“I stopped counting long ago. Because it doesn't matter. That's the point, Alex: Everything is matter and nothing matters.”
“Then why bother to kill me?”
“Because I want to.”
“Because you can.”
He came closer. “Not a single one of them was missed… no impact, nothing changed. It made me realize what I should have known years before: Sensation is all. One passes the time in the least onerous way possible. I like to clean house.”
“A sweeper,” I said, and when he didn't answer: “The elite takes out the trash.”
“There are no elites. Just those with fewer impediments. Willy and I will end up worm-food like everyone else.”
“Smarter worms, though,” said Tenney. He grinned at me. “See you for chess in hell. You supply the board.”
“Sensation is all,” I said to Baker.
Baker put down the needle again, unbuttoned his shirt, and spread the placket.
His chest was tan, hairless, a grotesque plane of ravaged flesh.
Scores of scars, some threadlike, others raised and welted.
He displayed himself proudly, rebuttoned. “I thought of myself as a blank canvas, decided to draw. Please don't talk to me about mercy.”
“At least tell me about DVLL.”
“Oh, that,” he said, dismissively. “Just a quotation from Herr Shickelgruber. Pure mediocrity, that one, those sickening watercolors, but he did have a way with a phrase.”
“Mein Kampf?” I said.
He got very close. Sweet breath, soap-and-water skin. How did he tolerate Tenney?
“ “Die vernichtung lebensunwerten Leben,' ” he said. “ “Lives not worth living.' Which applies, I'm afraid, to yours.”
Tenney moved in and held my right hand down, elbow to the mattress. Oh, Milo, the bastard is right, nothing matters in the end, nothing's fair- fingertips drummed the crook of my arm, raising a vein.
Baker lifted the syringe.
“Happy heart attack,” he said.
Robin- Mom- go out with style, don't scream, don't scream- I prepared for the jab, nervous system crashing, alarm bells jingling-
Nothing.
Baker straightened. Perturbed.
Still the jingling.
The doorbell.
“Shit,” said Tenney.
“Go see who it is, Willy, and be careful.”
Clang. The needle disappeared and in its place Baker held a machine pistol- black, banana-shaped handle, rectangular body, nasty little barrel.
He looked around the room.
The bell rang again. Stopped. Three knocks. More bell.
I heard Tenney's rapid climb up the stairs.
Voices.
Tenney's, the other high-pitched.
A woman?
Her voice, Tenney's, hers.
“No,” I heard Tenney say, “you've got the wrong-”
Baker moved toward the door, pistol held high.
The woman's voice again, irate.
“I'm telling you,” said Tenney, “that this-”
Then, a low, muffled stutter that could only be one thing. More footsteps, racing, as Baker pointed the machine pistol at the door, ready.
Thunder behind him- breaking glass, a glass roar- from behind the curtains, then a flute arpeggio of tinkling shards as the curtains parted and men burst in shooting.
More stutter, much louder.
Baker never had a chance to see them. His pink shirtback sucked up crimson and the rear of his head dissolved in a red-brown mist.
The front of his head followed, facial features blanketed in red oil and white jelly, the substructure disintegrating, features losing integrity, turning to port wine. Melting. A wax figure melting.
His chest exploded and soft things flew out, plunking wetly against the wall.
One of the shooters ran to me. Young, sharp-featured, black hair. One of the guards I'd seen at the consulate. Behind him, a big, heavy, white-haired black man in navy blue sweats. Older, at least sixty. He glanced at Baker's body, then at me.
The young, hawk-faced man began undoing my restraints, only to be yanked away.
By Milo, disheveled, wet-eyed, sweating, breathing hard.
“Sir,” said the young man, Milo's big hand still on his arm.
“Get lost! Do your job and I'll do mine.”
The young man hesitated for a second, then left. Milo freed me. “Oh, Alex, such a fuckup, such a goddamn idiotic fuckup, I'm so- oh, man, we almost lost you- it really went bad- never again, never fucking again!”
“You always were one for drama,” I said.
“Shut up,” he said. “Just shut up and rest- man, I am so sorry, I will never let you talk me-”
“Shut up yourself.”
He lifted me.
He carried me past Baker, lying in a broth of gore, crossed the white room, now candy-striped, bits of brain and bone a free-form collage. Out to the stairs. Tenney's corpse was sprawled on top.
“Up we go.” His breathing was too hard, too fast. I felt strong enough to walk and told him so.
“No way.”
“I'm okay, put me down.”
“All right, but we've got to get the hell out of here. Be careful not to trip over that piece of shit.”
A woman came into view at the top of the stairs. Very short, heavyset. Rosy cheeks, bulbous nose.
Irina Budzhyshyn, proprietress of the Hermes Language School. Small pistol in her hand, nothing fancy.
In her Russian accent, she said, “No one else in the house. Get him out of here and then we bring in the cleanup crew.”
A man appeared behind her, in black. Late twenties but already bald on top with a brown mustache and goatee.
He was breathing hard, too. Everyone was.
“I've got transport,” he said in a thick voice. Not acknowledging me, though we'd met.
The landlord at Irina's building- what name had he used? Laurel. Phil Laurel. As in Hardy.
Everyone's a comedian.
60
We got into Rick's Porsche.
Milo said, “You all right?”
“I'm fine.” I was coated with icy sweat and fought not to shake.
He made a too-fast U-turn and raced down the hill.
“Oh, man,” he said. “What a-”
“Forget it.”
“Sure, forget it. Biggest fuckup of my life- forget it is exactly what I won't do- how the hell could I have been so goddamn stupid-!”
“What happened?”
“I got ambushed is what happened. Sudden meeting with a deputy chief. Sharavi was pulled off, too, by his own people. Til I found out, I thought he set it up- did you see an older black guy in there?”
“Captain Brooker?” I said. “The one who got hold of Raymond's file and shoes?”
“Sharavi managed to call him from the john in the consulate… The guy ended up being righteous.”
“Think Sharavi's bosses will punish him?”
He reached Apollo, turned sharply, sped. “Bosses don't like being bucked… I'm taking you to my place, Brooker's gonna meet us there and we'll all get cleaned up.”
“How'd you get free?”
“Faked a heart attack, scared the hell out of the department lackey they sent to drive me. He zoomed to Cedars, ran for help, I split, got to the E.R. the back way, found Rick, borrowed the Porsche.”
He was still breathing hard and his color was bad.
“Laurence Olivier,” I said.
“Yeah, maybe I'll switch jobs, become a waiter.”
“Meantime, calm down. We don't want a real heart-”
“Don't worry, I won't drop dead on you, too pissed off to die- Jesus, Alex, this was the worst thing that's ever- the department pulled me off but I screwed up by not anticipating it. Big-time. Should have known Carmeli would be listening in to every word. Knew from the start the guy was no social director- what'd he call himself- an arranger. He arranges all right.”
He cursed.
“You predicted it,” I said. “The Israelis would take care of business themselves.”
“So I'm a goddamn prophet. But a stupid one. I kept seeing Sharavi as the hit man, got thrown off. Truth is, he was just like me, fucking bait… The whole thing went to shit- I am leaving the fucking job. Switch to something quiet- I'll use my goddamn master's, teach English somewhere- elementary school, not in L.A., where ten-year-olds shoot you, some backwater, kids who still say aw, shucks and-”