The Lucifer Messiah (20 page)

“The one you call Sean. He is your friend, is he not?” Argus began.

“He was, once. A long time ago,” Vince answered, truly frightened for the first time he could remember.

“And you care for him still?”

The question was simple enough, but Vince waited a while before answering. He wanted a drink. His lips were so dry. Argus merely stood before him. He seemed as patient as a statue, unmoving but for the scarlet flickering of his half-dozen eyes, which did not blink together, but rather in an endless, unnerving sequence. One after the other, on and on. Five of the six were always open.

“He came to me for help. What was I gonna do? He was my best friend. I lost him once, and I never had …”

“Never had?”

“Never had a friend like him again,” Vince finally said, unable to look upon the extreme visage any longer.

“Then if you care for him, you must help us find him,” Argus said, sensing his
guest's
anxiety, moving closer to place his bony hand on the ex-cop's shoulder.

“I don't even know who … what … you are,” he said, still unable to look upon the strange being.

“We are the only ones who can help him. You must
know by now, there are very dangerous people looking for him. They
will
find him, sooner or later. And when they do, they will kill him. Of that I can assure you.

“Help us. Help us help him.”

T
HERE WAS AN ENVELOPE DANGLING FROM HER DOOR
-knob. Not so strange a sight, perhaps. But given the events of recent days, Maggie wasn't sure what to make of it. It stirred a moment of hope in her, but that optimism was quickly overwhelmed.

She had only been out for a short while, looking for Sean or Vince. Anyone really, though she'd somehow known she wasn't likely to find either one. It was now drawing past noon. There'd been no sign of either once since the previous morning.

The envelope was yellowed. The paper seemed delicate, aged like old newsprint. It was sealed with a glob of red wax that had been imprinted with a round stamp. She didn't recognize the design. For a moment she guessed it to be Greek, but didn't give the matter much thought.

It wasn't addressed to anyone, so she snapped it open. A single sheet of parchment, dry and ancient as the envelope, was folded inside. Text was inscribed in scarlet ink across its face. The script was elegant, a little archaic even. The first letter of every word was oversized and each “S”
was rendered with a long tail like an “F,” which lent the message a classical air, but only complicated her reading of it.

Was it a joke? The thought crossed her mind for a moment.

When she read it, brief though it was, all ideas of humor slipped away. She felt a chill crawl over her. Her fingers trembled as she fiddled with the keys in her purse. They clattered against the lock as she clumsily unfastened it.

The apartment was dark. She wanted to call out after Sean, but she couldn't muster the voice. Instead she tore through the place in silence. As she suspected, he was not there.

She thought about staying, waiting for him to return, but she couldn't do that. Vince was in trouble. She needed to find Sean. So she left, venturing out into the neighborhood like she had so many times as a child, looking for Sean Mulcahy.

It was almost as if the last thirty years had changed nothing.

The afternoon had passed, and the evening was growing late. Long midday shadows were threatening to spill over, stretched out and tired in the wake of endless rows of brown brick and age-stained iron. A dark tide seemed poised to wash fully into the narrow, dirty streets as the sun failed in a red-orange haze somewhere beyond the west. Alleyways
and vestibules and alcoves had already flooded, shallows submerged by the first lightless waves.

Maggie had tried all the old haunts. She'd poked through most of the midtown after-work joints around Eighth Avenue and the West Thirties, but saw no sign of Sean amid the chattering throngs of lawyers and accountants and insurance salesmen dulling their senses just enough to stomach the commute home.

That hadn't really been a surprise, but it was worth making sure.

She'd fought her way through the hive of worker drones circulating in and out of Penn Station like a swarm shuffling about a subterranean nest, then around the big post office as it closed down for the night, and over toward Tenth. The bars there were a little less upscale, if that was saying anything, and a little more local in the way of patrons.

Most of the swill consumed in those pubs was chugged on tattered stools under lowlight by grizzled, hard-faced rail-yard men still stained with their daily mess of black dust and grease. The chatter was rougher too, a blend of accents throwing up guttural laughter and tossing around casual, working class vulgarity. More Vince's kind of place.

She had no luck in any of those dives either, barring the four or five drinks she had been offered in as many locations or the slightly incoherent marriage proposal whispered in her ear at
O'JVeil's Aran Isles.

So she'd scrambled through the tunnel traffic that always clogged five or six blocks in each direction around that time of the day, north toward the lower forties. She
was still fairly certain from her memory of Vince's old habits which places she could rule out without physically going in. That cut down on her options quite a bit. Personally checking every Irish pub in Hell's Kitchen would have taken days.

By half past seven on her grandmother's pocket-watch, she had already covered just about everyplace she could think of, and still hadn't found a trace of Sean Mulcahy. Now she was reduced to checking inside every liquor store and bodega.

The sun was down fully. Night had fallen over the city. Maggie knew that she was passing through a part of town that wasn't safe after dark.

Some teenagers were loitering on the corner as she left a Spanish-run newsstand, passing a bottle between them. Local Irish kids, she figured. All of them sported short-cropped hair in identical military fashion, but they were far from clean-cut. Several wore similar jackets, the black leather beaten and creased. Dirty, threadbare clothes clung to the rest of them, knees ripped out of their trousers and holes dotting their shirts. None of them looked to have bathed in days.

As Maggie approached, a kid named Gerry stirred from their circle. He was nineteen, but the scruff on his face added a few years, making him look more like he was in his early twenties. The others followed behind him. He was the largest of them, which was more than enough to qualify him as their leader.

“Hey, hey pretty lady. What's doin'?” he said.

Maggie growled under her breath. She was no stranger to the bands of restless delinquents who roamed the Kitchen. She tried to stay calm, even as she felt her hands trembling. They were probably just drunk, she told herself.

“Get lost kid,” she sneered, stepping past the group as if they weren't there.

His friend, a younger kid named Brian, stepped in front of her. Despite his evident youth, Brian had a nasty gray scar snaking across his chin and jaw, and he spit out a wad of chaw that landed inches from Maggie's foot. A slight brown stain remained on his lips.

Even though it wasn't late, the street was empty.

“Hey, now. That ain't a very nice way ta talk to my buddy there,” he said, through a mouthful of yellowed, crooked teeth.

He was near enough for her to smell him. His breath was like a dog's. Shit mixed with yesterday's trash, warmed over with a hint of cheap whiskey.

“Yeah, ‘specially fer a lady who just come outta that spic joint,” Gerry added, moving shoulder to shoulder beside his friend.

The others were drifting into a circle around them. One of them fingered half a broomstick handle. Another made a show of cracking his knuckles.

“What are you talking about?” Maggie said, obviously impatient with the delay.

“Valencia's. That's a spic name, damn PRs are takin' over,” Brian replied.

“Yeah, ‘cause this used to be a nice neighborhood till
them greasy slimeballs started movin' in,” Gerry said, without even a hint of irony.

“You got a helluva mouth on you for a little boy,” she scolded.

“Whoa, there! Maybe you don't get it, honey. See we don't like them spics too much, but the lousy Americans who go with 'em are worse,” Gerry said, his voice raised and his hand outstretched.

From behind her a third one stepped up, a gangly red-haired kid named Brendan. His shirt was two sizes too small; his wardrobe had not yet caught up with latest growth spurt.

“Yeah, she's prolly sleepin' wit some slimy Rican!” he said. It was the wittiest thing he could think to say, but it won him a laugh from his buddies.

“Why don't you lemme show you what a real American man is like!” Gerry offered. He was joking, but the joke brought on a raucous cheer from his cronies.

“Alright, you're all very tough,” she said, exasperated.

She tried to push past Brian, but to no avail.

Finally, she shifted her handbag from both arms to one, and put her free hand on her hip, the schoolteacher expression crossed her face again. She turned her attention toward Gerry, if for no other reason than he appeared to be the most vocal of the four.

“Okay. What do you say you and me take a little walk over there and talk this over?”

Excited by the offer, but cautious, Gerry slowly stepped backward toward the alley behind the store. His eyes
remained focused on Maggie, however, who followed him with a careful glide.

“What do you have in mind?” he whispered, once they were out of earshot of the other guys.

“You'll see.”

She bridged the gap between them and they continued to wander farther back into the alley. Then, she neared, and placed her face right up next to his.

He stank of the same cheap whiskey and old cigarettes. Bad, but not nearly as foul as she had expected under the circumstances.

“I'm sure you'll remember this …”

With as much calm as anyone raised on the streets, Maggie let her handbag fall to the ground, her keys remaining in her grip. Gerry was still staring into her eyes. He never saw the swing.

The smash of the jagged makeshift weapon, chased by a howl-like scream alerted the others. They turned from their awkward guarding of the street and rushed into the alley. She tried to run, to push by them as they came toward her, but they reached their arms out and closed off her only avenue of escape. Brian caught her. He shoved her back into the alley.

Gerry remained on the pavement, holding his forehead with his hands. A healthy stream of blood was slipping between his fingers and dripping into his face. He felt the tear on his scalp. He bottled his rage up with a snarl.

“You fiery bitch!” Brian shouted as he grabbed hold of her, clenching her arms hard in his grasp.

“Yeah! Nail her right here, Bri!” Brendan shouted.

Kevin, the tallest of the group, with dark hair and a large pale face, said nothing. He merely nodded, looking Maggie up and down as the others laughed. Then he opened a switchblade.

“Make sure Ger' is okay,” he told Brendan. Then he turned to Brian, who had Maggie held fast in his dirty hands. “And you make sure you don't let go of her.”

He waved the knife in front of her face. Maggie spit at him, but it was a feeble gesture. The tip of the blade stroked her throat and sliced open her blouse. She wanted to scream, but she felt her chest tense and her voice failed her. A tear formed in her eye as the knife pricked her flesh.

Then everything froze.

A cat squealed in the shadows.

Something rattled a chain-link fence in the dark, just out of sight.

Someone cleared his throat.

“Now, boys. Play nice, eh?” a voice scolded from the ether.

It wasn't clearly male or female, but it was authoritarian; commanding in a weird way, like a mother talking to her children. It seemed to have no source whatsoever.

“What the hell is that?” Brian questioned.

“Whoever you are, scram! This ain't your problem.” Kevin shouted into the dim.

He was answered with a deathly still. A quiet that was unusual for Hell's Kitchen.

Thinking his words to have scared away any interlopers,
Kevin continued to trace the blade along Maggie's exposed chest. Gerry smiled as he got up.

A tin can tumbled out from behind a dumpster, rolling in the awkward end-over-end fashion that only happened when someone kicked it.

“I've warned you once. Now go away
boys,”
the peculiar voice intoned again. For an instant, the last word resonated through every corner of the cramped space.

“Take her over there,” Gerry said.

Brian dutifully obeyed. With some of the others, he tugged on Maggie and forced her to walk behind a second dumpster, beneath a fire escape.

“Whoever you are. We're gonna make you sorry too,” Kevin said, Gerry and Brendan at his sides, fists bared.