The Light is the Darkness (13 page)

“Kimosa.” Conrad punched the gas, jarred Singh back in his seat.

“Right. Kimosa. I guess the fellow thought you’d come to cut his throat; raised quite a stink with the consulate, I gather. We just tied that to you—all very hush-hush, you see. How did you find him? Never mind, stupid question. Your sister did the heavy lifting, didn’t she. You just pitched cleanup on a bunch of worn down geriatrics. I doubt the majority of them understand what it is you think they know. His relationship to TALLHAT would’ve never occurred to me if we hadn’t confiscated those documents on the island.”

“So, Cardinal played for the Company. Lots of my friends do.”

“The booze hound was indeed a Company man.” Singh gazed at the stop and go traffic, loose-limbed and disaffected as usual. “Wicked stuff he got up to in his day, I must admit. The chap is from the old school—I’m shocked he didn’t pop off to his garret and down a cyanide pill after you forced him to divulge his secrets.”

“I didn’t force him to divulge anything. I asked nicely.”

“Did you get anything useful? He was never trusted with any sensitive information.”

“That’s what he told me.”

“Look, Conrad…something has happened.”

“No shit. I thought this was a social occasion.”

They left the metropolitan core, crossed into stark regions populated by grimy warehouse fronts, liquor stores and low income housing complexes stacked in concrete blocks.

It grew steadily dimmer, God’s thumb on the dial.

V

Conrad parked on the street and followed Singh up steps littered with pigeon droppings to a security door of the Wanderveldt Apartments. It was a tall conical building, a decrepit 1950s tenement riddled with tunnels and chambers like a termite colony in a grey stump. Singh thumbed the button by 203 G. MOTT and shortly, they were buzzed in without comment.

The foyer was damp and papered by dead leaves. A wheezing, shuddering elevator with brassy wall plates raised them to the third floor, deposited them in a claustrophobically narrow corridor that went on and on under a series of dim globes, many of which were broken out, or blank as glass eyes. Flies shrilled in the dark globes; tiny, damned souls searching for the light. Rough plaster walls were scarred by fissures, brown water stains and occasional jags of graffiti that almost made sense to Conrad if he regarded them from the corner of his eye. Voices seeped through the plaster, mingled with the complaints of the flies. Pipes groaned.

Singh knocked at 203 and waited. He pinched open a pack of Gauloises, stuck a cigarette in his mouth and offered the pack to Conrad.

“Thanks,” Conrad said, noting the many pizza delivery fliers before the door, an iris-dilation in the peephole. Sweat greased his face, made the briefcase handle slippery in his fist. He slowed his breathing, forced his neck to relax.

Singh lighted both cigarettes with a match from a small wooden box that he’d carried for as long as Conrad had known him.

“Un momento, por favor.”
Locks rattled.

The door swung in to a darkened space, rich with incense, hash and underlying mildew. First Singh, then Conrad on his heel.

A blanket of jungle-ripe humidity smacked Conrad in the face. The door shut and it was full night, except for a sliver of light probing beneath the drapes of a window somewhere to the right. Ghostly classical orchestra echoed from another room. Brahms at work. Someone giggled—bubbly and feminine. The record skipped and began again.

“Don’t move,” Marsh said from the darkness behind Conrad and to the left. Phosphorescent green light bloomed. Marsh stepped around and played a crackling wand over Conrad’s shoulders, chest and extremities. Marsh resembled a hugely ursine airline security checker in cyclopean headgear and a Hawaiian flower print shirt and Bermuda shorts. He sweated Scotch in the sultry confines. “He’s good.” He snapped the wand off and Conrad went blind with green aftershocks.

Singh switched on a floor lamp.

The apartment was subdivided into a hive—Conrad counted four flimsy wooden doors and a curtain of beads. Each door had been painted a different color: red; orange; blue; and white. The outer area had been stripped to some open beer bottles, pregnant ashtrays and a folded laptop computer on the kitchenette counter; a sectional and a moldy phone book, but no phone. Near the balcony sliding door Mediterranean incense sizzled in an iron brazier shaped like a Buddha with pronounced incisors. Conrad wondered if they’d ripped the thing off from an art gallery or a museum.

Marsh unhooked his headgear, slapped it on the counter. He squinted and rubbed his blunt hands on his shirt. His stubbly head was something that should’ve rolled from a cannon barrel. “You got crabs, Singh.”

“Indeed? You are referring to the jet Cutlass, Nevada plates, number Alpha-Charley-two-two-oh-niner? I picked him up at the museum. He parked about half a block down on the west side of the street. Poppa Z’s goons, I presume. They seem quite proprietary regarding our friend here.”

Marsh regarded Conrad. “In the old days, we just garroted guys, or stabbed them with a poisoned umbrella tip. Things are too damned complicated. We got lasers; we got masers; we got nanoviruses and white frequencies that’ll short your cerebral cortex in one-one-hundredth of a millisecond. For instance —we got a killsat in synchronous orbit, keyed to your heat signature. Actually, it’s a Russian surplus geological satellite with minor tweaks; shoots x-rays into the ground so corporations can decide where to drill. The fact it’ll cook any organic life in its projection path is a happy side effect. You can smoke just about any bunker in the world with one of these puppies. It’s all in knowing where to point it. Wanna drink?”

Conrad leaned against the wall in the pale outline where a picture had hung. He didn’t trust his voice. He shook and dripped. His clothes stuck to him as if he’d strolled through a sauna.

“What’s with him?” Marsh grabbed Conrad’s briefcase, tossed it aside. “Going downhill fast, aren’t you, killer? Don’t look much like a world beater from where I’m standing. Good thing we brought you here for this little powwow. Things are getting out of hand.”

Singh rinsed a couple of glasses in the sink and a dumped scotch into each. He pressed one on Conrad. “Health!”

“Your liver’s got to be the size of a soccer ball. How’n the hell do you stay in shape to do what you do?” Marsh said.

It was an old question, Marsh’s notion of an icebreaker. Conrad drank his glassful, enjoyed the ephemeral bite, the transitory and finite thrill, like gasoline drying on pavement. Besides frequent visits to the Big Stage, how did he maintain his edge, his dominant physical power? Ask a crocodile, fat and torpid on its sunny clay bank how it stayed fit and deadly. Same answer would apply. “If you aren’t planning to snuff me, let’s discuss business.”

Marsh and Singh exchanged glances. Marsh said, “Snuff you? You thought—?” The big man laughed. His cheeks flushed and he hacked phlegm into a kerchief. “Oh shit, that slays me. You need to relax, son. Where do you think we are, Zimbabwe? Drama queen.”

“He was joking about the killsat—the cone isn’t that precise; we might get toasted as well. I would’ve just had one of our sniper associates do the deed at the museum. Far less messy. Here, let’s freshen that a bit, yeh. There’s a lad.” Singh poured Conrad another dose with a trembling hand.

Why was Singh nervous?
Have I ever seen them like this?
Conrad didn’t think so. Damn it, maybe they meant to kill him after the transaction, kind assurances notwithstanding.

Murmurs and a groan escaped the room with the Brahms. More giggling from beyond the white door. The humidity was thicker, stronger. Shadows swelled in the cracks and corners, began to rise in a tidal trough.

“Who’s here?” Singh gestured with his glass at the white door.

“Vonda. The hooker, remember? She got here a few minutes ago.” Marsh gave his partner a bluff and hearty grin that lacked conviction. A convulsion of the jaw and nothing more.

“Wanda?” Conrad said, chilled.

“Vonda.”

“Oh! Vonda. Yes, right then. Let’s hurry this along, shall we. It would be impolite to keep the lady waiting.”

“Yeah. Meter’s running.”

The lamp flickered and everyone stared at it. Conrad’s throat was tight again; his body felt too heavy, too full of sand and water. The room seemed to have gained several gravities.

“Time to get down to brass tacks,” Marsh said, as if briskness would dispel doom. “Here’s the score. This is the kiss off. You and us, we’re through. The operation has been terminated. The operation never existed. We don’t know anything about the underground battle royales, your crazy fucking sister, Project TALLHAT, nothing. We don’t know no Conrad, Conrad.”

“Fine by me. What’s the catch?”

“We’ll be out of your hair once we’ve squared accounts.”

“Squared accounts. What does that mean.”

“Means we needs must part,” Marsh said.

“And the shoe drops.”

“The deal is—you buy out our interest in your future enterprises, indemnify us against the possibility we lose a ton profit on account of your, uh, premature demise. Say, oh, five hundred grand.” Marsh patted the laptop. “We can handle the transaction right here.”

Conrad held up two fingers. “Okay, boys. I’ll go two-hundred even, and this had better be good. Not here. I don’t trust you that much, M. I’ll retreat someplace a tad more secure and wire your payoff.” Half a million wasn’t beyond his capability, but the last thing he wanted was to hand these two jackals enough money to cap him and disappear to whatever tropical paradise they’d been lining up since they were cadets at spook academy.

Even as Marsh opened his mouth, Singh cut in, “Jolly idea. Agreed. Agreed, Robert?”

Marsh shook his head in defeat. “Do you understand what kind of guy you’re messing with? I mean, really, truly, understand?”

“The Brazilian? He’s done some antisocial things—”

“Not him. He’s a patsy, a stooge—just like your daddy was. Ciphers for the real player, the wizard behind the curtain. I’m talking about Drake. Ambrose Zora Drake. Really should a told us about him.”

The jig was up, then. They knew everything. Probably not
everything
, but more than enough.“What’s to understand? Drake killed my brother and probably my sister. Because of him my mom blew herself to hell and my dad ended up in a nut hatch. I think that covers the episodes you missed.”

“Whoa, whoa. It’s always about baby Imogene, isn’t it, bud? I looked into all that. You poor dupe. Your sister… How can I put it, Singh?”

“Delicately,” Conrad said. He dropped his empty glass and straightened.

“Hey, we’re friends,” Marsh said. He and Singh casually sidled away from Conrad’s considerable reach. “I’m just saying, okay? She might not have given you the whole story. You’re loyal and that’s sweet. But she wasn’t spotless, she wasn’t exactly true blue. I’m not casting judgment—we all gotta eat. Sis hooked up with Lorca, who is quite a dubious character, then they took a hit of the Brazilian’s wonder drug and were never quite the same. She went to the dark side. Am I right?”

Conrad looked at the floor, felt the big vein in his neck throb. “Drake is alive. Really and truly.”

“Oh, that is affirmative,” Singh said.

“Drake was the brains behind the Brazilian. Drake probably owned the Brazilian since Souza enrolled in med school back in Eighteen-fucking-whenever.”

“Why are you afraid of him? Like you say, he’s gotta be older than Mengele. A has-been on the lam from everybody with a badge.”

“Guess again, Connie. Take as many guesses as you need, even.”

“You picked Jonah’s whale for an enemy,” Singh said. “Drake is far beyond the likes of us peasants.”

“An untouchable? Counting down until the ball drops in a Nazi retirement home?”

Marsh and Singh exchanged looks again. Marsh barked and poured more liquor. “Drake runs a show you wouldn’t believe. As for Nazis, well, same ballpark. He’s a satyr. He’s Caligula and de Sade and the Pope rolled in a ball. Frankly, I bet he could buy and sell the Vatican. Guess that qualifies him as an untouchable.”

“What if he’s a terrorist too?” Conrad said.

“Plenty of terrorist masterminds are good with Uncle Sam. As of this moment, mums the word from HQ. Drake definitely has friends in our government. Get the drift?”

“Drake indulges peculiar appetites and our chain of command is at least peripherally aware,” Singh said. “There are documents, pictures… I regret having seen them.”

Coming from Singh, that was saying a lot, Conrad knew. “I’ve heard things. So what. Another rich bastard with the usual kinks. I know the type.”

“Wrong, stud. Whatever you’ve heard, I promise that ain’t the half of it.” Marsh’s eyes glittered. “Nothing is going to see light of day in our lifetimes. Records of his activities have a habit of getting misplaced or destroyed. Don’t they, Singh?”

“Oh, yes.”

“People on high have dropped the cloak of darkness over his shoulders. It’s not unusual, happens all the time. bin Laden, Noriega, guys like that were on the dole long before they became public enemy numero Uno. In some ways, it gets worse. At least for you.”