Dark City (Repairman Jack - Early Years 02) (22 page)

Tommy started for him. “What the fuck?”

Vinny spun and jabbed a finger at his face. “Don’t even think about it.”

He then went around the car, driving the ax blade into all four fenders, both doors, and twice into the roof panel.

When he finished, the car was worth shit.

Resting the ax on his shoulder, he turned to the two terrified choppers.

“Pack up your shit. One of you drives this out of here and leaves it on some street, I don’t care where. The other follows in the car you came in and I don’t ever see your ugly mugs again. I do and you end up like this car. Got it?”

They glanced at Tommy, who was staring in shock at the ruined Integra, then nodded and got packing.

Vinny, too, stared at the Integra. Maybe he was also a little shocked by what he’d done, but he had to admit it had felt damn fucking good. Suddenly the world seemed a brighter place.

Keeping a grip on the ax, he headed for the door.

“You can’t do this, Vinny! You can’t do this shit to me!”

Vinny stopped and turned to him. “Hey, you know what? I think I just did. And so now what you gonna do, go crying to Tony? Or Junior? Tell you what, Tommy. You want a chop shop, you go start one. But none of that shit here.”

With that he stepped through the door and slammed it behind him.

Damn, that felt good.

3

To Jack’s relief the yawara class, although not entirely incident free, ended without Preston getting his nose punched to the back of his skull. Some pushing and shoving had gone down, though. Every time Preston got too close, the steroidal guy—whose name turned out to be Troy—would shove him away. Pres never shoved back, never offered the least resistance, just smiled and sidled closer.

Troy’s two equally pumped-up buddies kept egging him on to flatten the faggot; Jack noticed a normally quiet guy he’d seen in other classes join the pack. He wondered why Pres was being so passive. It made him look weak and defenseless, an easy mark. And Jack knew he was anything but. He’d seen him in action.

Ishii-san didn’t merely hold classes here. He gave personal instruction and members were allowed to come in whenever the dojo was open to practice on the equipment. Jack had been around for a couple of Preston’s workouts and he’d been impressed. The guy was lightning fast.

As soon as the class was over he slipped back into his kimono, grabbed his backpack, and headed for the door.

“Rehearsal calls,” he said as he hurried out the door in his clacking sandals.

Jack noticed the three gym rats and their new hanger-on following in a pack. That prompted him to tag along too.

An odd little parade heading along West 12th toward Tenth Avenue: a male geisha in the lead, followed by four guys in their twenties, followed in turn by a lone male.

Led by Troy, the four increased their speed so that they caught up to Preston as he was passing a wide, recessed delivery bay between two abandoned warehouses. They shoved him in and followed.

Jack sped up and arrived to see Pres facing the three gym rats as they blocked the dead-end recess. The hanger-on, in true hanger-on fashion, hung back.

“All right, Tinkerbell,” Troy said. “You had your fun. Now we get ours.”

Preston smiled as he dropped his backpack. His hands crossed and disappeared into the wide sleeves of his kimono.

“Girl, I bet it took you the whole class to come up with that line. No, wait. Probably the whole
week
.”

He removed his hands from his sleeves but only one of them was empty. He held a nunchaku with two ribbed handles of heavy-duty wood … painted pink.

The three rats and the hanger-on burst out laughing.

“Oh, shit, you gotta be kidding!” said one.

“Looky-looky,” said another. “Nunchuk Barbie!”

Even Jack couldn’t suppress a smile. Pres did look totally ridiculous: red-streaked whiteface, a kimono, and pink nunchaku. But Jack was smiling for another reason. The nunchaku meant he wouldn’t have to get involved here. He’d seen Pres work out with them.

These guys had no idea what they were asking for.

“They aren’t Barbie,” Preston said as he struck a pose. “They’re Hello Kitty, bitch.”

Jack moved up beside the hanger-on.

“You’re better off back here.”

The guy looked at him. “No fucking way, man.” He unsheathed a tanto with an eight-inch blade. “If he’s got—”

Jack grabbed his arm. “You know how the sensei feels about blades.”

“This ain’t no dojo.”

Jack’s right hand was in his jacket pocket, wrapped around his yawara stick. As the hanger-on moved forward, Jack pulled it out and rammed it down on the space just above his right collarbone. The tanto dropped from nerveless fingers and clattered to the pavement as the pain buckled the guy’s knees. He wouldn’t be doing much with that arm for a while.

Clutching his shoulder he looked up at Jack with an agony-contorted expression. “What the fuck?”

“You’ll thank me later. Trust me.”

The rats had made their move on Preston, charging as one, and he was responding. The nunchaku handles were pink blurs as they whizzed through the air, clacking against skulls. Troy went for a body tackle but Pres spun away and jabbed one of the handles yawara style into his right kidney as he passed. With a groan, Troy dropped to his hands and knees. He’d be peeing blood for a week.

Pres danced among the other two, wreaking havoc on their heads. As one threw a punch, Pres locked the nunchaku chain around the exposed wrist and used the assailant’s momentum to swing him around and slam him facefirst into a wall.

Two down.

He advanced on the third, battering his head and breaking fingers when he tried to block the sticks. As he went down, Troy staggered to his feet again but one of the flying handles flattened his nose with a spray of blood. He fell like a tree, down for keeps.

It seemed to be over almost as soon as it had started. Four men had been standing at the beginning, now three were out cold and the fourth was retrieving his backpack. He slung the nunchaku over his shoulder and walked toward Jack. As he approached he looked down and spotted the tanto.

“Really?” he said, staring at the guy. “Really?”

As the hanger-on, still clutching his shoulder, cringed away, Pres turned to Jack. “You?”

“Didn’t see any need to add a blade to the equation. Plus I wanted to try out my new yawara.”

He shrugged. “I could have handled him, but I appreciate the thought. How about I buy you lunch?”

“I thought you had rehearsal.”

“Fuck rehearsal. I know my part backwards, and we’ve got another full dress tomorrow. So, lunch?”

Jack grinned. “You asking me on a date?”

“If that’s the way you want to see it,” he said with an exaggerated flutter of his eyelashes.

“How about Dutch?”

“Even better. I’m a little short—in the money department, that is, not where it counts.”

“That would be the yawara department?”

“No, my dick, dumbass.”

Jack shook his head. “Is this an example of the lunchtime conversation I can expect?”

“You make a great straight man.”

“In more ways than one. Where we going?”

“The Empire?”

“Sounds good. And it’s on my way.”

As they turned to leave, Jack leaned over the hanger-on. “You’re welcome.”

The guy looked over at the still forms of the three rats, then gave a silent nod.

4

At Tenth and 22nd, the Empire Diner was a long way from the Empire State Building. Then again, maybe not. A chromed miniature of the skyscraper graced the outer corner of the flat roof.

Preston’s getup didn’t raise a single eyebrow. But then, this was Chelsea.

They took a booth by the window. Tenth Avenue traffic passed in relative silence beyond the glass as they both ordered beers—Jack a Bass, Pres a Beck’s Light.

He raised a painted eyebrow at Jack. “Usually I order something frothy with fruit and an umbrella.”

Jack deadpanned. “Frothy and fruity?
You?
”

“I’m a walking contradiction.”

Jack would have liked the meat loaf and mashed potatoes but they didn’t start serving that until five
P.M.
He settled for an Empire bleu cheese steakburger. Preston ordered something called “New York Meets Hong Kong” which turned out to be stir-fried vegetables over rice with sautéed tofu.

“You a vegetarian?”

“Nothing ethical or anything like that. I’ve no aversion to gobbling meat.”

Jack felt obliged to do an eye roll. Pres seemed to be searching for Jack’s buttons. Jack wondered if he had any. He didn’t care how people got their jollies, but he did find the constant stream of innuendo wearing. In fact, he was pretty sure Pres would make innuendo out of the word “innuendo” if given the opportunity.

“Okay, seriously.” He ran his hands down the front of his kimono. “Veggies help preserve my slim, girlish figure.”

“Which is why those guys thought you were such easy prey.”

“Exactly.”

“You gotta admit, you kind of goaded them into it.”

This time he raised both eyebrows. “
Kind
of?”

“Okay, deliberately and with malice aforethought. Why?”

“Because they had ‘gay basher’ written all over them. I figured they should get bashed by a gay before they tried bashing one. Now they’ll think twice.”

“Oh, more than twice, I’d say.”

“Thanks for not helping out.”

That stung. “Hey, listen—”

Preston’s expression flashed concern and his hand darted across the table to cover Jack’s hand—but only for a second.

“No sarcasm intended, Jack. I mean it: Thanks for letting the faggot handle it on his own.”

Jack shrugged. “I’ve seen you practice with those sticks. I knew who’d be walking away and who wouldn’t. But why pink?”

A sly smile. “Why not? It fits my persona. Just another prop in my performance.”

“The play?”

He laughed. “No! My life! All life is a performance.”

“Yours, maybe.”

“Oh. You think yours isn’t?”

Jack tightened inside. “What do you know of my life?”

“Nothing. That’s why I asked you to lunch.”

“I don’t get it.”

He pointed around the diner. “Look at the costumes on the performers. The twinks with the perfect haircuts and well-trimmed mustaches and too-neat clothes; the leather daddies in their biker jackets, too-tight jeans, and engineer boots; the Goths with their black clothes and their kohl and their piercings; the bears with their sleeveless flannel and exposed hirsuteness.”

“Don’t forget the weird guy in the kabuki makeup.”

“Him too!”

“You gonna leave that on all day?”

“Might. I like Japanese theater—a precursor to modern drag, you know, with males playing female parts. Now, about these people—”

“You do that makeup yourself?”

“Interrupt me once more and I will scratch your eyes out. But no, I live with the makeup artist. Desiderio is a genius, by the way. Back to these people here—they’re all fringeys, all flying their particular freak flag so they can recognize each other.”

“Fringeys, huh? Is there a manual on this?”

“Absolutely.
Preston Loeb’s Field Guide to Fringey Flora and Fauna
. But you must have lost yours.”

“What?”

Pres leaned forward. “Look. Like most gays I have excellent gaydar. You don’t cause the slightest blip, by the way. Not like that basher, Troy.”

Jack laughed. “What? Troy isn’t gay!”

“Please, Jack, he who yells ‘faggot’ the loudest is typically a flamer himself. I’m telling you, if that boy was any further in the closet he could see Narnia. But, in addition to gaydar, I also have excellent fringe-dar, and it howls every time I see you.”

Jack wasn’t exactly following.

“Sorry.”

“Don’t be. It means you’re one of us.” He made a sweeping gesture across the room. “You’re a fringey. Trouble is, you hide your freak flag.”

“I never knew I had one.”

“Oh, but you do. You’ve got the biggest, hairiest freak flag of them all. I just wish I knew what it looked like. But you’ve buried it. You’ve buried it so deep even you don’t know what it looks like.”

“Maybe I don’t really have one.”

Pres was shaking his head. “Oh, no. You do. You’re the fringeyest guy in this room, Jack, but only two people know it—me and you.”

“Make that one: you.”

“You’re in denial.”

“No, I—”

“That’s your performance, Jack. You play the norm when you’re anything but.” His eyes lit. “Hey! I see a movie franchise.
The Invisible Fringey! The Fringey Walks Among Us! The Fringey Strikes Back!…”

Jack leaned back and let Pres riff on movie titles while he pondered the whole question.

Freak? Fringe dweller? Me? Nah!

Then again, he’d killed two people in the past year. He guessed that would tend to put someone on the fringe of society. But he didn’t think Pres was talking about that.

What
was
he talking about, then?

5

When Kadir returned home from the Al-Kifah center, he was surprised to find Hadya sitting on his couch, listening to a tape. She had a yellow pad on her lap and was taking notes.

He wanted to shout his joy to Allah but restrained himself. He did not want to reveal how he was gloating inside. He had known she would submit. No one but a lifelong infidel could resist the mighty imam’s teachings.

She quickly pulled off the headphones and lay her pad aside.

“How are you, brother?” she said in Arabic. “How was your day?”

“It has been good, but I must ask you to continue your listening to the imam in the bedroom so that I may rest.”

“You’re not feeling well?”

“No-no, I’m fine. It’s just that I won’t be home tonight and need to nap now so that I’ll be fresh later.”

Her brow furrowed with concern. “Why won’t you be home?”

“That is not your concern.”

“Another errand for Sheikh Omar?”

Something about the way she said “errand” irked him—as if he was some sort of errand boy. He was on an errand for no one tonight. Sheikh Omar knew of the plan, but the plan was Kadir’s. Well, his and the man from Qatar’s.