Mickey Zucker Reichert - By Chaos Cursed (35 page)

At the height of their madness
The night winds pause
Recollecting themselves;
But no lull in these wars.

—Herman Melville
The Armies of the Wilderness

Taziar Medakan huddled against the wall of a building just beyond the subway station, muddled by the flashing lights and the sudden blatters of sound, metallic voices surrounded by fizzles and crackles. Ignorance made a plan of action impossible, yet Larson’s descriptions and his own scant experience gave him a few usable facts.
The guards caught Allerum and Timmy, presumably to torture them in some dungeon. This time, Allerum can’t find me. He says the city’s too big to search, and with those car vehicles, they could take him far away and anywhere. I’ve got to find Allerum again. And, this time, I can’t let him out of my sight.

Taziar sighed, ignoring the myriad aches of abrasions and bruises, hoping he had chosen the correct location from which to observe. His position in the building’s shadow gave him a clear view of both inbound and outbound subway exits, and he hoped that would prove enough. Except for the trains, Taziar had seen no other ways to leave the station.
And, if the guards planned to use the underground vehicles, why did they make everybody leave the car?
Taziar sighed again, certain he was overlooking something. It seemed to be taking far too long for the city guards to pound Larson and Timmy unconscious and drag them from the concrete bowels of New York City.
There’s just too much I don’t understand.

Still, Taziar had some tricks of his own. Gingerly, he touched the .45 in his pocket. Having seen the damage the pistol could create, he held a healthy respect for the weapon. The observation had given him a reasonable idea of which end the projectiles came from, though he had little grasp of the mechanisms and procedures involved in activating it. Once, in ancient Norway, Silme’s half-brother had shot Taziar, but the time-displaced rifle bore little resemblance to the dense chunck of carbon steel he now carried.

Taziar jabbed his fingers into his jeans’ pocket, patting the crumpled wad of currency, his other ace in the hole. On the train, he had pretended to shuffle the bills into the gunmen’s bag, palming more than twice as many as he dropped. It had proven easier than the trick he had used against the monte gang. Cards needed to remain crisp, while paper money wadded into neat balls that could be straightened. Taziar frowned. Larson’s casual folding of the bills had led him to believe creases and rumples did not deflate their value. Now, he hoped he would not need to test that theory.

A chunky, middle-aged woman sat on a bench across the street from the subway and the blinking bank of police cars. Her cheeks looked flushed, her lips unnaturally red. Thin, black lines circled her eyes. Her lashes seemed impossibly long, curving around lids discolored blue. Despite the need to plan, Taziar could not help staring.
Did she paint dyes on her face? Or was she just normally ugly?

Before Taziar could answer the question, even in his own mind, several members of the town guard emerged from the subway. Others followed, Larson between them, his hands manacled behind him. Still more guards appeared. They headed toward the row of flashing cars.

Taziar flattened to the stone, certain of only one thing.
If they ride away in those vehicles, I’ll never find Allerum again.
He watched, heart pounding, as the uniformed men ushered Larson into the back seat of one of the squad cars. Desperate for a solution, Taziar glanced around. A taxi-cab turned the corner, identical to the one he, Timmy, and Larson had used to escape the Sears building. The woman rose to greet it, and the cab decelerated.

The squad car doors slammed. The guardsmen climbed into the front seat, then closed their doors, too. The vehicle hummed to life.

Taziar recalled a day in another world. Larson’s sarcasm came back to him verbatim, though riddled with English phrases: “You’re all set if you ever want to take a transcontinental cab ride in an American made car.” Waiting until the policemen were all involved with Larson and one another, Taziar darted across the street to the taxicab. Seizing a rear car handle, he worked the mechanism. The door swung open.

Taziar sprang into the back seat just as the woman edged in from the other side. He pulled his door closed.

The woman stared, blinking her color-enhanced eyes repeatedly. Then her face lapsed into angry creases, and she shouted at Taziar, waving her arms wildly. Not a single word was comprehensible.

The first police car roared away from the curb. The others began to follow.

Taziar ignored the woman, leaning forward. A man stared back from the driver’s seat, his olive-skinned face fuzzed with three days’ growth of beard. He waved a hand, calling calmly over the woman’s tirade. The car with Larson in it glided down the roadway. Taziar chose the only universal language he knew. Digging into his pocket, he emerged with a random handful of currency and hurled it into the front seat. Ones, twenties, and fifties fluttered, churning through the air, then fell to the vinyl. “Follow that car!” he screamed in his best English. He jabbed a finger at the squad car. “Follow that
damned
car!”

The woman lapsed into shocked silence. A sparkle appeared in the cabby’s eyes as he stared at the money. “You want me to chase down a police car?” The squad car turned a corner.

Taziar could not catch all the cabby’s words, but he recognized police as the term Larson used for guards. “Police. Yeah. Follow that car!” He crooked his finger to indicate the turn. “Okeydokey?”

The driver glanced at the money strewn across his seat. “Sure. Okeydokey, man. You got it.” He addressed the woman.

She shouted something back at him, flinging her arms frantically. The cabby spoke, his voice becoming menacing.

The woman pursed her lips, then clambered back outside. She slammed the door hard enough to shake the entire vehicle.

The taxicab maneuvered into the road on the trail of the squad cars.

A short circuit in the overhead socket caused the light bulb to flicker and sputter, dancing shadows over the four men in the police interrogation room. Seated in a folding chair, Al Larson kept his right hand clamped over the hastily bandaged gunshot wound in his shoulder. Across a metal and wooden table, a white-haired detective named Harrison tented his fingers over a sheaf of papers. A telephone graced the corner near his left elbow, and he sat in a cushioned swivel chair that seemed far more comfortable than the seats of Larson and his two police escorts.

At least they took off the handcuffs.
Larson knotted his free hand, keeping it draped in his lap.
I hope that means they’re willing to listen.

“What’s your name, kid?” Detective Harrison asked, staring at the papers as if to read and talk at the same time.

Larson presumed they had recovered his wallet from the subway. If so, lying could only get him deeper into trouble. “Larson.”

The detective glanced over at one of the officers who nodded almost imperceptibly.

Satisfied, Harrison looked back at his papers. “First name?”

“Al,” Larson said.

“Al?” The detective shuffled a page from the stack. “Al, what?”

“Al,
sir.
” Larson supplied naturally.

Detective Harrison looked directly at Larson for the first time. He squinted, apparently trying to read his captive’s intentions. Then, satisfied Larson was not trying to sound intentionally flippant, he clarified. “No, I meant Al-
len
, Al-
bert
, Al-
exander
?”

“Just Al, sir.”

A thoughtful silence fell. Harrison looked at the officer. This time, the patrolman shrugged.

Larson felt a need to clarify. “My father didn’t like nicknames. He thought people should be named what they’re called. Hence my sister Pam, not Pamela, and my brother Tim, not Timothy.” He added quickly, “Though we do call Tim, ‘Timmy.’”

“Right.” Detective Harrison flipped the paper across the desk. “If you’re going to answer any more questions, you’ll have to sign this first.”

The page slid in front of Larson. Reaching out, he straightened it. A quick glance revealed it as a waiver, stating his constitutional rights. At the bottom, he was given the option of whether to sign it, thus proving he understood that he did not have to submit to questioning and had chosen to do so willingly.

Harrison offered a black ballpoint.

Taking it, Larson signed. He passed pen and waiver back to the detective.

“You can read, I presume, Mr. Larson?”

“Yes, sir.” Larson said.

“You understand you are still under arrest. Nothing you say is going to change that. Even in extenuating circumstances, we can’t ... um ... ‘unarrest’ you until the District Attorney asks for a dismissal. You will go to jail until your appearance before a magistrate.”

Larson bit his lip, not liking the sound of the detective’s explanation. “I’m willing to cooperate any way I can.”
Anything else would be folly, an admission of guilt. Right now, that’s the last thing I need.

“Very well, Mr. Larson. Your story of what happened this evening on the subway.” Harrison pocketed the pen and swept the waiver aside. He made a broad gesture indicating Larson should begin.

Al Larson launched into his tale, starting with the moment the gunmen entered the train and ending with his arrest. He avoided all mention of Taziar or of their original purpose for taking the subway. He kept his tone casual, not daring to overplay his hand in the rescue of innocent passengers.

As he spoke the last word, the interview room fell back into an unnerving hush. The patrol officer nearest the door fidgeted, chewing at a thumbnail. The other watched Larson.

Detective Harrison leaned forward, fingers laced on the tabletop. “Mr. Larson, how many shots did you fire?”

“Two, sir.”

“And are you aware where each of those bullets went?”

“Yes, sir.” Larson wondered where the line of questioning was leading.

“Mr. Larson.” A hard edge entered Harrison’s tone. He met and held Larson’s gaze. “Are you also aware we took four corpses off that train?”

“It doesn’t surprise me,” Larson admitted. He added belatedly, “Sir.”

The detective’s cheek twitched, and Larson guessed he had come to a significant question. “Mr. Larson, how many of those men did you kill?”

“Three, I think, sir.”

“Three men, Mr. Larson, With two bullets.”

“Right.”

“How do you explain that?” Detective Harrison leaned back into his chair, his hands still threaded and clenched.

Larson blinked, unable to guess what Harrison wanted. “I already told you the story. I accidentally crushed one guy’s windpipe.” Once spoken, the words sounded bad, and Larson felt the need to add, “While wrestling free a gun he was using to shoot down passengers.”

The light splayed shadows over Harrison’s face, making him look camouflage-painted. “How’s exactly, Mr. Larson, does one
accidentally
crush a man’s windpipe?”

Oh, for Christ’s sake.
The repetition and unwarranted suspicion wore at Larson’s patience. His shoulder ached, and his head throbbed. Every wasted second pulsed at his sensitivities.
Surely Silme and Bolverkr have located us by now. I hope Timmy’s okay. And Shadow.
“Look, Detective Harrison. I was scared. Things happened fast. Innocents were getting killed. I did what I thought was right. Stress can do some pretty impressive things to the human body, especially when loved ones are in danger. My baby brother was in that subway.”