Revolution No. 9 (12 page)

A
sharp
pop
brought Monks out of the half-sleep that he had drifted into, hunched in the chair in Mandrake's bedroom. He sat up, startled and confused. He was sure that the sound had come from somewhere in the lodge. But he hadn't heard anyone come inside.

Then he smelled the harsh reek of something burning. He quickly identified it as chemical, a fuel, and he realized what must have happened: the glass chimney of a kerosene lamp had burst, as they sometimes did from their own heat. If the kerosene leaked, the log building could go up in flames fast.

He heaved himself out of the chair and strode through the hanging blanket. The fire in the hearth had gotten low and the main room was almost dark. His gaze searched for the burning lamp, not finding it. It might be in the kitchen. He started that way.

A hissing, blinding spray exploded into his face, cutting
across his eyeballs like broken glass, searing his nostrils and thoat. He stumbled, clawing at his eyes.

Something smashed into the back of his right knee. He collapsed, hands flailing for the floor to break his fall. The spray blasted his eyes again. He rolled, face buried in his arms, clogged lungs choking as he tried to suck in air.

A boot pressed down hard on the back of his neck. A hand gripped a fistful of his hair, twisting it painfully. Cold metal brushed his ear.

Monks realized dimly, in disbelief, that his hair was being sawn off.

His muscles tensed instinctively to thrash his arms and legs, and shake off this horror that crouched on top of him. But a voice spoke in his mind, with eerie clarity—
If you get Maced, don't fight back, 'cause knives can slip
.

He forced himself to lie still.

The hands left his head, then the boot released his neck. His burning eyes were still squeezed shut, but his throat was starting to open with agonizing slowness, allowing in a tiny trickle of rancid chemical-infused air. He remained motionless, concentrating on breathing, terrified that another burst of the spray would shut it off for good.

Instead, the attacker kicked him in the gut. His precious bit of breath exploded out of him in a wrenching wheeze. He doubled up fetally, knees tight against his chest and head hidden in his arms, braced for the stomping that would kill him.

But the boot only touched him one more time, tapping him contemptuously on the ear—a mocking suggestion of what it could do if it wanted to.

Then the room was still.

Monks lay as he was for another minute, until his lungs were taking in enough to function without being forced. Then he tugged his shirt loose and pressed the cloth against his eyes, clenching his teeth in pain as he fluttered them
open. Mace and pepper sprays were designed not to do permanent damage, but he wanted to rinse without delay. He got up to his knees, swaying, trying to orient himself.

His blurred gaze swept past Mandrake's bedroom, then swung back.

The little boy was standing in the doorway, clutching the hanging blanket like a binky, holding it against his cheek, his thumb in his mouth.

Monks bit off a curse, got to his feet, and staggered to the kitchen.

The broken shards of a lamp chimney were in the sink. It had burst, all right—the attacker had broken it to lure him out.

He turned on the water tap and crouched, gripping the sink's lip and positioning his head under the cold clear stream. He turned from side to side so the water would course into his eyes, flushing them clear. Ideally, you were supposed to do this for several minutes, but he didn't have several minutes. He dried his face on his shirttail as he hurried to Mandrake's room. His fingers touched the spot behind his left ear where a clump of his hair was gone.

Mandrake was back in bed, scrunched into the corner as he had been when Monks first saw him. He was clutching his stuffed snake in front of him like a shield. His eyes looked like Greek olives.

Monks sat down beside him, moving slowly, managing to smile.

“Wow,” he said. “You know what happened out there? I went to get a drink of water, and that mermaid was hiding! She tickled me so hard I thought I was going to explode.”

Mandrake's face stayed blank. His eyes stared directly at Monks, but they were shielded, his mind withdrawn. Clearly, he knew that what he had seen was not a game, and he had gone back into that limbo of the only safety he could find.

Monks tucked him in and got ready to check his blood sugar. There was no telling how the shock might affect him.

Monks was trembling, his fear giving way to fury, not just for himself, but for Mandrake. But he was helpless, without even a guess at who the attacker was. The Mace had blasted his eyes before he had gotten a glimpse, and he had never laid a hand on him—or her—so as to be able to guess at size or weight. It could have been anybody.

Including Glenn.

T
he home of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Emlinger was built like an old-fashioned mansion, with a curving staircase that led up out of the huge, high-ceilinged living room to a balustraded walkway around the second story.

Taxman followed Hammerhead silently up the steps, watching him for signs of weakness. This was where it started to get real. Hammerhead was wired with meth and adrenaline, jumpy and scared, but that was all right. Next mission, he would be expected to function professionally.

Tonight, he only had to do one thing: get blooded.

This place was an easy target, the kind that Taxman always picked to break in a first-time
maquis
. There was no bodyguard or dog, and the microwave alarm system was vulnerable to a DTMF phone that read the tones of its entry code. Atherton was one of California's richest communities, an enclave of ivy-walled houses on city-block-sized lots, set far back from the streets and sheltered by high thick hedges
and black iron gates across the driveways. The residents were used to feeling secure. Taxman and Hammerhead had gotten inside as quietly as fog. There was no need for night goggles, and they carried Glock .40-caliber semiautomatic pistols instead of the bulkier HK submachine guns.

It was 3:47
A.M.

Cold December moonlight filtered into the master bedroom through a pair of many-paned French doors, outlining the man and woman sleeping in bed. Taxman could smell the faint trace of the perfume that Mrs. Emlinger had worn that day.

Hammerhead stepped hesitantly up to the bed and jacked a round into the Glock's chamber.

The sharp click-
click
brought Emlinger suddenly upright. He stared wild-eyed at the two men. Hammerhead aimed at him but did not shoot.

Emlinger threw off his covers and lunged out of bed. Hammerhead stood there, paralyzed.

From the doorway, Taxman fired three quick rounds past him. Emlinger staggered, throwing his hands above his head like a Hollywood gunfighter, before crashing against a bureau and falling heavily to the floor.

Taxman stepped into the room. He had been ready for the freeze-up. No amount of training could prepare someone for killing a human being the first time. He gave Hammerhead a hard shove with the heel of his hand and jerked his head toward Mrs. Emlinger. She was sitting up now, pressed back against the headboard, clutching the covers to shield herself.

“Stop,” she gasped, holding out a hand to fend them off. Her body and her voice both trembled. “Take whatever you want.”

Hammerhead raised his pistol again, with a two-handed combat grip.

“No, my God,” she pleaded. “I'll do anything.” Abruptly
she dropped the covers. The moonlight illuminated her fair skin and shapely breasts.

Hammerhead still did not shoot. Taxman could see that his hands were shaking.

He aimed his own pistol at Mrs. Emlinger. She screamed, a desperate piercing wail. Hammerhead jerked with a violent shudder, as if the sound slashed into him like a knife. Finally, his finger closed on the Glock's trigger.

The scream was cut short by the silenced
whump
. Her hands flew back against the headboard, her head twisting to the side.

Hammerhead stood frozen again, openmouthed, staring at what he had done. Taxman gave him another hard shove.

“You ever hang up like that again, I'll kill you myself,” he said harshly. “Now make sure.”

Hammerhead got closer to Mrs. Emlinger, stumbling. Hands still shaking, he shot her again in the right temple, point blank. Her body jerked obscenely with the impact, then sagged, tipping to the side, as if into sleep.

“Him, too,” Taxman said.

Emlinger was lying face down on the thick carpet. Hammerhead knelt over him and fired a shot into the base of his skull, just above where it joined his neck. His face bounced off the carpet.

The collection of antique jade was downstairs in the living room, on display in a large glass case. Taxman shined a mini-flashlight over the dozens of items—delicately carved lions and Buddhas, bracelets, rings, and ornaments. He knew that it was valued at more than a quarter of a million dollars, and many of the pieces were listed in art history registries.

“Pick something out for your girl,” Taxman said.

Hammerhead's eyes widened. Like a child who'd been offered a piece of candy, he moved his hand over the case, trying to decide. It stopped, pointing, above a dark-green, gold-chained pendant shaped like a roaring dragon.

Taxman smashed the glass with his pistol butt and handed the pendant to Hammerhead. “Take this, brother, may it serve you well,” he said. “You're
maquis
now.”

He scooped the other items into his pack, then beeped on his belt radio to summon Shrinkwrap, who was waiting a few blocks away, her hair dyed gray and her face aged with makeup—a well-to-do, middle-aged lady driving a BMW 750 iL. The jade would be picked up by other
maquis
and taken to Los Angeles, where, within hours, it was going to start turning up in homeless camps, just like the Calamity Jane golf clubs.

M
onks stepped out of the lodge in the gray light of dawn. His eyes still burned faintly from the Mace his attacker had sprayed him with, and his ribs ached where they had crashed against the floor.

He had done a lot of thinking during the long predawn hours.

The camp was deserted except for the inevitable guard skulking near the perimeter, a thin figure with an assault rifle slung over his shoulder. Monks recognized him as the unlucky Sidewinder, who had staggered away from the camp-fire last night wrapped in a bloody, gutted deer carcass. He looked sullen and avoided eye contact. He had been punished for asking Monks a question about the dangers of eating raw flesh, and probably he blamed Monks, the way that everyone else around here seemed to.

Monks walked to the washhouse, taking advantage of his aloneness to look around for possible routes out of here.
Nothing seemed promising. The mist was so thick that the tops of the trees ringing the camp were lost in it.

Monks had enough experience in mountain hiking to know that even open terrain was likely to be treacherous. Trails petered out, branched bewilderingly, led into deadfall-choked ravines or unscalable chasms. Without a compass, in poor visibility, getting turned around was almost a given. And this terrain was anything but open. Then there were the other obstacles—starting with armed guards.

The only faint chance, he decided, would be to enlist an ally—someone who knew the turf.

And a weapon would come in mighty handy.

“The Indians thought white men were really weird,” said a voice in his ear.

Monks jerked away in shock and twisted to see Freeboot, standing close enough to touch him.
Where did he come from
? Monks hadn't heard a whisper of his approach.

“For wanting to shit inside,” Freeboot finished. He was watching Monks benignly, thumbs hooked in his belt. “The more I thought about it, the more sense it made. So feel free to use the woods, Rasp.” Freeboot swept his hand in an expansive, offering gesture.

Then he focused on the side of Monks's head, squinting in almost comic puzzlement.

“You decide to give yourself a haircut?” Freeboot said.

“I cut myself shaving,” Monks said.

Freeboot seemed amused by the comeback. In fact, Monks's stubble of beard was bristling noticeably.

“I'm going to remind you that we've got to get your son out of here,” Monks said. “I'll make you a deal. Let me take him, and—”

“You won't say nothing about us, and nobody will know where he came from,” Freeboot interrupted. “Shrinkwrap already told me.”

“Well?”

“Sorry, dude. No can do, not right now. How are the supplies holding up?”

“It's not
about
how the supplies are holding up,” Monks said. “It's about how Mandrake's holding up.”

“I thought he was getting better.”

“The insulin helped stabilize him, but that's not going to last.”

“You gotta get a more positive attitude,” Freeboot said, shaking his head.

“I'm just telling you how it is.”

Freeboot's eyes flared, in his characteristic instant transition from seeming tranquility to menace.

“You don't tell
me
how it is. I tell
you
.”

Freeboot turned away suddenly, toward a wrist-thick dead branch jutting out from a pine tree, about the height of a basketball hoop. He was less than six feet tall but he leaped up, caught it with his right hand, and dangled there.

“I was a punk kid,” he yelled out. “Spent a lot of my life in jail. Dope, petty theft, finally pulled five years for armed robbery. I was looking at that third strike.”

He started chinning himself with the one arm. Monks counted ten before he paused again. He did not seem to be straining.

“Then I had a
epiphany,
” Freeboot bellowed. It was another term, like
virtu,
that didn't come naturally from his lips. “I don't mean like all the guys in the joint who get religion. I saw through this fucked-up society—what it did to me, and how stupid I was to let it. That's when everything changed. I started to read, man. I started to
think
.”

He switched hands in midair and did ten more chin-ups with his left arm. Finished, he dropped to the ground, still breathing easily.

“I got my head together and I got my body in shape,” he
said. “I got where I need to be.” He folded his arms and waited, his gaze steady on Monks.

It seemed that whatever challenge existed between them in Freeboot's mind had reached the point where the line was drawn in the dirt.

“To start Revolution Number 9?” Monks said.

Freeboot nodded, looking pleased. “Right on. John Lennon saw this coming.” He spoke with the air of having privileged information. “That song was a message, kicking it off. That's why he got killed. The deal about the guy being a fan is bullshit. It was the CIA that zapped him.”

“I don't recall that there
was
any message in the song,” Monks said.

“That's the point, man,” Freeboot said mysteriously. “He who hath ears, let him hear.”

So—the Bible, the Beatles, and conspiracy theories had joined the mix. It was impossible to take seriously—and yet, the more that Monks saw and heard, the scarier it got.

“I still don't get why you care what I think,” Monks said.

Freeboot's face took on a sly look. “I hear you got fucked over by the system yourself.”

Monks realized that Glenn must have told Freeboot about this, too—an incident from a dozen years earlier, when paramedics had killed an elderly woman by ignoring Monks's radioed orders from a hospital ER. Then, to cover themselves, they had destroyed the recorded tape of the radio conversation. Monks was eventually vindicated, but by then he had lost his job, marriage, and a lot of his friends, and he had plunged into a rage-driven alcoholic depression that he almost hadn't come out of.

Freeboot was right. He
had
been fucked over by the system.

“True enough,” Monks said.

“Cost you big, huh?”

“In a lot of ways.”

“So maybe you and me aren't so far apart,” Freeboot said.

“Maybe,” Monks said. “Except that one of us is the other's prisoner.”

“That could change. Let's say I was thinking about giving you a chance to get on this bus.”

A crow cawed suddenly in the forest, a harsh grating
anhhh-anhhh
that seemed to tumble in on the wind. The big black shape swooped down out of the foggy treetops a second later. It landed near the edge of the clearing, folded its wings, and hopped to investigate something on the ground, pausing to caw again and glare around, warding off competition.

Monks kept his expression careful, as if appraising the offer.

“You don't seem to think much of doctors,” he said.

“Oh, they got their uses, don't get me wrong. What it comes down to is
virtu
, see?”

“No,” Monks said, “I don't.”

Freeboot turned away, clasping his hands behind his back. He raised his face to the cloudy sky, as if searching for an answer. The pose seemed staged, like others that Monks had seen—and yet he had the sudden sense that this was a crucial moment—that Freeboot was about to impart something weighty, and that everything that happened from here on would depend on how it played out. Monks shifted uneasily and realized that he was getting cold. The fresh wet wind was picking up, tossing the mist-shrouded treetops.

“My son is ordained to be the root of my dynasty,” Freeboot said, still facing the sky. “I know Mandrake's just a kid. I'm giving him some time, with the insulin. It's like training wheels. But if you don't take the training wheels away, he's never going to learn to ride without them. He's got to prove he's got
virtu
.”

“You mean Mandrake has to pull himself out of his sickness,” Monks said.

“It's not his fault, I understand that. It's his mother. No way I could have known she had bad genes. But I can't be passing
my
genes down through a kid who's damaged goods, you know what I'm saying?”

A day ago, Monks would have been astounded. Now, this only filled in another piece of the puzzle. Bound up with Freeboot's concept of himself as Nietzschean superman was a facile, distorted understanding of genetics.

Then, in an instant of electric clarity, Monks grasped the real reason that Freeboot refused to take the little boy to a hospital—the reason why a man who would eat the raw heart of a deer quailed in terror at being tainted by the urine of his own son. The issues of faith, the distortion of
virtu
into a mystical healing power, the need to be sure he could trust Monks, were all a sham. The truth stemmed from Freeboot's diabetic uncle.

Freeboot was afraid that
he
, not Motherlode, had passed on the diabetes to Mandrake—afraid that medical examination would reveal this, and bring his megalomaniacal theory of his own superiority crashing down.

And he was willing to stand by and let his son die to keep that from happening.

Once again, despising himself for it, Monks kept his true feelings to himself.

“You've given me a lot to think about,” he said.

“We're just talking, that's all. We got to get to know each other a lot better. Trust, right?”

Monks nodded.

Freeboot turned and started away. The interview was over. But then he paused and looked back.

“You want to take a hot bath, let me know. We got a luxury setup.” He grinned. “Maybe even provide you some company, a pretty girl to wash your back—and, hey, who knows what else?”

“I'll think about that, too,” Monks said.

He walked on to the washhouse and cleaned up distractedly, trying to make sense of this gambit. Freeboot could hardly be serious about his offer to join, and Monks's initial hope—that he might be able to pay extortion money for Glenn and be set free—was long gone. After all that he had seen, that would be far too great of a risk for Freeboot. More likely, this show of friendliness was a way of keeping Monks cooperative, for as long as Mandrake stayed alive.

After that…

When Monks walked back outside, he saw that there were now three crows on the ground, croaking and flapping their wings at each other in contention for some bit of carrion. Sidewinder, the guard, was sighting his rifle at them and jerking the barrel up in a pantomime of each gunshot's recoil.

Monks felt the first light sprays of rain against his face.

 

In mid-morning, Monks heard the lodge's outside door slam violently, then bootsteps in the main room, heavy enough to rattle the lamp's glass chimney. He tensed, fearing that it was one of the guards, coming to drag him off to another lesson that Freeboot had arranged.

But a man's voice called out excitedly: “Marguerite! Where are you?”

Monks heard her muffled reply from the kitchen.

“Come when you're called, girl,” the man commanded.

Monks got up quietly and went to the bedroom's doorway. The unmistakable shape of Hammerhead stood in the room's center. He was holding something behind his back. His grin looked manic.

Marguerite walked slowly out of the kitchen, her own face tense and uncertain.

“I'm full
maquis
now,” Hammerhead announced. “I want you in the Garden, wearing this and nothing else.”

He thrust something toward her, holding it in his big hands and letting it slither through his fingers like a snake. Monks glimpsed a gold chain.

Marguerite's mouth opened, but not with the pleasure of a woman receiving a gift—more as if it
was
a snake. Her hands, instead of reaching to receive it, twisted each other nervously.

“Where'd you get that?” she breathed.

Hammerhead frowned. Clearly, this was not the reaction that he had expected.

“Never mind where I got it. You have to do what I tell you. Put it on!”

With obvious reluctance, she reached forward to accept it, and slipped it around her neck. At the end of the gold chain hung a dark green pendant, but Monks was too far away to see it clearly.

“Now come on,” Hammerhead said. He grasped her wrist, pulling her toward the door.

“Wait,” she said, struggling with his grip. “I have to feed Mandrake.”

This was not true, but Hammerhead didn't know that, and he seemed to realize that it was something he didn't dare interfere with. He hesitated, then pulled her close and planted a wide-mouthed kiss on her, an embrace she neither resisted nor accepted.

“Hurry up,” he said into her ear, in a voice thick with passion. “I've been waiting for this forever.”

He let her go and strode out of the building. Marguerite lifted the pendant off over her head and gazed at it, still looking troubled, but fascinated, too.

“If you're going to be leaving, Mandrake
could
use some soup,” Monks said.

She looked up at him swiftly, then spun away, clasping the pendant tight in her fist and hurrying back into the kitchen.

He returned to his chair, bemused by the exchange but too burdened by his other worries to try to make sense of it. Mandrake was still withdrawn and listless, not responding to Monks's attempts to draw him out. At first, Monks had thought it was from the shock of seeing the violent attack last night.

But Mandrake's forehead had gotten noticeably warmer during the night, and he was developing a weak but ugly cough. Mucus was forming in his nose, streaking his upper lip. Monks feared that he was coming down with a virus, or even pneumonia.

That could easily precipitate a coma. Then the end would not be far off, and there wasn't a thing in the world that Monks could do about it.

His watch read 10:14
A.M.
That left just seven hours of daylight to find a way out of here.