Payback (32 page)

***

Mack held his fire. Billy and the Spaniard were ducked behind the Jeep. He couldn't get an angle.

***

Mitchell reloaded. From the back of the garage he moved along the grass-covered alley to the house. Up ahead in the distance the Uzi kept stuttering, a dumb repetitive monotony of sound, a
tha-tha-tha-tha-tha-tha-tha-tha-tha-tha-tha-tha-that's all, folks
.

Jesus. It was all coming back to him fast. The dumb and deadly absurdity of war.

***

Mack checked his ammo; it was running pretty low. He had eight shots left. And the incoming kept on coming in a wave.

***

Hector wouldn't stop. He was grooving on the rounds. Billy kept yelling at him, pounding on his arm to try and master his attention. Finally Hector ceased fire and said, “Wha'?” Pissed. Annoyed.

Billy said, “You hear that?”

“Wha'?”

“The
alarm
, you asshole. I gotta shut it off. I couldn't hear it for the noise.”

“Oh,” Hector said.

“Cover me when I leave.—Okay?” He waited while Hector absorbed it.

Billy moved fast, but a couple of rounds winged over him. Shit. And then Hector opened up. About a beat too late, but he made it. Okay. And then, on the other hand, no wonder the Spaniards never made any conquests except over Indians. Maybe other spics. They were not very bright.

Billy made it to the den and then shut the alarm and went over to the phone. He dialed so rapidly he blew it, got his fingers all slippery on the dial and had to try the thing again.

A voice answered lazily, “
Esta policia.
”

“Yeah?” Billy said. “Esta McAllister. I want you to ignore that alarm that went off.”

“
Momentito
,” said the voice.

Billy had to wait. He put his pistol on the desk now and opened up the drawer. With the phone squeezed in between his ear and his shoulder blade, he lined up some coke.

Jackie came in. Billy said, sarcastically, “Where the fuck were
you?
”

“Upstairs,” Jackie said. “I was looking out the window.”

“You were looking out for your
self
,” Billy said. “I know you. From when.”

“I was shooting,” Jackie said. “I had a bird's-eye position.”

“Like a pig's-eye position. Am I right?” Billy said.

Jackie ignored him and went to the gun case and pulled out a Remington. He started to load it, hearing Billy say, “The fucking police are all asleep.”

A voice on the phone said, “Señor? I speak English. How may I serve you?”

“You may
serve
me,” Billy said, “by ignoring that alarm that went off in your station. It's an accident. One of my guests tripped a wire. Okay?”

“Si, si. No problem,” said the voice.

“Oh. And tell Captain Diego when you see him I'm expecting him to dinner. That's Sunday—okay?”

“Sure thing,” the voice said.

“Dumb fuckers,” Billy said. He slammed down the phone and then reached for his pistol.

A voice from behind him said, “Don't make a move. Not either of you.”

Mitchell was out on the patio, the Savage upraised.

Jackie stood frozen. Mitchell said levelly, “Mack says hello.”

“Oh shit,” Jackie said.

Mitchell said to Billy, “Now turn very slowly. Keep your hands off the pistol or you're finished.”

Billy turned. “So now what?” he said.

Mitchell didn't know. He could stand here forever, try to hold them at bay, or else kill them. That was all. Mack had been right.

Mitchell said, “Now … you're gonna tell me all about it.”

***

Estanchez came into Diego's office where Diego kept stalling the American cop, Diego saying, “Sorry.” He said it in Spanish. “This is nothing. This is air.” He looked up at Estanchez who was handing him the coffee. “Is it strong?” Diego said.

“Like iron,
capitan.
”

Ortega looked up. Estanchez had a deadpan expression on his face but his eyes hung steady when he looked at Ortega, then offered him a cup.

Ortega said in Spanish, “This is Probable Cause. You want to ask my opinion, it's a Definite Cause.”

“Ah. Your opinion,” Diego said in English. “So. There it is. What we seem to be facing is a difference of opinion. What you offer is a story. A fictitious confession from … who?” He was reaching for the paper on his desk.

“Slovo Abdajanian,” Ortega said impatiently. Ortega was tired; he'd landed in New York on the overnight red-eye and two hours later, on the wings of a “story,” he was barreling to Spain; he was jet-lagged and revved, and his primary instinct was to get up and leave, go over there to Billy's and cuff the little bastard and shove him in the car. But Ortega was alone, with no local authority, and nothing but a thin piece of paper in his hand, a kind of toothless “request,” which was being denied.

Diego was patient. “This would stand up in court? In the courts of America?”

“No,” Ortega said. “But in America we'd watch him. We'd also make pretty damn sure he didn't leave.”

“You have no other evidence?”

“No. Not yet.” Ortega played it cool and tried to make it sound imminent, knowing that it wasn't. Knowing further that Slovo's confession wouldn't hold and that finding any hard-copy evidence to back it was a labyrinth of pain. And without that evidence, Billy'd take a walk.

Diego spread his hands. They were manicured and fat and their palms had been greased. Ortega had a feeling if he left this Diego, for something like a second, Diego'd call Billy and Billy'd disappear.

What he needed was an angle.

He looked at Estanchez who was leaning on the wall as Ortega himself was often leaning on the wall, a spectator, watchful, observant to a fault.

The alarm split the air.

37

Mack was out of ammo. Joanna had two more bullets for the Mag. “You better save it,” Mack said. The Uzi kept raking. “Where's Rocky?”

“I don't know. I couldn't see him from the window.” She was ducked behind the counter.

“Why don't you go into the closet like I told you?”

“I don't know.” She didn't.

“You don't get a Brownie point for dying,” Mack said. “You get hit, it's gonna hurt.”

The firing let up. There was silence for a time.

She nodded. “I know.”

Mack came over now and joined her on the floor. The laboratory looked like a scene from Beirut, like a mini-Apocalypse.

She thought about war. “Tell me Mitchell's okay.”

“Mitchell's okay.—Feel better? He's got at least one more life. This is only his eighth.”

“Cat,” she said.

“Yeah. I don't know about me, I don't know about you, but I know about the Cat.” He shrugged. “Little cat on a hot tin chopper. Jesus. I don't know … For a time,” he said, “I figured I'd inherited his … what? … immortality or something. I couldn't seem to die. Ever notice how death is never there when you need it?”

She looked at him. “You must've really hated him a lot.”

“Listen—why I hated him the most,” Mack said, “was for telling me to jump.”

Joanna cocked her head.

“We were up in that chopper and the chopper's blowing up. We're standing in the tail and your buddy says, jump. I looked at him. The man's got the thousand-mile stare. I mean truly Messianic. He hits me. He says,
jump, man!
and suddenly he's out. Gone. Flying. Got his arms like a bird. I had about a nanosecond left to think and I thought, what the fuck. It's a better way to die.” Mack looked at her flatly. “It didn't work out.”

She stared at him. “He doesn't remember that,” she said.

“Like I told you. He was nuts. Man's got a birdbrain so what do you expect?”

He lit a cigarette.

Joanna looked alarmed.

“What?”

“I just think there's something flammable around.”

The Uzi picked up again.

“Yeah,” he said. “Us.”

And then thought about it. Raising his head, he looked up, looking over at the counter that was pretty much demolished—powders and liquids that were spilling onto glass. Nothing. He bellied to the opposite wall and then saw what he was looking for: a can of benzene.

“Okay,” he said. “Yeah. There's something flammable around.”

What he needed was a bottle. He saw one, raised himself up against the counter, and got clipped in the left hand.

His reaction was to laugh. The universe really had it in for that hand. He made another try and got the bottle off the shelf and got over to Joanna.

She looked at him, frightened. “You're hurt.”

“How it goes. What I want you to do is pour the fuel in the bottle.”

“The fuel?”

“Called a Molotov cocktail,” he said. “Just do it.” He looked around to find another bottle. The bullets kept flying. There was no other bottle. What he needed was a wick. “A rag,” he said. “Any kind of small piece of cloth.” There was nothing he could see.

Another hail hit the counter.

“How small?” she said.

“Small enough to shove it in a bottle.”

“My bikinis?”

“Good girl.”

Christ. She had to wriggle out of pantyhose first. It was funny. Later. If later ever came. If bullets weren't whizzing and crashing on the counter. How your mother always told you you should wear clean underwear.
In case
, your mother said.

She produced them: a small pair of black lace bikinis, and stuffed them in the bottle. Mack lifted it, “Cheers,” and went over to the window. Squatted at the side of it, he reached for his lighter now and got the thing lit. He waited, looking over at the killer by the Jeep, at the hard spray of bullets. There was only one shot, one chance to get it ended. He rose up and tossed.

***

Ortega heard the booming explosion from the road. He said to Estanchez, “I think we got a war.”

Estanchez speeded up.

Diego had ordered him to rush to McAllister's and turned to Ortega and asked to be excused. Ortega said, Comprendo, and hurried to the door, half-running to the street, where Patrolman Estanchez had been idling the engine of a black-and-white van. “Hurry up,” Estanchez said. The radio was screeching at them, “No! False alarm!”

Now the sky was on fire.

Estanchez, on the radio, calling out, “
Fuego! Fuego! Veinte-dos!
”

What the hell was going on?

The front gate was open. They turned, slammed in, and Ortega was out of the car, running past the burning inferno of the Jeep, and then charging to the house.

***

Mitchell said, “Christ. What took you so long?”

RULE #10:

38

Burt said to Cy, “Well … what the hell. Easy come, easy go. Isn't that what you always say?”

Cy didn't answer. He wondered what he'd done. Karmically. Astrologically. Which planet he'd offended in which other life. Why everybody else got away with playing edges while Cy toed the line.

He went over to Burt's bar now and poured another Scotch. It was almost six o'clock. He'd been drinking since noon. Noon in L.A. when it was three in New York, when the stock market closed and the door slammed forever on the only real fortune that Cy had ever made; or that Cy ever would. He was doomed now to scrounging, to scrounging forever with the rest of the wimps, the losers, the nerds, the people who didn't have the courage or the balls or the wit or the nerve to take a tiger by the tail.

“Well … we can still go for Mitchell,” Burt said. “As soon as this is over.”

“Yeah. I suppose.” Cy paced around. His confidence was shaken. The life had gone out of him. He'd eaten his heart.

Burt went over now and clicked on the Sony; a voice saying, Sale-a-thon! Seven Day Sale! while a Japanese car ate the Pennsylvania Turnpike and gurgled on its bones.

Burt said, “I think we'll get the Lakers on cable.”

“The
Lakers?
” Cy said. “Come on, Burt. You really give a shit about the Lakers? The
world
just ended.”

“The world,” Burt said, “is continuing to turn. There. Look at that.”

The World was on the set—a fast-spinning globe and the title coming over it was Headlines Tonight. Terrific. And now we get the Newsmaker Team—the light black girl and the fellow with the teeth—and then Cy stopped caviling and squinted at the screen.

Slovo Abdajanian was marching to a car. Cuffed! Slo
v
o!

“…
brought in for questioning this morning in New York …
”

Burt looked at Cy. Carol came in and stood silent at the bar.

“…
providing detectives with the crucial information that would lead them to Spain, to a luxury villa on the coast of Majorca
…”

Cy couldn't move. He kept staring at the screen, at the luxury villa and the burnt-out Jeep and the bullet-spattered lab … the room with the press … the tape recorder hidden in the pack of cigarettes …

“…
where William McAllister and Jackie Lessandro
…”

“It's over,” Carol said.

“…
However
…”

Cy sat.

“…
in a turn of events that astounded the police
…”

Carol made a noise.

Mitchell and another guy were grinning at the mikes, then waving them away.

“…
and clearly Mr. Mitchell was the hero of the night in what, just as clearly, is the story of the year. And of course we'll have a detailed update at eleven. In the meanwhile, Marcie
—”

“
In the meanwhile, Glenn, we've got a bulletin from Chad, where the hostages
—”

Carol went and clicked off the set.