated. “If you can’t hold down one-handed, then you just aim for the lower torso, and the kick from the second and third shots carries your cluster right up into the triangle.” He traced an imaginary pyramid in the air, framing my pectorals to my nose. “Sniper’s triangle; the sweet spot.” I noticed the wooden handles on the gun frame were nicked and worn smooth. As Dandine replaced them with rubber grips, he added, “Heavier than the Glock 18s the DEA uses; I like this better. More familiar in the hand. They don’t make these anymore.”

“Why? Was everybody killed?”

His gaze became abstracted again. I was getting used to this, whenever he seemed to phase out to some other plane, where he was having a whole separate conversation with beings I could not perceive. “Do you always do that?” he asked. “Change the subject with humor?”

“Sorry. It’s one of
my
weapons. Strictly defensive.”

“Connie, pardon me for saying so, but you haven’t
done
that much that you’d have to dissemble about.”

“You think I’m boring, right?”

He extracted the “big stick” clip and put the reassembled Beretta on a clean cloth. “I didn’t say that. You’re smart, and you’re sharp, so why are you so afraid of what people will think of you? Who
cares
what anybody thinks of you? Where do you get off being insecure? You’ve got more grit than most normal people I’ve ever met.”

“Thanks . . . I think.”

“Seriously. You did well in gunfire, you did well at the airport, and you haven’t shit yourself once. Stand up.”

I thought he was going to demonstrate some kung fu on my poor, beleaguered corpus. I hate it when people who have taken martial arts courses insist on “showing you something.” (It nearly always mean bruises, cocked wrists, inconvenience.) Instead, he wired a shoulder holster around me the way anyone else would help you on with your coat. Then he took it off.

“We’re going to have to adjust this to reach your belt,” he said.

“Wait a minute—”

“That one’s yours,” he said, indicating another of the guns on the table. It was a matte-finish
SIG SAUER
, exactly like the ones I’d seen in the Halliburton case from the airport. “It’s chambered for Smith and Wesson .40s. With twelve rounds, that means we’re hanging about two pounds under your arm. You should find that manageable.”

“You mean I’m packing real, live heat that I might have to shoot people with?” I was sweating already.

“It’s mostly for show,” he conceded. Then he grinned. “Just in case. You are now an official fake
NORCO
agent. Congratulations.”

“Does this have one of those explody-rocket things in it?”

“Last round. Just in case you need to call it a day.”

“You mean go out with a bang . . . or commit suicide?”

“Your call.” He was having too much fun at this. He pulled the gun out of my hand. “Jesus, Connie, don’t fall
too
in love with this thing. You don’t get to wear it, yet.”

Damn, but he was right. My hand almost refused to release the weapon; I stared at it as though mortified at one of those possessed, monster hands from some horror movie. I didn’t want to turn loose of the gun because it made me feel safe. Good. More in control.

“Guns aren’t the answer,” Dandine said, as if reading my mind (again!). “They’re just tools.”

“You seem comfy enough with them.”

“No. I’m afraid of them. Say it, They’re just tools.”

He wasn’t ribbing me. “They are just tools,” I said, like a dutiful student.”

“Now remember it. And remember this, if I close both my eyes and
nod at you like this—” he demonstrated “—you follow my lead, no matter what I do, no matter how weird it seems. Copy?”

“Roger that.”

“I’m not fucking around, Connie. You buckle now, and we might as well use these guns on ourselves.”

“I understand,” I said, a bit testy. “What’s next?”

“Get yourself some coffee, because it’s going to be a very trying Monday.”

He might as well have said,
snipers are standing by to fill your order.

I found a breakfast tray—apparently Rook was a full-service host, or did this a lot—and had a cigarette afterward. It raced my heart and shortened my breath. I was a complete phony, now. A nonexistent human named Mr. Lamb, who smoked and consorted with guns, threatened strangers guilelessly, and occasionally hastened the injury, or death, of others; a man whose most potent currency was not the lie, but the half-truth. Substitute “ad budget” for “guns,” and I was taken aback by how little I had changed. Same game, new players.
I can do this,
I thought, prevaricating even to myself.
I can do this.

“I don’t think we should do this,” I said, eyeing the handcuffs. We were in our stolen Audi, headed downtown, trying to cope with the spilled-marble chaos of the southbound 101. Destination: Park Towers, per the third name on the list given to me by the presumed-dead Sisters.

Dandine had performed another license plate switcheroo. Right now, he was sucking on a wintergreen Life Saver. “What part of this—exactly—do you
not
understand?”

“The part where you throw me to the wolves in handcuffs; that’s a fair start.”

“The cuffs are just for show. I might not go that way. It depends on what we find downtown.”

“Indulge me and detail the ‘maybe’ scenario,” I said. I already felt trapped by the locked door, the seat belt, and hints of worse, to come.

“If it’s a stone wall, I walk you in as my prisoner,” Dandine said. He was using that too-patient parent tone with me again. “If it’s permeable, we improvise. That’s why Rook made you the backup
NORCO
ID.”

“Why don’t we just march in and bullshit them?” I sulked. I liked
the second plan better. It meant I’d get to carry a gun. Right now my snappy shoulder holster hung empty, as useful as a ventilated condom. It, too, was strapping me down, holding me back, preconfining me.

“Because Jenks will know your face, especially if he’s as tight with
NORCO
as I suspect he is.”

I was getting hysterical. “Suspect? You don’t
know?
”

“Connie, what is this thing with you and planning? Is this some psychological block I should know about?”

That threw me. It was no doubt intended to derail my irritation, but sounded of pure non sequitur. “Okay, okay—peace. Pretend I’m an idiot child and tell me what the fuck you’re talking about.”

“Well, you seem to want the whole menu laid out in absolute black and white before we do anything. Understand that rigid plans, if they’re too rigid, shatter and cave in on you. We need flexibility. I don’t know exactly what I am going to do, or precisely when I am going to do it, and that drives you nuts, doesn’t it?”

Ruefully, I recalled instructions I had once given to my assistant, Danielle, regarding appointments made by telephone. Pencil them in, I had said. Don’t ink them. Writing in ink curses it to change. We all have our little superstitions.

It was hopeless, but I said, “I just want to know the plan.”

“The plan has to have the flexibility to totally change at a moment’s notice. One option is we fake our way in. One option is I present you as my prisoner to gain special-circumstances access to Jenks. There might be other paths. It all depends on force of opposing numbers, what doors are open or locked, hell, which way the wind is blowing. That’s why I asked you to follow my lead, and you agreed.”

All the armament I had seen back at Rook’s was stashed in the black Halliburton . . . which he had left behind, save for one piece—the monster Beretta—nestled under Dandine’s left arm, the arm I thought was still recuperating. He had ceased making any noises that indicated his arm still bothered him, and I knew it hadn’t had time to heal . . . much.