The Worm in Every Heart (11 page)

“Call a cab, Harry,” I said without looking up.

No reply.

“Harry.”

Harry licked his lips, and swallowed hard.

“You blew up my office,” he said.

I straightened, glove firmly re-rigged. Much trial and error had determined the quickest way to button up and prevent secondary explosions. The effort was proving well worth the cost.

“What
are
you?”
Harry asked.

My shadow spilled over his like dark wine. Our eyes met. He flinched.

I shrugged. “What I've always been, Harry.”

Over his left shoulder the moon resurfaced briefly, a fish's dark belly breaking water. “What Dar es ‘alaf made me. Saddam had gas bombs, so they issued us suits—but nobody really knew how they'd react under combat situations. They needed rats for the maze, and we were elected. It was a test. Operation Flare, they called it. And when that big wave finally came down, most of us melted down on impact to so much rubberized ash—but I rode the fucker all the way back home.

“Remember my platoon, Harry? Flax. Anderson. Doon. They're spread thin across a ten-mile blast zone, out in the middle of the desert somewhere, because they just didn't have what it takes to stare the fire down . . . whatever the hell that is. But me—”

I opened my eyes, only to find that the moon was gone. Inspected the tape: That famous Flare Effect once more safely throttled back to a hot little molecular shiver. Just an itch—which would eventually have to be scratched.

But not now. Not here under the rain-diffused streetlight with Harry trembling at my side.

“Me, I'm still here,” I finished at last. “And I do as I damned well do.”

* * *

It was 3:30 a.m. by the time we reached the Fallout Shelter. I prised the staff restroom window open, slipped inside, and settled down on the nearest toilet seat to wait. Harry stayed out under the sign, still shivering, hands thrust deep in his pockets. No complaints, no commentary, just a numb bemused kind of silence.

I can't really say I minded.

At 4:58, I finally heard the door open. I thought it best to let him finish before stepping from the stall.

“Ulrich,” I said.

He wheeled, almost zipping up his testicles. “Christ Almighty!”

Not quite.

But seeing as his pants were back up, I thought we might as well get down to business.

“I need information, Ulrich.”

He peered at me through watering eyes. “Why me?”

“Because you're my informant.”

“Right,” he muttered. “Okay, what about?”

“Ernst Vandecker, the 1946 haul. And a man named Stada.”

Ulrich sniffed. “Old news, Flare. So why should I bother?”

I smiled. “Just for kicks?”

Ulrich gulped reflexively, hiding it behind one palm. “Right,” he repeated. “Connect the dots, my favourite game. Okay.” He paused, thinking.

I gave him his moment. Rain beat through the open window, washing the peeling paint below it clean.

“1946,” said Ulrich. “Vandecker hits the joint. He's killed two cops, which makes him pretty much this week's big man on campus. People come to him for career advice—one of them a young punk named Stada. Stada comes up, trades secrets, and when he gets out he heads straight for Spiro Garments, where Alberto Spiro's running a load of stolen cars through every week. He's independent, needs muscle to keep the big boys off his tail—and muscle Stada has.”

“Fast worker,” I commented.

“The fastest. Except for . . . well.”

And he gave me that smile again—a secret kept back for extra savouring. But I didn't care enough to prompt him. And besides, if he liked it that much, he was sure to get there eventually.

“In 1958, Spiro makes a will. An accident follows. Now Stada has the business, he's built himself a little empire, which takes more muscle, not to mention more money. But when it comes to the crunch, he always finds just enough.”

“Okay, let's take a giant step here,” I interjected. “Vandecker told Stada where he hid the Auschweiss diamonds—somewhere in the foundations of St. Joseph's is my guess. By getting control of Spiro Garments, Stada got the haul.”

“Smart, Vosloo. So: Stada's getting old now. He hires a young guy to do business for him. And when the kid gets restless—”

“—he pulls exactly the same move on Stada that Stada did on Spiro.”

Ulrich nodded. “But he can't find Stada's loot, see? And the cops catch up with him.”

“Which is where Vandecker comes in again.”

“Exactly,” Ulrich said. “The kid worms his way into Vandecker's cell, and offers to spring them both—for half the haul. Vandecker takes him up on it. They hit Spiro's, they find the diamonds, and Vandecker disappears, and the kid gets even better than Stada. But this year, Vandecker shows up again. Mistakenly fences a diamond to one of the kid's employees. And the kid figures maybe Vandecker held out on him.” He paused for effect. “Maybe there were two hauls.”

“Both hidden in Spiro Garments.”

“Yep.”

“Which I was contracted to burn—and where Vandecker would have to dig it up.”

“Yep, again.”

The bathroom was very small. It had no visible smoke detector. Only the window, flapping open. I felt the walls contract.

“Ulrich,” I said softly. “Tell me this . . .
kid's
. . . name.”

“Charlie Myczyk.”

Which is what I thought.

“Excuse me a moment,” I said, remounting the toilet.

I pushed out into the alley once more. Once past the ledge, rain fogged my goggles, rendering me almost blind, while my brain clicked a mile a minute, connecting the dots.

Charlie shadowing Vandecker, taking the loot and killing the old man, leaving his body in the same secret hiding place where the diamonds were hidden for so long. Then me, all unaware, torching the place on contract, and getting the blame for the bones in the ashes.

Very neat.

I felt around the corner for Harry's arm and shook him sharply.

“Harry, wake up.”

No response. I shook him again, and listened closer. Still nothing.

Then I noticed the hilt of an icepick jutting from his neck.

I wheeled back to the window, locking eyes with a couple of bouncers just walking in—bench-pressed, Armani-clad, their twin stares flat under bad New Wave haircuts. Ulrich stood safe behind. Revenge was not an option, so I cut my losses and ran for the fire escape.

The sirens which had hovered shark-like in the distance ever since leaving the
Nova Express
suddenly intercepted me at the bottom. One squad car, one unmarked car, and something I hadn't seen since the bad old days: A matte-black Impala with a doctor-soldier double-date behind the wheel.

Military Intelligence.

Ulrich's Elvis-esque pompadour had already unravelled into a stew of greasy forelocks, obscuring his eyes as he climbed through the window. As the spooks got out of their cars he met them with a showman's flourish.

“The Flare, gentlemen,” he said. “She's all yours.”

Two pairs of shaded eyes flicked over me, already simultaneously fitting me for cuffs and a hospital gown. I got it then—Charlie had believed my boasts after all. Not able to take out his own trash unaided, he had called in the big boys—my erstwhile, purely accidental, patrons. Now they would collect on the government's investment. With interest.

“Private Vosloo,” said the doctor. “I've read your file.”

I'll bet you have.

“We'll take it from here,” the soldier told Ulrich, and slapped a thick packet of bills into his hand. Ulrich just smiled past him, at me.

“Drop me a line sometime when you know how the Spiro job comes out, huh, Maia?” he said affably.

I ignored them all. The soldier asked me something as the cops frisked me, but his voice was static on an empty channel. I numbed my knees and fell unprotestingly backward into their waiting arms, allowing myself to be pushed inside the patrol car. By the time my mind began to work again I was already on my way to who knows where, hands limply cuffed in my lap. A grill separated me from the bulging nape of the driver's neck. His partner gazed out the fogging window, lighting a cigarette. A curl of fragrant smoke grazed my eyes.

Now.

And I brought my right foot down against the floor of the car so hard the boot-heel shattered, igniting the flare concealed within it.

The driver recoiled from the sudden rush of phosphorus-blue flames licking at his back, barely avoiding giving himself a concussion on the juncture of the roof. His partner dropped the cigarette into his lap. “Christ!” he exclaimed, scrabbling for it.

With this distraction as cover, I ducked, took the end of the electric tape in my teeth—

—and
pulled
, reopening the rip.

The radio spat out, “Red one, red two: Where's the fire?”

An apt choice of words.

Because I was starting to feel the rush, now. The glow—palm-centred, and spreading.

Finally managing to bat the errant cancer-stick well away from his crotch, the partner turned to face me, gun up. I put my hand to the grill, just over its muzzle, and smiled. Handcuffs sliding down my gauntlets like sweaty mercury, already going liquid. Beside him, the driver, radio in hand: “Sir, yeah, I think we have a situation here—”

Starting to go for the burn.

The gun smoked and softened, and the cop shrieked, dropping it. The driver turned white. The radio kept right on chattering: “Disengage and pull over, repeat, pull over. Do nothing to perforate Vosloo's protective shell. Patrolman. Patrolman. Red one. Red two, do you copy?”

“Ever wonder what it would've been like to make a drop from the Enola Gay, right at the moment of impact?” I asked the guy on the right, conversationally.

“I have kids,” he managed, holding tight to what was left of his fingers.

“That's nice. Boys or girls?”

From the corner of my eye I saw the driver had finally got his gun free—so I punched right through the fiery hot spot in the grill, spraying his incredulous, half-turned face with glowing metal. The partner, making a remarkable mid-cringe recovery, lunged for the wheel, and I hit him across the face as I pulled my hand back through the grill. He fell sideways, gasping as his nose bled.

The car lurched over some kind of curb, jouncing badly, skidding across a divider and up onto an exit ramp. I glanced back into the rear-view mirror, and saw the Impala swerve to follow. The radio had already cut off, abruptly, in mid-blare.

That's right. No more time for talking, not now.

I sighed, letting my head loll back, right hand already at my throat, little finger snagged in the key of my zipper. With that flush boiling up through me like incipient fever, flesh hot as gangrene; veins like wires, laid bare and sparkling.

The Impala sped up, squad car jolting as they tried to run it off the road. Then metal screeched and dragged as the bumpers locked. We hurtled forward while the road curved out from under us, well away from the yawning chasm—

Just me, or is it getting hot in here?

The doctor leaned on the horn. The soldier unholstered his gun.

And I . . .

. . . let it rip.

* * *

I broke through the roof as it peeled away and hit the cliffside with far more force than I'd expected, missing a rock-borne head injury by a mere hair's breadth. By the sound of that grinding snap my left arm made on impact, I assumed it was probably broken; I also seemed to have either developed a permanent stitch in my side, or cracked several of the same side's ribs. The whole sole of my boot had ripped away, exposing scalded skin to the hissing rain: No tape, no coverage, about sixty seconds left until the next combustive blast. And . . . I had lost my goggles.

I lay limp for a moment, letting the mud seep around me, and felt my bones slowly begin to defuse. Because it was so nice there beneath the overhang, down amongst the trees' bare roots, where erosion had made everything soft and loose and cool and dark—soft enough to cradle, cool enough to soothe. Dark enough, almost, to actually put me
out
.

But the lit seed in my stomach told me otherwise, every time I took another blood-laced swallow of rain.

I pushed myself up by my good arm, stumbled, then stood—wavering a little—to watch the lovely orange storm below, Impala and squad car melting from the inside out, caught in the act like some pyrolangist's ultimate wet-dream. A chance updraft hit me full in the face, gusting my eyes shut, and I revelled in its reviving heat: Sparks singing my clotted hair, soot blackening my face. And still I stood fast, quite transfixed, drinking in the wave in all its complex, terrible, all-consuming glory.

But not afraid, no. Because, after all, the wave could never hurt
me.

I know it far too well—too intimately—for that.

* * *

So now, I wait. I know that Charlie assumes I died in the crash—a scenario which Battaglia, yapping at his heels as usual, was no doubt all too eager to suggest. The sun is up and it hurts my eyes, naked without the protection of my goggles—just a pair of dark glasses and a triple layer of fresh electrician's tape, up here where I roost amongst the pigeons, above Charlie's penthouse balcony.

It took me an hour and a half to get back to Mr. Pang's, and my supplies. An hour and a half of cold rain in my eyes, abraded skin on wet asphalt and sizzling sparks inside that wouldn't ever quite go out, always poised and waiting for the rain to let up just a little, even while I wended my way through Chinatown.

Soon enough, however, noon will come and Charlie will wake, pulling his incongruously gaudy velvet curtains aside to face the day. He'll step out onto the balcony in that checkered bathrobe of his, yawning and stretching—maybe praying, even. Who knows.

Which is when I'll slip down on him, silent and swift: The wave made shaky, igneous flesh. Ground Zero crashing in at last, consuming him, as it must us all.