On Broken Wings (9 page)

He went to her side and draped his arms around her. She leaned against him and wept softly for a long time.

Eventually, she looked up at him. Tears still ran down her cheeks, tracing her scars like carts on tracks. She seemed not to notice.

"It won't stop, Louis. I mean, it's okay, I like it, but I don't know what it is and it won't stop. What's happening to me?"

He hugged her and brushed a vagrant curl from her forehead.

"Joy, Chris. It's called joy."

She nodded and rested her head against him again. Peace settled over the room like a velvet mantle.

====

Chapter
9

Commander Eric Smalley of District G of the Buffalo Police Department was as impressive a man as anyone could imagine. He was as tall as Tiny, and just as broad, with a muscular chest that tapered to a rock-hard stomach and trim waist. His short blond hair was curly and thick. His slightly ruddy complexion glowed with vitality. His blue eyes were warm and friendly. His smile displayed white, even teeth. His handshake said he was pleased to make your acquaintance in a fashion more convincing than words.

It was the smile that caught Tiny's eye. Tiny was no slouch at analyzing facial expressions. You had to look closely, but if you did, the keys to a man's character could always be found there.

Smalley's smile was wide, bright and almost perfect. No doubt he'd spent some time practicing it before a mirror. But there was a slight asymmetry to the left, just a tiny downturn at that corner of his mouth. If you paid comparable attention to his nose, you could see that the left nostril was ever so slightly tighter than the right one. However hard he'd tried, the good Commander had not quite driven either the sneer or the smirk from his face.

Jake Bonham, the leader of the Screaming Eagle Road Vikings, had arranged the meeting. He'd insisted that Tiny take it seriously, and had pressed the head Butcher into wearing a suit and tie for the first time since Tiny had taken to the road. Tiny had been both irritated and uncomfortable. To dress in such a fashion was an act of submission, an acknowledgement of a power beyond what Tiny wielded. Tiny did not like to admit to the existence of powers beyond his own. Now, face to face with the District G commander, he was pleased to be able to spot even the smallest chink in the man's armor. It reduced his unease.

"Thank you for agreeing to meet with me, Commander. Our mutual friend assured me that we would have matters of great interest to both of us to discuss."

Smalley nodded. "And thank you for coming, ah, Tiny?"

The Butcher lord inclined his head. "At your service."

"No last name?"

Tiny shook his head. "I haven't used one in fifteen years. I get writer's cramp quite easily, and this makes for a nice short signature."

The policeman came around his desk and perched on its edge, before the chair in which Tiny sat. "A lot of people would be unwilling to deal with a man who won't give his name, you know. I'm not sure I'm not one of them."

Tiny smiled. "Life's full of these little compromises, Commander. Surely we don't have to let it stand in the way of our business together?"

Smalley's hand flashed out with no warning.. The police commander's fingers closed in a pincer grip along the biker's windpipe. Before Tiny could defend his trachea, Smalley trapped both of Tiny's wrists with his knee, clamping them inescapably against Tiny's legs.

Tiny tried to rise, hoping to throw Smalley off him with the thrust of his legs, but the policeman's position over him was too great an advantage to overcome. A vicious squeeze of his voice box, at a pressure just short of crushing it, confirmed the biker's helplessness.

"A man who won't give his name can seldom be trusted." Smalley's voice was soft, carrying no inflection at all. His words issued forth at a stately pace, as the chokehold drove Tiny toward unconsciousness. "He's likely to have a history he wants to conceal. He's even more likely to be contemplating a scam. Scam artists like to slip away quickly, and to leave no way they can be followed. All of this is obvious to anyone with three functional brain cells. And a man can't rise to the position of district commander on charm and good looks alone, Tiny. At least, not here in the City of Buffalo."

The pressure vanished, and Tiny found himself unconstrained. When his vision had lost the red haze of oxygen deprivation, he glared up at the policeman, once again perched upon the edge of his desk, with hatred and grudging respect.

"Can I rely on you to keep it to yourself, at least?"

Smalley nodded. "Of course. Unless you cross me, in which case it will become very widely known, I assure you."

Tiny gave his birth name. Smalley cocked an eyebrow.

"I have to admit I've never heard it before. But if you want it kept between us, that's all right with me. Now, what did Mr. Bonham suggest we might be able to do for one another?"

Tiny looked the big policeman in the eye. "He told me about your hunting licenses."

Smalley nodded. "One of my little innovations in law enforcement. It's cut down considerably on the overtime here in District G, while providing a much needed increment in our discretionary revenues. And I suppose you're here to inquire into the availability of one for yourself and your associates?"

Tiny nodded.

"You do realize that Mr. Bonham already has one for the whole of District G? He's made considerable use of it. Seeing how similar your operations are, I question whether it's really worth it to you. The fee is not small."

"No, Commander," Tiny said, "I was hoping to interest you in another little innovation."

The policeman waited. Tiny rose and went to the large map of Buffalo on the wall behind him. He indicated a spot about a quarter-mile north of the northern boundary of District G.

"Are you familiar with Vallares Arms, Commander?"

Smalley nodded.

"It is, of course, in District F, not G," Tiny said. "But it's close to your jurisdiction, and Jake and I both wondered whether you might ever have taken an interest in it."

Smalley's face had gone blank. "What kind of interest might I have that would be served by a pitched battle between your two gangs and the District F police, however close it is to my district?"

"Forty-five apartments, Commander. Upper middle class Hispanic families. The sort of people that don't trust banks. Domestic safes. Jewels. Precious metals. Some cash. Who knows, maybe a lot of cash. Not enough to make your nose twitch even a little?"

"Get to the point. How is this supposed to work?"

Tiny chuckled. "Come now, Commander! You have an entire district police force plus two heavily armed packs of bikers to work with. Surely you and I and Jake can come up with a way to put the Vallares Arms at our disposal. Would Commander Lawton respond to a request for backup from you for, say, a large street disturbance that you couldn't get under control with your own forces?"

Smalley pursed his lips. "Of course he would."

"And when the action was over, the arrestees would be processed through District G, wouldn't they?" Tiny waited for Smalley to nod. "So all we really need is a large enough disturbance just your side of the northern edge of the district to draw off the forces that would normally patrol that part of F. The rest is an exercise in routine police procedure."

Smalley sat in silence for a long interval. Tiny knew he had sold his plan as thoroughly as it needed to be sold. He waited for the policeman to convince himself.

"You make an attractive case. But the fee for this license will be beyond the usual. To make the risks worthwhile, I'm going to need a slice of the take."

Tiny nodded. "I expected that."

"When shall we meet again to discuss details?"

"How much time do you need to do the planning, Commander?"

The policeman appeared to calculate. "Give me a week."

"Done." Tiny strode forward, hand extended. Somewhat to his surprise, Smalley took it. Tiny shifted his grip to a knuckle-cracker and bore down with all his strength. The big cop gasped and staggered. Tiny followed through mercilessly, driving Smalley to his knees.

"Your vision does you credit, Commander. So does your strength. But I tell you now, I'm as wary of you as you are of me. And if you decide to try to fuck with me, you'll find that I and my associates know quite a lot about fucking as well. Not to mention whom to fuck with. You have my name. I have your name. I also have your home address. I know where your wife works, where your children go to school, and last but not least, the address of the lovely flat you rent for your lovely mistress. Do we understand each other?"

Face white with pain, Smalley nodded and hissed assent. Tiny let him up and moved smoothly back to the door to the office.

"Very good, Commander. In a week, then."

He let himself out and hurried down the corridor toward the street exit. As soon as he was out of the building, he wrenched off his tie, shoved it into his pocket, and undid the three top buttons of his shirt. As he strode toward the car he had borrowed, a laugh rose through his chest, and he did not repress it. Jake Bonham had been one hundred percent correct.

"Kindred spirits. Hah!"

***

Although it was after ten in the evening, Angel Ortiz was only just home from work. It was a late return even for a man known to be absorbed in his business, but Angel believed that one worked when there was work to be done and until it was done, whenever that happened to be.

Maria had pouted at him over the phone. He had expected it, and had promised her his undivided attention for the whole of the weekend in recompense. She had giggled in her special way, the one that said
I know better than to believe your sweet talk.
After she'd stopped giggling, she'd delivered the news of a lifetime. Now she was brushing her hair while he mixed them the cocktails with which they would toast the future that lay before them.

I am finally to be a father.
His joy was difficult to contain.

He had finished with the drinks and was about to bring them into the bedroom when he heard a commotion in the hallway outside his apartment. He frowned. Vallares Arms was a choice residence, the finest condominium complex in the Hispanic part of Buffalo. Part of what one bought by paying its high apartment prices and commons charges was supposed to be freedom from this kind of irritation. For two years, he and Maria had lived there in gracious tranquillity. But, he supposed, there was no way for building management to exclude strife completely. Domestic quarrels would occur sooner or later in any family, except his.

The disturbance in the hallway was growing quite loud. Someone was shrieking. There was an unmistakable percussion; it sounded like repeated blows of metal against wood. He turned from the bar and went to his door to see if there was something he could do to put an end to it. Maria wouldn't mind waiting a moment or two longer for her Blue Horizon.

As he opened the door, Angel Ortiz's last thoughts were of his wife.

***

Tiny was standing back from the action, fondling his bicycle chain, content to watch as Rusty hammered the apartment door to flinders with a tire iron. Half a dozen blows more and they would be through. Then they'd give the occupant something to scream about.

He sensed rather than heard the door open behind him. As he spun about, a man's head poked around the doorjamb. Tiny swung; the chain wrapped itself around the interloper's neck. One sharp yank, and the man was down and motionless on the hallway floor. A flip of the wrist and the chain came free again, coiling sinuously in its master's hand.

He nudged the body with the toe of his boot. There was no reaction. The man's eyes were open, staring at nothing.

Should have minded your own business, asshole. We'd have gotten to you soon enough.

The adrenaline rush of sudden violence brought a savage grin to Tiny's face. He was done with watching. He left Rusty to his hacking and slipped through the open apartment door. No one else was in evidence. The place reeked of money: deep pile carpets, leather furniture, heavy, gold-embossed drapes, and ceramic figurines and spun-glass ornaments all arranged just so. Not a speck of dust on anything.

He scanned the apartment for the master bedroom. That was where they always kept the good stuff, the cash and the easily carried, easily fenced items.

He shoved open the likeliest door and found himself on top of a gorgeous Hispanic woman in a satin negligee. There was a hairbrush in her hand and an expression of outrage on her face.

Something to spend the rush on.

His grin widened. He closed the door behind him and depressed the button-style latch on the knob.

He bumped her backwards, into the room and against the edge of the bed. She tottered and sat. She screamed and tried to rise, and would have tried to flee, but he was upon her, his legs pinning hers against the side of the bed.

She tried to back away from him then, outrage engulfed by fear, realizing what had to have become of her husband, but it was too late. He came down upon her full length, one hand clamped over her mouth, the other groping for his zipper to turn loose his raging erection.