The Shaft (42 page)

    His mouth worked, chewing what was not there, yet chewing it well and fully. The table would easily allow him to poke his head through the service hatch for recon.

    
Trap,
he heard a voice warn.

    He tossed the Folger's can through underhand. It fell back and clattered. He already hated the noise it made. With the table chocked in place he eased up, gun-first. More nothing.

    The shaft was dim, faintly very descent, showing shadows but few details. Cruz's eyes adjusted and pain stroked rearward from his temples. The thin table legs wobbled. About ten feet above the car he thought he could discern the band of dead blackness girding the shaft.

    Nobody knew about this secret gap but him. Well… him plus one other tenant, soon to embrace past tense.

    There was no practical way to ascend, one-armed, and cover himself, short of asking Slug Baby to lend a tentacle. He heard the table leg snap just before the jolt of upset snatched away his balance. His hand flailed for the hatchway, missed, then captured it just as the arc of his fall had begun. He caught the metal lip with his fingertips, hearing the knuckles wrench apart and feeling the sharp edge bite through the bone. They slipped free and down he went, collapsing into the corner where the monster baby had started out.

    He hit the floor with his fist clenched, hot blood seeking the inside of his coatsleeve. The car jounced like a bad mattress and the back of his head skidded against the wall with enough friction to scalp him.

    God, but he hated the sensation of being cut! The feel of that thin edge shivering through to kiss your skeleton. He thought of the way a blade tasted the pruny, delicate pad of your wet thumb when you perpetrated some dumb accident in the kitchen. Perhaps that was why his fear of Emilio's straight razor had always been elemental, a fear beyond mere retribution. Cruz knew what that pitted platinum would feel like, penetrating him to cut loose the running red stuff, carving tissue with no pressure at all, slicing deep because that was what that stropped end was supposed to do and do smartly, cut, and cut, and…

    The elevator car was moving. Going down.

    The doors had not bothered to close. Just as Cruz thought to roll out, the first floor dashed upward too fast and was lost. He clenched his bleeding fist tight and watched his escape opportunity come and go in a fingersnap. Fresh blood trickled through the interstices of his fingers and provided his sole coloring; in the last fifteen minutes or so his pallor had gone ashen.

    The car stopped with the ease of a sofa flung from a fire escape. Cruz had not even regained his knees when he was pitched forward by the stop, to whack his cheekbone hard against another wall of the car and crush his wounded arm in its sling. The broken table and Jonathan's rucksack slid toward him; the car was stopped at an angle. He heard springs and cables squeaking. Had he just fallen two stories in an elevator?

    The mushy splatting noise, he already knew.

    Anger gushed in to bursting. He clawed the dropped automatic out from beneath him, fliped off the safety with a bloody thumb, and fired at the service hatch just as the goggle-eyed thing that looked like the Velasquez brat got its toothy face up for a peek. One, two, three shots. Ejected brass rang and rolled while the explosions of report bashed in Cruz's eardrums in the confinement of the car and punched the air from his chest. His too-clear sensorium permitted him to see the first shot plowing into the creature's right eyebrow. It whipcracked backward and stayed down. The ceiling of the car won two more smoking punctures while a can-can line inside Cruz's head tried to kick out his eyes from behind, one-two, boom-cha-cha.

    The gun slipped from his grasp, lubricated by his own bloodshed.

    Again the goddamned car had stopped where it wanted. Only a crack of, free space showed near the foot of the door track. If Cruz wanted out, he'd either have to widen that opening or force the car to go further down.

    He had not considered that the elevator might go to Kenilworth 's basement, or beyond.

    Cruz surely wanted out, but tried to stand perpendicular to the floor, which was a goof. His own weight yanked him toward the open door and bounced his face off bare concrete, the shock rattling his bones and giving his gray matter one more good stir, kind of like keeping the Hershey's syrup in your chocolate milk agitated. He felt the shiner rise on his face. Down-time in the hospital had calmed it, but now it had been summoned anew to bloat and darken, a reopened wound.

    The car was hung up at about a forty-five degree slant. Impossible. Cruz did not care.

    He no longer had a 'good' arm, so he braced his less injured one against the tilted wall and jumped against the floor, feeling the car lurch.

    'Move, goddamnit!'

    He thumped the panel buttons with the heel of his hand, leaving a thick smear of blood on the L button, which jammed and did not pop back out. Below, the crack of space had widened. Now it was a thin triangle, admitting pale light from outside.

    'Come on- come onn!'

    The triangle grew nearly a foot with a metallic shriek. It was a noise like tomb doors being crowbarred open. Cruz could make out tiny metal shavings littering the door track. Fresh ones. Just a few inches more and he could squirm through to confront his next test.

    When he licked his upper lip he tasted coke and blood. Not bad.

    Rest for thirty. Capture some breath. He slumped with his butt wedged into the vee formed by the car's slant and dug into the rucksack for some chemical refreshment. Close to two grams were already pushing and shoving in his bloodstream.

    Up-down, like being bowstrung and fired. Yes.

    His head pulled itself toward his knees. He felt almost as if he were in a hundred-mile freefall toward a pillowy bunch of clouds. The smell of fresh linen. He made sure to hug the kilo close, just in case he happened to pass out.

    Emilio jerked awake with a snort, pissed off before he was even fully conscious, angry at the dream that had been piloting itself so weirdly. In the dream, he had built an elemental rage; he simply dragged that rage with him when he felt the callback pull of the real world.

    He never woke up easily. Not anymore. Always a sharp start that yanked him to full sit-up with his pump pounding. Rosie had once accused him of getting high on stress. Emilio had laughed;
yeah, sure, riiight
.

    
Me worry? For what?

    Because he was engirded by cutthroats who would greedily appropriate the network he'd built; who would fuck over years of service in his name for the right cash advance? Because the entire federal fucking government was devoted - during polls, at least - to the downfall and incarceration of him and anyone that fit the profile? Because nothing, not even his wealth and power, could stop the reflex tightness in his sternum whenever his limo breezed past a police car on a city street?

    Rosie had relaxed. Has been relaxed, that old warhorse. Permanently relaxed, when Emilio had gotten the skinny on Cruz.

    Sirens, now, outside, and with the sound came the clench of muscle in his chest. Great - that sound would goose him into a coronary someday.

    Sirens? At the House of Bauhaus?

    The morning had proceeded tastily up until now.

    Emilio had always been fond of stripping his bitches personally. He enjoyed the pop of buttons and the patterns in which filmy panties could shred. Party girls were paid to indulge, of course, but he also savored the token protest - the bleat of surprise, or even better, that wistful quiet he got when he destroyed something the squiff had favored. You could read the hate in their eyes and they had to fuck you anyway. Power. You do what I say.

    Bauhaus' heroin was pure as the driven… well, Bauhaus sure knew it, and Emilio found out quickly. Just the prescrip to mellow him out from the coke. Emilio had no wish to doze out while he had the use of Jamaica, though, so he chased the bitter bite of his crank cocktail with some of Bauhaus' collector's edition scotch. Drugs to go up. Drugs to go down. Pretty soon his body chemistry was going up and down faster and faster. Emilio resonated. He could probably hold oscilloscope leads between his fingers and make a'sine wave on the screen.

    He had rucked her bomber jacket to the floor of the red bedroom. She understood it was to stay there, so she peeled out of her Beverly Hills sweatshirt while they stood nose-to-nose. Sly, he thought. Practiced.

    Just how good was this one?

    His eyes indicated the floor. She dropped to her knees and undid the myriad buttoms and zippers to be found at his groin. When the sword-pleated Verri Uomo trousers pooled (without the telltale chink of loose change; Emilio never carried coins because they were vulgar), she rubbed her face, kittenish, against the stiff and wiry hair of his crotch. Emilio had shaved his pubis for a full year, subscribing to the adolescent theory that it would grow back thicker each sweep. Apparently the myth had paid off. Today he could gather a fistful, pull hard, and feel no pain.

    He had grabbed her head to rub her face to and fro around his swelling erection. Sand her down a bit, first.

    People had wanted nothing but to take from him, all his life. Emilio had spent nearly forty years en guarde against those who would take from him.

    The track lighting in the red bedroom was fed by a rheostat. Jamaica had dialed it low and lit candles, which lent an altar aspect to the room's kingsized waterbed. As she reached for the headboard controls her knee had bumped the comforter and the bed's surface undulated amoebically.

    When Emilio gave things, he wanted it to be noticed. He wanted his gifts to be appreciated, for the recipients and onlookers to compliment his taste and laud his generosity. When people did not wait for Emilio to be generous with toys or favors and took from him Emilio's balls got frosty.

    When Jamaica rose to share the taste of his own cock via a kiss, Emilio had gone for his straight razor. The ball-and-socket link of the neck chain had been engineered for him by a Little Havana jeweler who thrived by customizing trinkets for coke royalty. It separated when Emilio yanked downward, making a pocketknife click. The platinum razor, opening on its original oiled hinge, made no sound at all.

    Her hand rose to clasp his forearm gently. A grip that could be interpreted as a lightly whorish come-on… and could also bring her hand to bear for defense if the knife action got funny. His heartbeat shot blood through his brain and back down to maintain the stiffness below decks. This Jamaica bitch was sharp.

    His thumb had remained on the trigger-like stud that levered the blade free. Their eyes talked. He snapped his hand upward and halved her chemise a quarter-inch from her flesh. After drawing a quick breath, she told him he was good with that thing, and after panting a bit himself, Emilio agreed.

    Cruz had taken from Emilio. Stolen something. It wasn't the petty embezzlement, small change skimmed by the bottom feeders. That was given in any enterprise which employed runners smart enough to avoid street busts. Emilio squandered a lot of folding green on purpose, just to prove money meant nothing to him. His frivolity was casual enough to suggest the poverty of his youth. He flung the cash around, yes - but Emilio knew where every cent got flung.

    Cruz had stolen Chiquita, taken her without permission and broken her without excuse or replacement. Stung by his guilt, he had fled to Chicago instead of asking forgiveness and attempting redress. It had been simple enough to barbecue the story out of the other coke droids at the fatal penthouse party. They'd all watched Chiqui take her plunge. And Cruz had not stuck around to pay proper obeisance. A little slapping around and yelling, a bit of work with the razor and all would have been settled. Cruz would have perhaps gained a dueling scar as a permanent dermal record of his fuckup.

    Problem was, with Emilio, you could never be sure of just how angry he might get, and to precisely what depth, terminal or not, he might opt to cut. Enter Rosie, the answer man. Exit Cruz, via Eastern Airlines, first class.

    This had become a matter of principle and executive discipline. No intramural turmoil could be allowed to slide. Emilio had enough dragons to battle as things were. Some carpet-calling could be run down personally. This gave him a sense of keeping his core smarts honed, of not losing touch with the streets that had given him so much.

    It had been a slow week, unfortunately for Cruz. Rosie's replacement was a white guy named Riff who knew how to man the terminals and oversee product flow while Emilio carved a chunk of R&R. Emilio bought out the entire first class section of the flight, so as not to be pestered by tourists or idiots. He'd tipped the first class stewardess a century note and she'd given him a Chicago phone number, written beneath her name, Stef, on a card. Emilio had felt boyishly lavish and had come off the flight in a good mood that Bauhaus had done nothing to dispel.

    While he admired and enjoyed Jamaica, Emilio kept a running tab of his northward trip. In his mind, Cruz's name was on the bill.

    Jamaica was moist and tight and well-schooled and paid not to say no. A touch of bondage, a tot of anal hijinks, a dab of Noxzema, two or three drops of hash oil. A few bruises and a squirt of blood - hers - and Emilio was ready for naptime.

    He awoke all at once, hearing sirens.

    In his dream, he had been slapping her face. Telling her that in case of virus he would spend a year hunting her, then an hour cutting her throat. Then he would use her blood as lube to jerk off while she died. That was cool. It always scared the hell out of them.

    In the dream, Emilio had jump-cut to Cruz and seen him quaking in terror. Wounded, confused, panicked and bleeding, his entire body trying to run, his mind befogged with the dumb animal comprehension of impending death. Emilio had made the dream beg for his mercy. Grovel before you bite the big one, that your leavetalang from this world should mean even less. Your epitaph shall read GROVELER. WEASEL. COWARD. SCUM.