Near Enemy (25 page)

Survived worse.

Grimaces as he thinks this. Edges of his vision fading to black.

Do-Better just stands over him, watching him, head cocked. With great interest.

Like lots of hunters, she likes to come in close to observe the final moments.

Then she holds up one last saw blade.

You won’t die, Simon. You know that, right? You of all people should know that.

She spins the lone silver blade on the tip of her finger until it sings like an instrument.

But I can make sure this experience is one you remember for a good long time.

She stills the blade from spinning. Holds it out for him to see. It shines like a lucky coin.

Says with a smile.

Bye-bye, Simon.

Sitting splay-legged, Simon lifts a handcannon, the long revolver looking comically clumsy, like a cartoon gun smithed for
Yosemite Sam. Barrel droops. Do-Better only watches, curious to see what he thinks he’s going to do next.

He doesn’t even bother trying to aim it in her direction. It’s bad enough trying to heft it. Barrel just points off randomly toward the end of the car. Toward nothing. Well, toward Lesser, maybe, in some farther car, some future car, at the far end of the train, the last car, the end of the line, the person they both came here to rescue, the person they were supposed to save.

All of this for some fat-shit hopper, Simon thinks. No, not just that. You have to get back. Back to your family. Back to your church. Take back what’s yours. Can’t bleed out in a black room.

Thankfully, Simon’s got one last trick to try.

One last thing he’d worked out with Mina. Beforehand. Just in case. As a fail-safe.

Hopes Mina remembers.

And hopes she can actually pull it off.

And really hopes she doesn’t hold that scar against him.

Simon looks up at Do-Better. His face drawn under his blood-speckled beard. Eyes bloodshot. Rimmed red.

Do-Better smiles.

It’s a shame, Simon. Strong brute like you. Handsome too. Different circumstances, we could have been an item.

I don’t think so.

Why’s that?

I’m a family man now.

And with that, he screams with everything he has left in his lungs. Screams a name.

Mina!

Then pulls the trigger.

Barrel booms.

Fires wide.

Hits nothing.

But it wasn’t meant to.

Leaves a gaping hole in a plastic seatback.

Just a distraction. Designed to turn Do-Better’s head for a moment. Fluster her. Just for a moment. Which it does.

She looks back to where the shot sailed wide.

Shrugs.

Well, I don’t see—

Turns back to him.

Simon’s gone.

Two minutes, sir.

Bellarmine nods absentmindedly, without looking up from his handheld, then goes back to the message he’s typing.

Fat, clumsy thumbs. Tapping something. Texting someone.

The temporary tent they’re all beneath flaps sharply in a strong wind that swirls up off the river. An unsecured flap sounds a loud snap, like a whip crack. Bellarmine looks up again from his handheld. Not startled. Just alert. Then goes back to texting.

Two guards flank him.

One woman, one man.

Both in police dress uniform. Navy-blue coats fastened tight with gold buttons. Gold braiding at the shoulders. Crisp hats. Sunglasses.

The male guard raises his arm to check the time.

Shakes his wrist to free his watch from under his stiff coat sleeve.

Above his wrist, a sliver of skin becomes visible.

Peek of ink.

Tip of a tattoo.

Snakes and flames.

Watch checked, he pulls the sleeve back down, then says.

Ready?

Bellarmine grunts, nods, eyes still on the handheld.

But the guard’s not talking to Bellarmine.

The first thing Simon does is he vomits. All over himself, all over the bed, all over the wires and tubes and sensors and screens, in great heaving gushers of vomit that far exceed what you’d think one human body could contain.

Then, spent and vomit-soaked, Simon looks up at Mina, his face as gaunt as a cadaver. Still snarling, though. And eager to get back to the action.

Says to her.

Thank you, Mina. And I’m sorry about the scar.

She says nothing. Stays poised.

He shrugs.

I deserve that.

Settles back into the bed. Says to Mina.

Whenever you’re ready.

The wake-up call.

It’s a sudden searing overwhelming pain that accompanies tapping out and coming out of bed-rest. As all your physical senses suddenly come back online.

It’s bad.

Can be very bad.

Depending on how fast you come out.

Even at the best of times, it usually takes several minutes to recover.

Simon came out fast. And he doesn’t have several minutes.

Ergo the vomit.

A responsible nurse would never, ever tap someone out, especially rapidly, then tap them back in right away. The shock to your system alone is too much, like hitting all your five senses with maximum wattage, then cutting the power suddenly, then
hitting them all again. You’ll blow your mental breakers. Short the fuse box. Could cause yourself permanent damage. Definitely cause yourself temporary pain.

For her part, Nurse just stands back with her hand over her mouth. Like she and Mina are grave robbers who just opened up a tomb and found someone still alive inside. Nurse’s seen a lot and she’s not a squeamish woman. But she’s never seen this maneuver done before. And right now she looks ready to faint.

In driving, they call it the bootlegger’s turn. Crank the hand-brake at highspeed, spin the steering wheel, fishtail the car, then peel out in the opposite direction.

This maneuver is kind of like that, but for your brain.

Simon, sweat-sheened, says sharply now.

Mina! Do it!

Mina hesitates.

Knows she could jerk Simon back and forth like this, in and out, for an hour if she wanted to. For a lifetime. Hit him hard with the wake-up call so many times he’d heave himself dry.

Kind of like Rick did. At Simon’s hand.

No, she hasn’t forgotten. Thought maybe she’d forgiven, but as it turns out, she hasn’t done that either.

Cross-shaped scar on her forehead aches.

But Mark’s still in there. And she still likes Mark.

Simon she can settle with later.

Simon barks.

Mina!

And she taps Simon in again.

Nurse hits him with another load of drugs as he goes down.

And just before Simon goes under, his snarl finally dissipates, and he looks at them both like a lost soul dredged up from the shadows of the sea.

Looks about to say something sorrowful.

But then his eyes roll back in his head and he sags back into the bed and he’s gone.

Do-Better looks left, right, left again, as if maybe Simon just scrambled off and hid beneath a bench like some mischievous little kid.

Looks for a blood trail.

Mark’s trying to rise behind her but she’s not too worried about him.

Plenty of time to finish him off.

Not too worried about Simon either, but she’s curious, so she wanders down to the end of the car. Toward the door where the two of them entered.

Makes no sense he would retreat backward.

Nothing back there now. The cars behind them have all disappeared.

That’s how the black-room train works. Last car vanishes once you leave. Each new car you enter becomes the caboose.

Maybe he managed to get himself tapped out, she thinks. Yank the rip cord. That would be one bumpy ride, though. And pretty cowardly to leave his friend behind. To take the brunt of her frustration.

Which is mounting.

While she’s thinking all this, she idly slides the subway car door open and looks out into the retreating tunnel, just out of curiosity, mostly.

As the door slides open, the subway roar doubles.

She leans out and peers out into the darkness, then shrugs.

Oh well, she thinks. If he did somehow sneak out here, there’s nothing out here for him but track.

As she thinks this, something rustles behind her.

Not something.

Someone.

Simon’s back.

Looks like hell, and he’s barely breathing, and he’s not even sure he’s strong enough to raise his leg and kick her through that door and out into the tunnel.

Nope. He’s wrong.

Turns out he’s plenty strong enough.

Short scream swallowed by the shrieking of the subway.

Then back to the normal rhythmic rumble as the train rattles on.

Simon hoists Mark to his feet. Says to him hoarsely.

That won’t stop her, just delay her. I bought us maybe three minutes, tops.

Mark steadies himself on a pole. Folds his bloodied wings back. Says to Simon.

I’m good.

Then Mark reaches out and grabs the knob to the door that leads to the next car. As they walk through the doorway, Mark’s thinking, Three of them. Simon said there were three of them. Do-Good.

Do-Better.

Do-Best.

Ready?

The female guard in the tent on the waterfront nods, then reaches to her belt and unhooks her handcuffs.

In the half inch of skin that’s exposed between her dress-white gloves and her dress-coat sleeve, a sliver of tattoo peeks through.

Same tattoo. Snakes and flames. Matching set with the male guard.

Loyal bodyguards both.

Loyal.

But not to Bellarmine.

She flips open the handcuffs and Bellarmine half looks up from his handheld and then, his attention snagged, shoots her a quizzical look, then starts to speak just as the other guard, the man, takes a quick half step behind him, loops his arms deftly through Bellarmine’s arms, yanks them up, and pins him.

Handheld drops to the tent floor.

Nearby factotums note the rustle and rise in surprise. Drop their clipboards with a clatter.

Bellarmine squirms. He’s much too strong to be held like this for more than a moment.

But all they need is a moment.

Bellarmine struggles, jerks, sputters, says aloud.

What the fuck—what—you think you’re going to arrest
me
—?

The female guard holds the one cuff cocked open, its small pointy catch exposed. Then she swings it, scythe-like, and digs it deep and buries it into the softest part of Bellarmine’s neck.

Aiming for the artery.

Cuff cuts deep.

Second guard unpins Bellarmine.

Bellarmine drops to his knees. Shocked.

Cuff still stuck. Neck spurting in rhythmic arterial spasms.

The female guard sidesteps to avoid the halting geyser.

There’s a shout. Then a gunshot. Then a second gunshot.

The female guard goes down, like she fainted. Maybe at the sight of all the blood.

But she’s down.

More shouts and confusion.

Bellarmine’s suited security detail, who’d been busy securing the grounds, now turn on the two guards, drawing, taking aim, firing, advancing, taking aim, firing.

The male guard backs away slowly from Bellarmine, his white gloves, no longer spotless, held high in surrender.

His tattooed arms now half-exposed.

Snakes and flames.

Finally, from elsewhere in the tent, one last gun crack from a crack shot.

Second guard’s head jerks sideways from the headshot. Topples sidewise.

Hits the grass.

But Bellarmine has long since bled out.

Bellarmine’s dead.

So it’s done.

Mark slides open the door to the next car.

The third car.

Together he and Simon enter.

Mark spots a man at the far end of the car, but it can’t be Do-Best, Mark thinks.

This man’s in a suit, tied down to a chair, arms behind him, legs splayed wide, just sitting, waiting, in the middle of the aisle, with a white hood covering his head.

Must be Lesser, Mark thinks.

Lesser. Finally.

Simon looks at Mark. Nods. Simon’s thinking the same thing. Pats Mark on the back.

Okay. We’re almost home.

One Times Square.

The door at the end of the hallway is locked for some reason but two kicks easily splinter the frame. Then I give it a shove with my shoulder to dislodge the deadbolt, which dangles as the door swings free.

I figure I’ll probably walk in, find maybe one more Teuton,
maybe a bored-looking nurse flipping through a copy of
People
, probably an elaborate black-room bed obscured by a coil of tubes and monitors and securitized sensors. And in the bed, Lesser. All that’s left then is to tap out Lesser, and make sure to time it with Mark and Simon, assuming they’ve found him in the limn. That’s what I expect to find.

I do not expect what I actually find, once I kick in that door. An empty office.

Fluorescent lights.

Gray wall-to-wall carpeting.

Floor-to-ceiling windows.

And just one man, in a suit, tied down to a chair, arms behind him, legs splayed wide, just sitting, waiting, in the middle of the floor, with a white hood covering his head.

Sitting.

Waiting.