A Bomb Built in Hell (23 page)

Wesley slid back the protective partition between the seats and tapped the kid on the shoulder. “Slow it down, kid—they're not even at the building yet.”

The kid slowed the cab to a crawl, although it still appeared to be keeping up with the traffic stream. Wesley stayed locked into the police-band. Minutes crawled slower than the cab.

All units now in position, acknowledge
.

A series of “
10-4
”s followed as each car called in.
Central went back to a stabbing in Times Square. Wesley tapped the kid again; unobtrusively, the cab sped up.

The cab passed by the building on the highway very slowly; traffic was clotted as the drivers bent their necks to see what was happening. The pier was a single blotch of people and ambulances. The cab finally came to a dead stop in the traffic. From where they sat, they could see that the building was completely intact.

“I guess we got the window blown out in time,” Wesley said. “They never noticed the rope hanging down.”

“There
was
no rope hanging down—that's what I was doing with the piece while you ran into the car,” the kid replied.

“You fucking
shot
the rope down?!”

“It wasn't hard—black line against a red building. I figured it would only cost us a second or so, and the rope hanging down was the only piece anyone could've photographed. Before, I mean.”

“How many shots you have to fire?”

“I got it the first time—I cut loose as soon as you let go and dropped.”

“You've got Pet's blood in you, kid. And better eyes than I ever had.”

Wesley spotted a SWAT team deploying on the roof. He flicked the walkie-talkie to the intercept band.

Not a fucking sound in there, Sarge. Want us to go in?

Negative! Stay right there! Hostage Teams's getting on the horn down here first—maybe the bastards'll surrender
.

The cop's short laugh barked over the speaker. Then the bullhorn's battery-powered voice blasted the air.

You men up there! This is Captain Berkowitz of the Tactical Patrol Force. Throw down your weapons and walk out of the back door one at a time, with your hands away from your bodies. You will not be harmed. The building is completely surrounded—there is no way you can leave. You have to surrender peacefully—don't make it any worse on yourselves
.

It didn't surprise Wesley that only silence came out at the police from the building. The cop was back on the horn again.

Listen, you people … the man you shot isn't dead—he isn't going to die! This isn't a murder rap yet—don't make it one! Come out without your weapons or we're coming in. You have thirty seconds
.

The kid said “Fuck!” softly, almost beyond audibility, but Wesley had been listening for it.

“He's dead, kid,” Wesley told him. “The first shot took his face off. The cops are just running a hustle, that's all.”

“They said …”

“Doesn't mean anything. We're not the only ones who don't play by the rules. Fat Boy is gone to heaven, I promise you.”

One of the cops on the roof leaned far over, two more behind him, each holding one of his legs. The courageous cop lobbed in a tear-gas grenade; the wind carried the gas right out of the window of the sealed room, and it stayed quiet. Then a sharp
bang!
broke the silence.

“They must of figured they wasn't going to break in that street door,” Wesley said.

While the TPF captain kept up a steady stream of threats and promises, the floor of the building rapidly filled with cautious policemen who started up the stairs. They slid back, cursing and frightened. Picking up their report, the captain tried the bullhorn again:
“All that crap on the stairs isn't going to keep us out forever, men! You've got nowhere to go! Make it easy on yourselves!”

A break in traffic opened up, and the kid shot for it like any good city hackster. They followed the highway to 23rd Street and doubled back toward the building. Four blocks from the site, they found traffic choked off again—a burly street cop was gesturing threateningly at anyone who tried to get by.

The police-band was frantically screaming instructions to all units again. About thirty men had entered the building and were slowly making their way up the stairs with the aid of sandbags.… Then they were even more slowly taking down each door on their way to the top. It was 2:45 p.m.

The kid made a gross U-turn right in front of the burly cop, and the cab headed back toward Times Square. This time, they angled toward the water and finally pulled up on Twelfth Avenue just past 26th Street, right in front of the Starrett-Lehigh Building. The huge, abandoned terminal had a giant SPACE AVAILABLE sign on its façade.

“There's going to be a whole lot of motherfucking
space available in one building I know about,” Wesley said. “Are we still within range?”

“Easy,” the kid responded. “We got about four-tenths of a mile leeway.”

“The building's about as full as it's going to get now. Hit the switch before they get into the room.”

“What's the difference?”

“I set the dynamite to blow upward, you know? I just wanted to blow out that one room, so's they won't find anything. We need at least one body so they won't catch wise—it should look like the guys in that room decided to check out together instead of surrender.”

The kid didn't reply. He reached forward and pushed the three buttons on the radio transmitter in correct sequence. In seconds, there was the familiar dull-booming throb, followed by a space-muffled crash. At their distance, it wasn't very impressive.

The cab turned right at 42nd and slowly threaded its way back east. They picked up the FDR Drive down by the river and headed back toward home.

A
s soon as they got inside their building, both men went to Wesley's apartment, after first setting all the security systems and leaving the dog in the garage. Wesley flicked on the television. The picture showed a milling mob that the police were trying to control, and not being too gentle about it. The TV announcer had a huge bulb-headed microphone with a white numeral “4” on its base. He looked harried.

“One of the worst tragedies in the history of our city—Prince Duquoi has been assassinated by person or persons unknown, and the killers have apparently blown up the building in which they were trapped in an effort to avoid capture. At least four police officers are missing in the wreckage and presumed dead. The fire department is on the scene, and rescue crews are working at top speed to clear the debris. The building from which the shots came is apparently owned by a major firm, but we have been unable to contact anyone at their office as of yet.…”

Wesley clicked off the set and looked at the kid. “Not dead, huh? That's what cops do, kid. Lie.”

“I should've known,” the kid said. “You think they'll find anything?”

“Not this year.”

W
esley couldn't get any reliable info about Haiti on the radio or TV for days. The papers were mostly full of the destruction in the building across from the pier. The one thing that puzzled the police so far was the absence of any bodies that could have belonged to the killers—they continued to refer to the assassination as the work of several men.

Several cops privately told their reporter contacts that the killers had been blown into such small particles that the lab boys would never be able to identify anyone. The FBI was asked to enter the case. So as not to offend NYPD, the media were fed the presumption that the killers had crossed state lines in the preparation of the crime.

The CIA outbid the FBI and the locals—and promptly collected a ton of useless information. Wesley finally found what he was looking for in the
Times
.

Wesley read the article over several times, then slammed it to the floor in disgust. The dog jumped, startled—it had never seen Wesley move with such a
violent lack of smoothness. Neither the dog nor Wesley left the room. The TV was never off; the radio would click on to an all-news station whenever the TV was muted.

The kid brought the papers every day. Four days later, Wesley found the confirmation he was expecting.

Wesley stared at the newsprint until it blurred and faded. He focused on the white paper from which the black print was disappearing.

It was dark by the time he went down to the garage. The kid had the intake manifold and the heads off the Ford and was working under a single hanging trouble-light.

“It didn't work, kid.”

“I know—I read it, too. Those niggers got no fucking guts.”

“Forget that shit. It's not guts. All people got guts when it means enough to them. A woman once tried to take me out with a tiny little knife when I was holding a full-auto at her chest. Because of her kid, you know? I think there's gotta be
another
way the weasels do it, and I don't know what it is. Like in the joint, right? How come we got
any
informers in the joint? We should all be against the hacks, right? But they get your nose open. They make you think about yourself so much you don't ever think about yourself—you know what I mean?”

“Yeah. In the training school, they used to give you a parole if you grabbed a kid trying to run. The bigger guys used to make the little kids run, so's they could catch them.”

“They make you run?” Wesley asked, curious.

“The first time I was in, they did. And they caught
me and beat me with that fucking strap until I couldn't stand. And
then
they threw me in the Hole for thirty days. The motherfucker who caught me got to go home.”

“You didn't learn nothing from that?”

“The next time, as soon as I got out of the Hole, I went up to another big one and told him I wasn't getting my ass whipped for nothing. I told him I'd run again, but he had to leave me his radio when he went home. And I told him I wanted some money, too. He said okay—probably laughing himself to death—and I went over the fence the next damn night. I told him I'd meet him by the big tree just about a hundred yards outside the fence. I was waiting for him up in the branches. I dropped a big rock right on his skull and split it wide open. I thought he was dead, and I was going to hat up … but I could see him breathing, so I dragged him back to the fence and screamed up at the guards. They threw
him
in the Hole when he got out of the hospital, and
I
got to go home.”

“That was good.”

“Yeah. But I didn't
have
no home, so they put me in this foster home upstate. It was no different—they fucking beat you, and you worked all day on this fucking farm. They told me I'd have to stay until I was eighteen. I split from there, too. I was going to burn down the motherfucker's barn, but I didn't want to get a freak-jacket if they ever picked me up again.”

“You learned a lot earlier than I did,” Wesley told him. “Yeah, the only way we get to beat them even a little bit is to beat ourselves. It's like …”

Wesley pulled a soft pillow off the kid's cot and held it in front of him.

“Here. Punch this, as hard as you can.”

The kid viciously slammed his fist into the pillow, deforming it but not tearing the cover.

“You see how it comes right back?” Wesley asked, fluffing it up. “You see how you can't hurt it no matter how hard you hit it? That's what their system is like, I think.… I think
now
, anyway.”

“You can blow up a pillow.”

“Not a real good one. They got one so soft and flexible that it
keeps
readjusting … but it fucking
stays
a pillow—like that Haiti bitch marrying that general. There's got to be another way, but I can't figure it. That's what you're here to do. Me, I'm here to clear the shit out of the way for you.”