The Lucifer Messiah (6 page)

Even from a distance, the man's bizarre features were obvious, such that Vince marveled that they hadn't garnered his attention before. His face was narrow, but long with a chin that sported bristle-like whiskers. His nose was also long and thin. It came to a near point at the end, extending over a floppy black mustache that hid the man's lips. In all,
he looked more like a sewer rat than anything else.

Vince waited until the light changed to tie his other shoe. Sure enough, the rat-man blended into the crowd and crossed in his direction. He had now gone several blocks in the wrong direction, and the chase had grown tiresome. He was going to have to lose him.

Around the corner he went down into the subway. He darted into a newsstand, and then right back out the other end. Down the stairs into the subway entrance he walked for a few feet until he was shielded by a crowd. Then he doubled back.

As he crossed back over to the entrance, he saw the rat-faced man pass by, still looking ahead, unaware that Vince had eluded him. If it had been another time, Vince thought, he might have turned the tables and followed the follower, but Sean still languished in his apartment, and he needed the supplies.

He bounded up the stairs, in an effort to make up for lost time. As he did, he caught a glimpse of something out of the corner of his eye.

A girl.

She was perched like a pigeon, on the top of a ledge at the exit doorway. Not so far off the ground, but high enough that few people would ever sit there. That wasn't really what drew his eye though. It was the way she sat there.

Lots of bums and vagrants found their way into odd places, but she was none of those. Her blond hair was unbound, and it flowed long and free over her bare shoulders, despite the chill. Her pale face and icy green eyes seemed
to peer down, directly at him, as he left the terminal. It was as if no one else saw her. Vince paid her an eye for only a moment, though, strange though her sight was.

Arachne just smiled as he turned his back and walked away.

W
ARD'S
I
SLAND WAS A PECULIAR RUNT OF A PIECE OF
land. A misplaced, weed-ridden lump in the East River, awkwardly wedged between Manhattan, the Bronx, and Queens.

A black Cadillac sedan drove along its desolate vista past the whitewashed, ghostly edifice of Manhattan State Hospital. The sight spurred a cackle or two from somewhere within its labyrinthine halls, muffled by the filter of iron gratings that guarded the upper windows. Trailed by a cloud of gravel and dust, the car turned around the empty park and into the unpaved lot just beneath the Hell Gate Bridge. Noon was creeping up on the city, but the river overlook was deserted.

A last desperate call echoed from the confines of the lunatic ward as the sedan vanished under the behemoth structure. The wind was tormenting the Hell Gate currents with gusts that were every bit as violent as the cries escaping the nineteenth-century asylum.

It smelled like dead fish at low tide.

Another car was already waiting when it pulled up into the noisy shadows of the stone pylons. A train was clattering over the rails above, screeching eerily as it slowed. The monstrous white columns that formed the base of the bridge's stone arch seemed to be the only thing the railcars didn't rattle as they rumbled along far overhead.

Indian Joe slipped out of the first sedan, his black pinstriped suit pressed and creased in all the right places. Taking the man's appearance as a kind of cue, a grungy Chinese youth in a black leather coat exited the other vehicle, his hair jutting out from under an old hat and his beard half grown in. They greeted each other casually, but kept at arm's-length.

The Asian opened the door to his car, allowing Victor Huang to step out. He was a slight fellow, a fifty-ish gentleman also of Chinese birth, though much better dressed than his young associate in a sepia-brown suit with a starched yellow shirt, a striped tie and a matching handkerchief tucked into his coat pocket.

“How are you this morning Mr. Huang?” Indian Joe asked, bowing in an awkward, almost insulting fashion.

The Chinese man merely shook his bald head. He brushed a quick hand over his pointed gray mustache. That sort of ignorance no longer bothered him. He had been around too long.

“Is all this really necessary?” he began, his English devoid of any foreign accent. “Our places of business are not a mile apart. Why all this secrecy?”

“You'll have to excuse our methods,” Joseph answered.
“But you must understand that under some circumstances these types of precautions become necessary.”

The answer did not satisfy, but Huang left it alone.

“Is my money here?” he replied, his manner already betraying some of his ire.

Joseph simply shook his head.

“I am merely the driver, Mr. Huang. Mr. Calabrese waits for you as we speak. I'm sure he can answer all your questions.”

Joseph pointed the other man in the direction of the ornate sedan from which he himself had exited. The back door opened from the inside.

Huang, with a look back to his guard, entered.

Inside, protected from the noontime sun by purple velvet curtains drawn across the windows, Sam Calabrese sat patiently in an absurdly cartoonish white suit. He was polishing a gaudy gold bracelet encrusted with diamonds in a spiral pattern. Even in the daylight shadows, his belly and chin and legs seemed to sprawl out across the seat cushions. He didn't even look up when the other man entered, and closed the door behind him.

“Mr. Huang, I see you've spoken to Joseph. As I'm sure he's told you, these added security measures must be taken from time to time. I trust it will not affect our little arrangement.”

Huang made no attempt to conceal his unease.

“Mr. Calabrese, I don't know what kind of quantities you usually deal in, but I'd hardly call our arrangement little.”

“A euphemism, my friend. I merely wish to put you at
ease. Assuming all goes well, you'll have nothing to fear from me, despite what I'm sure you've heard. Trust me when I tell you, the old Salvatore Calabrese is no more, appearances to the contrary aside, of course.”

The other man did not appreciate his reference. Calabrese chose to move on with his business.

“I know that I have asked you for a great deal, and that the amounts we've discussed are significantly larger than your usual transactions. That is why I have taken such steps to give you extra time to accommodate me.”

“I understand that, but …”

Calabrese interrupted.

“Because no one wants this arrangement to end with violence. Not your Tong, and certainly not me,” Sam said. Finally, he looked up from his gold bracelet. He stared directly into Huang's eyes.

It took a lot to intimidate a man like Victor Huang. More than a few men would have died for his word, and he hadn't made his living for thirty-five years with his sense of congeniality. But when Sam Calabrese looked right at him, through him really, the Chinese man couldn't help but shudder.

It was the coldest stare he had ever seen. Vacant. Soulless. It was almost inhuman.

“I have done my best to fill your needs. And I continue to work on it. My people are dealing with this day and night. I don't know what you're planning here, but I'm not certain I'm equipped to handle this kind of order,” he finally said.

“Nonsense,” Calabrese answered. “Your operation has done excellent work thus far. The supplies of hashish and heroin have been superb, top quality in fact. And to be honest, I really never expected you to be able to locate any absinthe. I wouldn't worry about that. So in actual fact, our matter is very nearly closed. All that remains is the shipment of opium, along with the pipes and other incidentals.”

Huang gathered his resolve to answer.

“Well, that has proven difficult. You must have some very old-fashioned friends, Mr. Calabrese. There isn't a large market for straight opium anymore. I have had great difficulty amassing a supply large enough to meet your demands.”

Calabrese smiled. The grin did not put his associate at ease. In fact it made him more uncomfortable.

“Perhaps this will aid you,” Sam said, lifting a leather satchel and handing it to Huang.

He opened it, and quickly realized that it contained much more than the fifty thousand dollars they had negotiated.

“I trust that will go part of the way to smoothing over any problems you might encounter. I'll need my full amount satisfied in three nights' time.”

Again, Huang seemed uneasy. He was about to reply when Sam preempted him.

“Three nights. That is not negotiable.”

Just then, the door opened from outside. The expression on Indian Joe's face told Huang that the conversation was over.

S
EAN WAS SITTING UPRIGHT, IN AN ANTIQUE ROCKING
chair that looked almost as out of place amid the disarray of Vince's apartment as Maggie did. While his torso remained bandaged, his arm had been placed in a makeshift sling crafted from a sweat-stained T-shirt. It was dark outside, and getting late. His head was spinning, and he felt deathly cold, but he was awake.

That was a start.

“Time to change those sheets, they're starting to stink up the place. And that's hard to do in this sty,” Maggie said, rustling up the dirty linen on the couch beside him.

He couldn't really help, with his arm immobile and the pain that still lanced his side with every breath, but watching her there, he wished he could. Maybe that was why he felt the need to break the uncomfortable silence that followed as she folded up the old cloth and spread out the new.

Maybe it was that. Or maybe something else. Maybe he just wanted to talk to her,
with her,
again.

“If I haven't said so yet, thanks. I appreciate what you two are doing for me. Especially with the way we left things,” he stammered, through a cough that brought the warm taste of bile into the back of his throat.

“I haven't forgotten about that.”

“But you haven't mentioned it, either.”

“You haven't exactly been in any shape to be talking about ancient history lately,” she replied. “Considering that we had bigger problems to deal with, I figured it could wait until you were better.”

“I'm better now. A little, anyway,” he said without a hint of irony while a heavier cough plagued him with every breath.

“You're not better, not by a mile. Do you really want to broach this subject?”

“I don't want to wait another thirty years. That's for sure. Go ahead,” he answered.

Maggie was reluctant. His skin was so pale. He was sweating even though his forehead was cold to the touch. This wasn't the time to dredge up dirty laundry. Nevertheless, she began anyway.

“Well, I was mad at you, for a long time. I still am. A little, I think,” she said.

“Mad at me? How's that?”

“For leaving the way you did. Maybe just for leaving. For all the times that I needed you here.”

There was a lot she wanted to say, but her thoughts only came out in fragments.

Sean's reply seemed like more of a sneer than anything
else. “You had Vince.”

“That's not fair, and you know it. What happened, happened. I made a choice, and I've had to live with that ever since,” she answered.

“I could say the same for myself.”

“Yeah. I suppose you could. But at least I had the courtesy to tell you about mine. Do you think that was easy? It tore me apart, but I did it. I did it because you were my friend and I cared about you. When you ran away you didn't even say goodbye,” she said, finding it easier to let her feelings out the longer the conversation went on.

Sean, on the other hand, answered flatly. His tone was so vacant that the words seemed totally absent of emotion. “I hate goodbyes. I've made too many of them in my life. Always saying goodbye to someone, or someplace.”

Maggie shook her head. He could still disappoint her, even half a lifetime later.

Leaving him on the chair, she turned her back, and walked to the other side of the room. Sean almost settled his head back down, expecting her to have lost patience. She hadn't, though, and she proved it by opening Vince's old phonograph.

There were a few records piled next to it. One was already on the turntable. She placed the needle down gently, and the single spun. At first there was just the familiar crackle and static, then a hint of a tune that almost felt distant, until the horns blared.

“Do you remember this?” she asked, her back still turned.

Sean perked up his ears. The music was soft, but it had a strong tempo. He couldn't quite place it. He knew it, but it had been so long. As soon as he heard John McCormack's tenor voice, though, he remembered. He remembered everything.

Up to mighty London came an Irish lad one day

All the streets were paved with gold

So everyone was gay!

The first line brought it all back.

“It's a Long Way to Tipperary,” he said, a certain satisfaction clear in his voice. “I haven't heard this in years.”

Neither one spoke for a moment. They just listened to the old tune, to a song that seemed to have been everywhere during the War.

Singing songs of Piccadilly, Strand and

Leicester Square

Till Paddie got excited and he shouted to Them there

“I played it earlier, but you were passed out. I used to cry every time I heard this. Especially after you were gone,” she said, turning back to face him from across the room.

It's a long way to Tipper-ary

It's a long way to go

It's a long way to Tipper-ary

To the sweetest girl I know!

“I'm sorry.”

It was all he could think to say.

“Sorry?” she shot back.

“For that. For this. I was angry in those days. You
were my world, you and Vince. When you told me you were gonna marry him, it was … I don't know, it wasn't like anything, really. It was the worst thing I could imagine, the worst thing in the whole world, so I thought.”