The Nervous System (24 page)

There are two advantages to this development, one of which is my gun slides neatly back into my hand, the other is that we are effectively shielded from fire on the Whitehall Terminal roof.

A pause in the action; the Cyna-corp grunts holler and hoot at each other, scrambling to put Plan B in effect. We've come to a very unsteady stop against the sloping side of the far larger shipwreck, face-on with the ferry terminal.

Rose is prone, kicking the aluminum paneling in the ship's cabin.

A bullet zips past my ear and cracks the glass behind me. I get clever, get my head down.

Very cautiously I withdraw the box cutter and start sawing at Rose's armcuffs. What I need is some kind of wire clipper … It all but breaks my cutter in two but after a fair bit of struggling I'm through the cuffs, which come snapping off Rose's chafed and bleeding wrists. Go to work on her legs … same story here, I get about halfway through and my box cutter snaps like a stale pretzel, though I'm able to pull the remaining plastic off with my hands, gloved as they are.

Rose is coughing into the tape around her mouth, and I peel that off, again being cautious not to hurt her in the process.

I wanna be clean, lather up with some sweet Purell
^TM
, but the situation doesn't allow for it.

After an impressive coughing fit Rose recovers to the point where she's able to speak: “You
know
Deluccia? You used to fucking work for him?”

My head feels hot, me saying, “Just give me a minute, Rose, this is not—”

“I knew something was up. What fucking gives, Mister X? He was more interested in getting you back on his team than in … Oh, and thank you for saving my life, or rather, for making my death more drawn-out and complicated—”

“Shut it for two seconds. Lady, what gives with you shadowing me to the library in the first place? If you got an organization to run, you're not doing your peoples a favor, putting yourself at serious fucking risk for some fucking outsider, or am I missing some shit?”

“Mister X, I
needed
to go with you. Don't you see? I needed to disappear too.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“They would have found me anyway. Why not just walk into it? Less people getting hurt. It makes less sense now that I say it. Made sense at the time …” She trails off, looking at my shoulder. Goes white. Looks around the cabin wildly.

Swaying slightly. “Rose … okay now, what are you doing?”

She's hunched over the dead guy, pulling off his bulletproof vest, and working off the dude's black polyester shirt. She comes up with it, presses hard into my shoulder, a move which is so excruciating that I very nearly black out.

“You're bleeding.” She sounds scared, which in turn makes me nervous. “Hey. You're bleeding really fucking bad.”

Pressing on the wound, I don't particularly want to but I look down, rotate my arm forward, and dig with some relief on a clear exit point. My brain pounding, flushed with liquid.

“In 'n out,” I say, cause that's what you're supposed say, like it's great news. “S'fucking nothing.” Give her a grin, aiming for something reassuring. “Thanks though, darlin.”

Calculate the shot is high enough so as to not present any problems. If an artery had been hit I'd be bled out already. I might be tilting a hair, but this boy still got that PMA, see? Takes a fair bit to slow down my grind. Lightheaded as a motherfucker though.

Rose's mouth moves but I seem to have momentarily lost my hearing. Try not to be overly concerned about that, distract myself by having a look at the boat's control system … a wheel and a throttle. It seems simple enough but I like to observe the old maxim: when drinking or bleeding heavily, avoid operating vehicles or heavy machinery.

“… a fucking communications major,” Rose is saying. “I may have been involved with some bad stuff but never in my life have I been near …”

No, rather I have a look at the window on the ferry we're nuzzling … not quite level with our position, we bounce about two feet below it, but it seems far more realistic than trying to figure out how to skipper a boat, especially in my condition. I know we should be trying to put distance between ourselves and the Cyna-corp people but I reckon at this juncture it's all the same.

Peel off my overcoat with some effort, as it's heavy with water and blood, not to mention I'm doing everything one-handed. Strap on the dead man's vest. Cause you never know. I also snag a nasty-looking diver's knife he's got strapped to his belt. With reluctance I shoulder my shot-up coat back on.

“… gotta keep direct pressure, what the fuck are you doing? That's a serious …” Rose is saying, shrill.

Fuck this, I gotta move.

“Rose,” I interrupt her, “can you … shield yourself somehow, okay … gonna just …”

Duck out of the cabin and the rain greets me, tepid and nasty. Rose calling to me but I'm out of range, crab-walking out onto the front of the boat, toward the machine gun, my new leather-soled shoes slip-sliding all over the wet surface.

Those gentlemen on the terminal roof get excited and commence firing again, but it's a tougher shot now, we're far enough out to make it challenging … doesn't stop them from trying. Good boys. Peripherally I note a Coast Guard boat of the same make as ours, another longer vessel, even a couple hot shots revving jet skis.

A chopper loops over the terminal, and this breaks my stupor. Fucking choppers.

Do it, Decimal. Take ahold of the big gun, have a quick peek at its mechanism, slip the safety off.

Breathe, on an exhale I spray the terminal from east to west in a slow deliberate movement, then shift the barrel up and give the heli and the guys upstairs a little. I don't think I hit much of anything but my point is made.

This latest Dewey Decimal appearance seems to have given the boys cause for a rethink, everybody seems to back up a step, engines drop a gear, all positive stuff for my purposes. Chopper cruises straight over my head, out onto open water. I don't need to look to know it's banking around for another pass.

Take this opportunity to rotate the gun and train it on the ferry window, call again for Rose to cover herself, press and hold the trigger, chewing up the hard clear plastic, one eye on the helicopter … After what seems like an age, considering I have my naked back to a lot of men with weapons, the window folds and collapses out of its frame.

Go low and scuttle to the cabin just as the helicopter lets loose its guns on us, Rose shrieking, once again I do my utmost to cover her with my body. Give it a second and as the chopper passes I snatch up the lady, hoist her through the hole I've created, and into the ferry. Pain. Hand, hips, and leg calling mercy, mercy on a cripple.

Bullets and dirty rain slap the surrounding area, but I pay this no mind as I grasp the sill and haul myself up, thankful that I'm a scarecrow-assed motherfucker. I come up over the side and put my legs down on a wood bench, then tumble forward onto the floor of the ferry.

Rose is crouched next to me. Talking again. “… so fucking scared. I am so fucking scared.”

So am I, Rose. But that's not the part of me in control at the moment. I rarely let that pussy drive. Drives scared, and that gets you dead.

Move. We're up, swaying toward the stairs. This particular Circle Line boat probably dates from the 1960s, an elder in their fleet, and the deck slopes at a thirty-degree angle. Noxious rain and river water has pooled up on this side of the boat, as well as soaked cardboard boxes of Cracker Jacks and M&Ms and a large number of various floating soft drink bottles, bobbing in the shallow lake.

I believe it's one of those triple-decker affairs. Rose goes down and I manage, only just, to catch her by her forearm, which feels childlike, insubstantial. Vaguely register her protestations but I'm getting progressively dizzier, motherfuckers, I need to keep hitting it while I'm still capable of movement.

Find the stairs, everything at fun-house angles, attempt a quick look back at the terminal but my vision, my vision is … dim, things seem to be contracting like the end of an old film as the curtains move in from the sides. Gotta hurry this up.

Two flights up and we're out in the open again, the rain pelting the deck and tickling my hot skull. Rose slips and falls onto one knee, I haul her back up, she slips again. I'm blinking, blinking against the wind and rain, again I steady Rose and we stumble forward, slipping and sliding on the oily surface of the deck, and in due course we are at the plexiglass railing, with nowhere else to go but straight down into the river.

Fuck me. All indicators pointing to an ugly resolution here.

“Hey yo!” calls a vaguely familiar voice from behind us, only just audible over the drumming of falling water on metal. Or maybe I'm imagining it.

Wearily, with scarcely any air in my chest, I turn to face a masked Cyna-corp soldier. And more to the point, I am looking down the elongated barrel of a Colt Python.

I've had it. This has to stop. I am smoked out, people. But my body, on its own accord, has brought my CZ level with the soldier's bug mask.

“Do what you gotta do with me here, we gonna tussle, whatever. But the lady walks,” I wheeze. I am not sure if I'm heard.

The Colt is partially lowered.

“Bitch-ass nigga,” says the soldier. Sounding triumphant, and very familiar. “Stuck-up motherfucker, look who's shining now!”

“Kim!” snaps Rose, launches into a Korean tirade that my spent brain doesn't decipher straight off …

Kim, peeling off his headgear. His black hair plastered to his scalp by sweat. Stupid handsome, he wears that dumb grin, nodding at Rose.

Tune it in …

“… gonna walk us out of here right now, Kim, you have some fucking nerve.”

Still nodding, showing us his healthy chompers, the young Kim speaks in English. “Word to God. Miss Hee, with all respect to my
shateigashira
, you gotta speak a little more respectful to me. Situation done changed, yo. Up in this bitch all ninja, drop it
Mission Impossible
–style.” And turning to me again. “Hey, how's it feel …? Hey yo, lower the heater, faggot.”

I don't do it. I don't think that would be wise. Never did exactly trust this kid and now I sense I'm getting confirmation of his shifty-ass loyalties. No soul.

Kim laughs. “Are you crazy, dog?”

Rose saying, her arm on mine “… here to bail us out, that's not a very gracious …”

“I get it now, so you gonna save us, Kim?” I say. “You gonna fly us home all magically delicious?” Finding a little oxygen, a little booster for my blood, emergency stuff I must've had on reserve. “You the real big boss here, you the hero?”

“Got some nerve, black, I will say that. All backed up against the wall and still beefing—”

“Not putting my gun down, Kim,” I say, eyes flapping at the rain, wishing I could see straight. “So make your move if you got one, hot stuff.”

Rose is jerking her gaze back and forth between us like she's at a tennis match.

Kim's big dumb grin twists itself into a hard leer. Rose starts to put it together.

“Don't fucking tell me you're …
working
for them, Kim,” she says.

The boy jerks her into his chest, she lets out a short scream. The Python is back up and directed at me.

“Oh, don't sweat it, Miss Hee. Ain't nothing really changed.”

I try to get sensible on the boy: “Don't be a fucking dumb-ass, Kim. Let her go. This is the wrong route, brother, I'm telling you. These folks have nothing for you.”

Rose is vibing pissed off and brave. “I'm your family, Kim, and you want to fuck that up?”

“Listen to Rose, Kim. She's making some sense,” I say. My gun hasn't moved out of his face. The better part of me hopes he doesn't make me do it. Feeling stronger. Don't know where the extra energy is coming from, but Allah knows I need it.

Kim laughs again, and it's a nasty sound. “This nigger.”

“You don't get to call me that, Kim. Now let's back this up and do it right, there's still opportunity here to do the proper thing. No sweat. Let's just rewind this shit.”

Kim is squinting, eyes hooded, and if he's wavering, I can only tell by his voice, which oscillates only ever so slightly. “Naw. Jal ja, bitch.”

Me and Kim. We fire our guns at the same time. Doesn't please me in the least and I think of his asthma inhaler, his basic humanity, but I put one in his eye, or at least I'm pretty sure because in short order I'm distracted by the force of the .357 caliber bullet hitting my vest like an anvil, emptying my lungs, and knocking me back just enough to compromise my footing.

I slip and go backward over the side of the boat. The foul water comes hustling greedily up to meet me.

Despite everything that's transpired, I'm blowing taps, and mourning yet another perfectly good suit. And thinking this Kim kid wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed, despite his drive. The punk put his money on the wrong horse. So motherfuck him.

Hit the poison river like it's concrete, and the darkness that's been loitering takes the opportunity to pounce. And consumes me.

_______________

A
t the precinct, seated at a metal table. A coconut Yoo-hoo and a set of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups are placed in front of me. It takes my twelve-year-old brain a bit to come to the understanding that this bounty is actually mine to do with as I see fit. To date, it's one of the kindest things anybody has ever done for me.

But shit. That bar was set pretty low to begin with.

The cop with the mustache and the gentle voice straddles the chair across from me backward, like Rog from
What's Happening!!
His mustache is salt-and-pepper, brown with some gray in it. Kind of like my dad's beard looked just before he finally gave up, let it all go.