The Shaft (49 page)

    The narrow hole had been ripped to head height.

    'Out.'

    'You mean I have to walk into that?'

    'Out.' It stepped back from its handiwork, blood-soaked and dripping. Cruz watched a steaming gob of the yogurt-stuff drip slowly down from the skull cavity to fill the bite removed from its neck by a bullet. It anchored and began to mesh and bind, patching the damage.

    A new eye poked through the jellied mass like a surfacing periscope. Smaller than the others, and brown.

    One of Mario Velasquez's eyes, Cruz realized.

    'Give. Now.'

    

    

    The racketing oscillation of gunshots against metal made Fergus contract, hands over ears, prone in the tunnel. Violence was taking place just around the next turn.

    Between that and him his pet had been coiled sleeping, logy and unresponsive from too much of a good thing. It had fed several times outside of Fergus' supervision, and was presently twice the girth he'd ever seen it before. It barely fit the tunnel. That could become a major problem.

    But the venom, the stuff that brought on wet dreams without compare, that would be at an efficacy Fergus had never before experienced. The sensual feast would almost justify the bother.

    At first he thought some invader was discharging bullets to wound his pet. The acoustics were all wrong. The shots came from further down the tunnel, around the curve. So difficult to tell, with all this metal, and the oozing brown bulk of his pet blocking passage.

    Even the shots did not stir it, and Fergus had to pound on its tail end to bring it around.

    He had not counted on its mood. The torpedo head slithered from beneath the tail coil, and it bit Fergus. Harder, probably, than it intended. But it had just been rudely knocked up, and had lashed out.

    Fergus tried to retreat from the bite. No room to manuever. He saw his drowsy and annoyed pet slide around on itself, breaking up the sleep coils. Fergus had backed off about five yards when the venom piled into his nervous system like a train wreck.

    It was what he imagined an overdose of pleasure might feel like. He would have preferred to be on his bed, or in his familiar office chair, instead of banging his head against metal the first time orgasm cut through his stomach. But it was beyond his options to be picky just now.

    At least he had located his pet, which did not seem anxious to lose him again.

    Fergus trembled. The juice took hold and his eyes filled with brain pictures.

    He probably only imagined he saw his pet crawling right into the sheer metal wall of the tunnel. That was crazy.

    

    

    Come on, addled rodent fuck. Just a bit snore.

    An antique Italian armoire stood tall at the end of the hallway leading to Bauhaus' color-coordinated bedroom collection. People paid obscene prices for such things, only to retrofit them as bars and buffets; upscale liquor cabinets. Emilio had found this one to be stocked with guns.

    Now he drew a short-barreled Wilson Arms Witness Protection shotgun, a heavily-modified version of the trusty Remington 870. This one had rubberized assault grips and a ventilated rib. His free hand supported Bauhaus, whom he'd had to dress for the cold. Bauhaus carried no weapons. No way. Sooner would Emilio trust a burp gun to a drunk Nazi at a Jessie Jackson rally. Or give an ICBM to a Republican.

    A galaxy of felony chemical was playing suicide thrash inside Bauhaus' skin today. Red giant, white dwarf, burnout. But he had managed to note that Jamaica would most likely try to warn Cruz, and Emilio needed a native guide.

    The riot gun's shorty magazine held two rounds of triple-ought Magnum buckshot alternated with two rifled 'Sluggers' - a third was already chambered - making the whole package a very ugly thing to be on the wrong end of. Emilio wasn't into drug dealer guns.

    He had slotted in each round thinking of what they would do to Cruz's face. First Jamaica, then Cruz.

    One more set of stairs, and Bauhaus could be shucked as well. He was dead already and too high to know it.

    Cold pierced to chill the platinum razor against his chest. Once the shotgun stopped them, the razor could kill them. So slowly.

    Emilio licked his lips. The silence of the building was acute.

    His heart thudded at combat speed, goosed by a double belt of crank. His brain raced with humiliation. The shame, as he had been untied by Bauhaus' security guards, who knew a whore had foxed him. Naked, trussed, his own socks in his mouth. He had been unmanned and robbed of his cash. Robbed but not broke.

    And there was nothing more worthless than a dead prostitute.

    The sentries had come piling in with MAC 10s and Ithaca pumps unslung. There was nobody left to shoot. Bauhaus squirmed and hollered while he received first aid, then vomited into the bar sink twice. Emilio mixed him a special calm-down cocktail, stirring mystic powders into a glass of Perrier. The concoction would sideswipe the overload of dope Jamaica had compelled Bauhaus to swallow. A few moments and one more visit to the sink, and Bauhaus told Emilio he was straight enough to go hunting.

    He was still telling him. Naggingly, like a whining child.
No but really I am
.

    Emilio had ordered a pair of backups to stand down on the first floor. Their guns were enormous, too, and well made. Begrudgingly they assumed their posts and Emilio took Bauhaus up alone. This was personal, a matter of sullied honor.

    He acknowledged a chance, however slim, that he might not get the big come of killing both the whore and his sleaze weasel ex-runner. Only if he was beaten and dying would he summon his cavalry.

    '307. It's his.' Bauhaus' eyes were beginning to track independently of each other.

    'Keep your voice down.' Emilio hoisted him ahead. He'd be good as a shield, if nothing else.

    'Wanna gun.'

    'Shut the fuck up.'

    As soon as Emilio released his arm Bauhaus sat down hard, as though bonked on the noggin. They both heard a door close on the floor just above them. Footsteps in a big hurry, thumping toward them around the close turns of Fergus the landlord's rickety landing.

    When the black kid rounded the turn he saw a shotgun concentrating on filling his nostrils. He jammed to a stop with the fear of a bust bright in his eyes. He had a sling bag over each shoulder and was not in a social mood.

    'Awww, shit.'

    It was comic but Emilio wasn't set to chortle. 'Who the fuck are you? Say now.'

    'I'm Ajax and I'm moving out as of now. I ain't gonna stay here. Too fuckin' many people with guns pointing at me all the time. I don't wanna get shot and dead; I wanna leave. Please.' He shrugged. 'That's about it.'

    Emilio's voice was kept low, resoilant, invisible. 'I want Cruz.' The bore of the riot gun stayed where it was and Ajax started perspiring.

    'Don't know him, man, listen, I got to-'

    'Wrong answer.' The gun got ready to do something other than protect a Witness.

    'Uh. ' Ajax 's reality was hastily redefined in terms of big moby gun. 'Cruz. Right. Brown motherfucker. Like you. I mean, one of them Hispanic dudes, right? Black jacket, like a, uh, whatcha call 'em… army jacket, y'know? He's number 307. I seen him a little while ago. He's got a goddamned gun too. Pointed it at me, too.'

    'Where upstairs?'

    'Right off the landing. Right around the corner, man. It's like, I look out to see what all this motherfuckin' noise is and I…'

    'Keep your voice down.'

    'Yeah, right, and I, uh, seen all this hardware, all this firepower, man, and I say to myself, I cannot deal, 'cos guns scare me, y'know, and I get confused, and 'Fuck off.' '

    There was just enough room for Ajax to skin past and embrace whatever life awaited him outside of Kenilworth. With him went Cruz's tape player and camera, stolen a while back from 307, which had been left open and empty.

    Ajax hit the foyer and fled into the backslapping fronts of snow. Even the worst blizzard in ten years was preferable to the brand of white-boy lunacy he'd just ducked.

    

    

    It was the evil opposite of birth. Anti-birth.

    Cruz squeezed through headfirst in a spurt of blood and discharged necrotic tissue, anointed in smegmatic ichor that glowed the same color as the coating in the tunnels.

    He emerged into the last place Kenilworth remembered him to be, inside of Jonathan's apartment. Mistaken data. Who knew from accuracy in matters such as these?

    It was a disaster area of staved-in carton and strewn possessions. The eastern window, facing Kentmore, had been totally destroyed; a pyramidal hummock of snow was rising on the floor. The dresser mirror was fogged with the cold. Blood gleamed from the walls.

    Cruz located a towel and mopped at his face. The jellied mucous clung tenaciously, prohibiting his pores from drawing any of the fouled air. It reeked of liquid putrefaction. He had been tackled by the Blob and slimed. It hung like setting gel in his hair when he raked fingers back through it.

    Christ, but this place had been wrecked.

    The walls had skewed inward. The ceiling had bowed down far enough for Cruz to bump his head on the light fixture. The place was unstable and hazardous. He heard water dripping.

    When the black cat rubbed against his leg, he nearly threw a clot.

    
You have got gook all over you.

    Cruz jumped; the shock was a physical pain deep in his head. How could that be? The brain wasn't supposed to have any nerves to feel pain.

    Irate, he refused to tread air in this rat-trap, talking meaninglessly to a cat and waiting for another tremor to collapse the entire building. His system was flying loops with the White Lady; he wished he had the leisure to suck some base and flower out. He did remember to load the Sig Sauer's spare magazine.

    Then he remembered to put it into the gun.

    The dope had been lost, but not the battle. At least he was packed.

    His wheezy respiration, his slurred speech had been left behind with the tunnels. He felt amped and in regained control. Back in Dade there had been pals of his - Cobalt, Dice, Klondike - who did five grams a day and pulled guns on anybody who talked back. Uncool. Very.

    Voices in the hallway. Clumping on the stairs.

    He eased around the inside door of the airlock. The cat persisted in pushing through first.

    'Piss off, comewad,' he whispered.

    
You smell just loverly your ownself, big guy.

    Cruz snapped the action - silently - and opened the exterior door to 207, stepping out.

    Ajax thundered away in a mondo hurry. Smart people did that when you pointed ordnance at their heads. Even idiots, sometimes.

    'Straight. Bet your fucking life I am.'

    Bauhaus was on the spoil. Emilio's hangover cocktail could do only so much patch work before it was rinsed away by the gusher of drugs presently altering Bauhaus' state at instant-replay speed.

    'Shut up.'

    There was no movement in the second floor hallway. Emilio backed into the turn and swung through, bringing the riot gun to bear on the unknown space. Nada. His eyes moved in synchronization with the bore, sweeping.

    The elevator dinged and slid up stable. Emilio spun on it and almost cut loose a round.

    The car was vacant. Bloodstains inside.

    He backtracked to Bauhaus, still sitting on the stairs, before this whacked-out fun-daddy could start feeling genuine pain and cutting some ruckus.

    Emilio assumed the third floor units were configured identically to those on the second floor.

    Bauhaus stopped on the landing and slumped where there was more room to sit. He looked like a whipped and pouting child; a whiner. Emilio thought, for my lack of a silencer, you get to live a while longer.

    He wasn't thinking of the shotgun, but of his backup piece, a matte-finish Bren Ten also selected from the armoire. Only a fool strolls in without a fallback, and he had two staggered box-column clips full of humungous ten-millimeter ammo.

    Two guns. Two clips. Thirteen steps. Two primary targets. One secondary plus improvisation. The oranges-and-apple mathematics of firefighting and tactical ops equals so much dead meat. Emilio always tried to score one hundred on his tests.

    He hugged the wall. Tight but a clear field.

    'Make her eat her own tits,' Bauhaus mumbled behind him. 'Chomp, chomp, such a fancy meal. Fucking cunt.'

    He saw the outer door to 307 hanging open. He closed in on it and lifted the knob so the door would not scrape back audibly as he entered.

    The figure standing in the room turned as Emilio booted the inner door wide and cut loose with the shotgun. By the time the shooting started downstairs, he was too busy to hear it.

    The damned cat had to dart out ahead of him. Goddamned animals, Cruz thought. Little booger-flicking monster.

    Bauhaus was already staring in his direction, his attention drawn by the cat, and here was Cruz stuck dead bang, framed in the doorway to 207.

    
Sugar-tit son of a bitch!
He should have kicked its black puckerhole down the elevator shaft when he'd had the chance.

    If Bauhaus had drawn down on him it would have been lights out. When the fat man got angry instead of western, Cruz realized he was unarmed.

    He also got a closer look, in that instant, at Rosie's best Chi-town bud. Bauhaus looked freshly rolled from the compacting bin of a garbage truck. His clothing was askew; all wrong for someone so natty and fastidious. His eyeballs hung in caverns of purple darkness. His face was the color of bread dough misted with fever sweat. Cruz smelled fresh feces in the air.