On the final Saturday she dragged her
roommate, Janine, on a prolonged shopping trip and then to a movie.
Sunday she could not shake the doldrums and spent the day in
fretful listlessness. Monday evening she went to bed early, but
tossed in a restless, unsatisfying sleep. Something in her kept
time, and she later found herself wide awake, staring at the
ceiling. Without looking at the clock she knew that it must be
nearly one a.m. An hour earlier in Dallas it was about to happen.
She continued to stare in the darkness, straining to project
herself into the scene. What would she see? What would it do? She
felt completely halted in that prolonged state of painful
anticipation, but then the alarm pulled her up from a deep sleep.
She pried her eyes open. The world still looked the same.
“You ever been to Dallas before?” Glen Wilson
asked his partner in a subdued voice.
The two men walked slowly, purposefully, down
the street, eyes catching every facet of the subdued activity.
“Me? Nah,” replied Sam Spangler. “Unless you
count changing planes in the airport. You ever ride those little
trolleys?”
“Um. Yeah, couple of times. Kinda fun at
first, no driver and all. Irritating, though, when they stop for no
apparent reason.”
They skirted a disheveled old man, slumped
asleep against the wall, legs sprawled onto the sidewalk, brown bag
cradled in his lap.
“I was just thinking,” Wilson continued,
“I’ve seen a few boots and hats, but except for the fact that it’s
damn awful hot, it’s hard to tell where we are. I mean, look at
this. Bars, strip joints, porny flicks. The only women you see that
aren’t hookers are with some guy hustling ‘em off somewhere else.
Just a little seedy piece of anywhere, USA.”
“You’re right about that,” Spangler agreed.
“They do move a lot of produce through here in the daytime, I
guess.” He flicked a rotting cabbage with the side of his shoe. It
rolled up against the barred storefront. Behind the bars were
partitioned tables waiting the next day’s yield.
“You’re also right about the heat. Feels like
I’m wearing a blanket. Told you we should’ve gone native, jeans and
T-shirts. Would have fit right in and been a damn sight cooler than
these suits.”
“Hey, better than that,” Wilson shot him a
quick smile, “I coulda dressed as a wino and sat around taking it
easy and you coulda come in drag and walked the streets ‘til
something happens. You might’ve made a few bucks.”
Spangler smiled back and swaggered a few
steps. They reached a corner and turned to cross the street,
waiting for the light. Wilson looked up at the buildings around
them. The tallest ones of the main commercial area were a few
blocks away. Around them, the buildings ranged from two to ten
stories in height, the upper stories mostly dark as midnight
approached. Once across the street they turned and headed back in
the direction from which they had come. Wilson glanced at his
watch.
“Five minutes?”
Spangler nodded confirmation. “Beats the hell
out of me how they can know where something is going to happen, and
when, to the second, and not know what. Screwy damn
assignment.”
They walked on in silence, checking their
watches more frequently as the assigned time approached,
unconsciously walking more slowly, watching more carefully. Finally
they stopped. Wilson noticed the digits on his watch that indicated
seconds as they flashed to zero-zero, signaling the onset of the
final minute during which the unspecified, but potentially
dangerous event should occur. He tried to simultaneously register
the numbers on the watch as they swapped places, second by second,
and the urban visage around them. Thirty seconds later, he realized
he had been holding his breath as he strained for any clue. He
stared at the watch and exhaled, more loudly than he had
intended.
The sound of his released breath mingled with
and covered the onset of a strange whistling roar. The two agents
glanced suddenly at one another and then turned to look down the
street, trying to fix the location of the noise. It seemed to rise
rapidly above the buildings.
The roar diminished, to be replaced by a
hoarse cry. In the middle of the next block a man emerged onto the
sidewalk and stood there, his frantic screams tearing the
night.
A hole appeared in the concrete foundation of
the basement of the Poodle Lounge. Twin punctures followed in the
keg of beer immediately above it. As the pressurized brew began to
spurt a frothy spout, another hole was ripped in the floor of the
bar. Chaos ensued there as the quiet atmosphere was split by the
sound of smashing glass shelves and bottles, as if someone had
suddenly taken an ax to the racks behind the bar. As the bartender
spun to stare in disbelief, a new hole had already been drilled in
the ceiling above his head.
Upstairs at Crazy Lil’s they played out the
quiet midweek evening. The smoky room was dominated by a small
oblong stage surrounded by seats for patrons. At the four corners
of the stage were pillars that supported a canopy with mirrored
undersurface and ruffled trim, the whole thing a grotesque parody
of an old four-poster bed. Along one wall a screen was mounted for
entr’acte movies. Opposite were a pair of coin-operated pool
tables. At one of these, a tough- looking pair played eightball,
studiously ignoring the woman working on the stage.
The audience was sparse. Three young
cowboy-types in boots, jeans, and carefully sculpted straw hats.
One of these boasted an unlawful eagle feather, the emblem of
little britches rodeo days, not long past. A few bored salesmen sat
each by himself, their common predicament being insufficient
grounds to bring them together. The only spirit came from two stray
out-of-town convention goers. One of these had just crooked a
finger and gestured with a dollar bill. The dancer had interrupted
her gyrations to pause in front of him, pelvis outthrust, as he
worked the bill under the strap of her g-string. That position was
one of precarious balance and left her unprepared for what happened
next.
She felt as if the floor were suddenly thrust
up under her, as with the rapid rise of an elevator. She fell
backward heavily onto the stage. As she tipped, a large ragged gash
was torn along the length of one of the four canopy posts. The post
snapped and splintered. Deprived of symmetrical support, the
mirrored canopy sagged and then twisted as the remaining three
posts tilted in unison.
The dancer stared upward in numb shock and
saw her image grow. With a burst of panic she realized the canopy
was collapsing upon her. She flung her arms over her face and
shrieked. The men seated along the perimeter recoiled frantically
as chairs and bodies went sprawling. The young cowboy with the
eagle feather made an aborted move toward the woman, but he was too
far away. The canopy crashed down putting an abrupt end to her
screams.
The bouncer-cashier-projectionist, who had
been sitting on a stool by the entrance attempting to read a
paperback western in the dim light, dropped the book when the first
post splintered and stood as if paralyzed, watching the collapse of
the canopy. In the stillness that followed, he took a few tentative
steps toward the stage. All he could see of the dancer was one leg.
A shard of mirror the size and shape of a pizza slice was embedded
in her thigh, its shiny surface obliterated by a pulsing gout of
arterial blood. The man paled, raced for the door and clattered
down the stairs toward the street shouting hysterically.
Across the alley and down the block rose one
of the taller buildings in the neighborhood. It was vacant save for
a janitorial staff scattered over several floors. As the patrons of
Crazy Lil’s joined the hysterical employee on the adjacent street,
a small tunnel was punctured in the rear corner of the building
where the left side and rear walls joined. This tunnel proceeded
rapidly but methodically down through the wall passing with equal
ease through concrete and reinforcing bars.
A minute or so passed uneventfully, then
fractures began to radiate from the tunnel into the surrounding
concrete. The building settled slightly, amplifying the unequal
distribution of stress along the wound and increasing the rate of
fracturing.
Inside, in a corner of the building, a weary
man guided a buffing machine slowly back and forth. He stopped
suddenly as he felt a shift in the floor. The unguided buffing
machine dug more heavily on one side and skittered away from him.
He grabbed for it and quickly shut it off. He stood, listened and
felt through his feet the barely perceptible vibrations of
rupturing concrete.
He shuffled out of the office into the
hallway. He stopped and felt with his feet again and sensed
nothing.
“Hey, Harold!”
A young man working with a mop on the floor
at the far end of the corridor looked up.
“C’mon down here. There’s sumpin’ funny goin’
on.”
The old man led the younger one into the
office and stood him in the corner. They stared at one another as
each felt the minute vibrations emanating from the weakened corner.
Suddenly, a portion of the rear wall sagged a quarter of an inch. A
jagged crack raced from the corner of the room to the windowsill.
The window glass shattered; some pieces fell inward; others made
the longer plunge to the alley below.
Harold shouted.
“Hey! This mother’s comin’ apart!”
He raced for the door. The old man followed
him in a lumbering jog.
“Harold, you’re faster than I am. You get
upstairs and warn the folks there. I’ll head down.”
Harold spun to a stop’ and stared hard at the
old man. After a long moment he nodded and pushed through the exit
door into the stairway and headed up three steps at a time. The old
man followed him and two-stepped downward.
A block away, Glen Wilson and Sam Spangler
had joined the crowd that stood a discreet distance from the man
who had run, shouting into the street. Now the man was pacing
nervously about, mumbling incoherently. Patrons of the strip joint
babbled to one another or to passers-by about what had happened.
People from the Poodle Lounge below anxiously explained their
disruption to whoever would listen. Wilson tried to absorb these
several conversations at once. As they had crossed the street, he
had heard the returning echo of the whistling roar that had
preceded the commotion. The sound had vanished in an ill-determined
direction, but he also listened for some repercussion.
Finally, he heard the muted crashes as large
chunks of masonry began to break away from the other building,
crashing into the alley. He grabbed his partner’s arm and led him
off down the street in the general direction of the sound.
As they reached the nearest intersection,
they heard from around the corner the terrifying roar as the rear
quarter of the building gave way. Portions of the rear and side
walls peeled away to expose the multilayered innards of the
building as if it were a large misshapened doll house.
The two agents froze at the corner until the
noise died away and then walked to the alley and peered down it
toward the ruined building. Even in the dim light they could see
the huge pile of rubble reaching above the second floor, torn
chunks of concrete interspersed with crushed office furniture. Soon
they were joined by others from the crowd in front of the strip
joint.
The agents edged out of the crowd. Wilson
began to start back toward the bar, but Spangler gestured in the
opposite direction, and they walked to the intersection and
turned.
They passed in front of the damaged building.
The only sign of disturbance from this aspect was the group of a
dozen or so janitorial workers who huddled nervously in the street,
some talking loudly, many standing silent, a few still
conspicuously clutching their brooms and mops.
The agents continued on around the block.
Back on the first street they returned to their car. A squad car
was parked in front of the strip joint entrance. From a distance,
the wail of approaching sirens could be heard. The crowd had grown.
They got in the car. Wilson put the key in the ignition, but paused
before he turned it. He looked at his partner.
“What in god’s name do you suppose that
was?”
Spangler was slumped down in his seat,
staring straight ahead.
“Beats the living hell out of me. Never seen
anything like it.”
“This ought to get headquarters lathered up.
I have a feeling the boss was hoping nothing would happen, but now
they’re going to want some physical evidence. From that collapsed
building for sure, probably in that bar, too. I hope the locals
don’t go mucking around and mess something up. No sense talking to
the beat cop over there, but it’s not our business to go higher up.
I hate to play dumb bunny, but I guess we need to call home for
orders.”
“I need something,” Spangler growled.
“Jesus!”
Wilson cranked the key and headed for the
motel room they had rented out toward the airport.
Four days later, on a waning Friday
afternoon, Vincent Martinelli hosted Isaacs for a celebratory
drink. He put the bottle on the little bar built in behind his desk
then swiveled in his chair and hoisted his double scotch and
soda.
“L’chaim!”
The turning point in Nagasaki flashed in
Isaacs’ mind.
“Kampai,” he said, returning the salute.
“Well, son-of-a-bitch, Bob,” Martinelli said.
“Maybe old man Drefke’s not a complete knucklehead after all. For a
while there I thought I was going to have to look for a new career,
Kelly Girl or some such thing.”
Isaacs grinned. “I’ll tell you it was a
relief to me when he agreed to read my memo. Up to that point he
could easily have just said screw it and tossed the lot of us
out.”