Zombie D.O.A. (30 page)

“Don’t be a tool, Farley,” his companion called after him. You know these things don’t work.”

“You never know,” Farley said,
ambling
back, ”you just never know.”

We’d reached maybe the twentieth floor and Farley was blowing heavy and taking his fifth break, when a call came through on the radio.

“Farley?”

“Yeah, boss.” Farley huffed into the handset.

“Where the fuck are you!” Tucci’s static-laced voice screamed.

“We’re at the tower, like you said.” Farley sounded hurt.

“Christ on a bicycle,” Tucci shouted, “Get that other fuckwit on the line!”

“Sure boss,” Farley took a deep breath, then called out, “Cobb!”

“What’s up?” his companion called from above.

“It’s the boss, he wants to talk to you.”

“Man, I’m on my way to the john.”

“You want me to tell him that.”

“No, no. Hold your horses. I’ll be there now.”

Cobb came bounding down the stairs and picked up the handset. “Yeah, boss?”

“What floor are you on Cobb?

“Twenty-one, boss.”

“Twenty fucking one!” Tucci screamed. “Now you listen good dickwad, You and that other idiot better get a move on. I gave you a job to do, now get it done!”

“Sure boss.”   

As soon as Tucci was off the line, Cobb turned to Farley. “You heard the man,” he said.

The rest of the upward trek was done at record speed with Cobb edging me onward with his rifle barrel and Farley bringing up the rear, blowing hard.

We reached the roof and I could see hundreds of fireworks casings and canisters, the remnants of Tucci’s fireworks displays.

The view from here was quite magnificent stretching out across the plains in all directions, with the Arkansas River to one side. I almost convinced myself that I could see all the way to California, to see Ruby one more time before they threw me off the roof.

As though reading my thoughts, Cobb suddenly pushed me forward. “Come on, pecker breath,” he said “we ain’t here for the sight seeing.”

He grabbed one arm and Farley grabbed the ot
her and they half-marched, half-
dragged me towards the edge.

I found myself thinking of all the close scrapes I’d had, from my run in with Brad to Bronson Chavez and his Abrams tank, my nightmare journey through the Lincoln Tunnel, the Corporation agents and the Z’s in Kentucky, right down to my very recent encounter with Clint in the prison cell.

Yet here I was, about to be thrown off a skyscraper by two gormless goons and I was powerless to stop it.

I tried digging in my heels and they lifted me off the floor, tried squirming loose and they held me tighter.

Eventually, we reached the edge. I’ve never been particularly afraid of heights and I’d been to the top of both the Empire State and the Trade Center. But it feels a little bit different when you know that within the next minute or so you’re going to be plummeting the 600 feet to the hard ground below.

Cobb nudged me now, “Come on Clark Kent,” he laughed, “start flapping.”

Despite myself I looked down, to the street and the miniaturized cars way below. I had that crazy feeling where you almost feel yourself falling, almost feel like flinging yourself off the ledge.

I felt Cobb place his hand between my shoulder blades and begin to push.

Then
I heard the crackle of the radio and Tucci’s voice, saying, “Earth to dimwits, earth to dimwits.”

Farley answered, “Boss.”

“Is it done yet?” Tucci demanded.

“We’re just about to…”

“Is it done yet?”

“No, but…”

“Good. Bring him down.”

“Boss?”

“I said bring him down.”

“We don’t
get to…”

“No, you bring
him safely down or I’ll come over
there personally and bounce your fat ass off of East 2nd Street. Do you understand?”

“Yes, boss,” Farley said sulkily.

We made considerably better time getting back to the station house than we had on the journey out. Farley and Cobb were pissed at having missed out on their morning’s entertainment and they pushed me so many times with their rifle barrels that by time we got there I felt as though I had been tenderized.

Tucci was waiting on the sidewalk when we arrived, two of his men in close attendance. A couple of black Hummers like the one I’d wrecked were parked at the curb. 

When Tucci saw us approaching he spread his arms like a benevolent grandfather and broke into a broad smile, “Mr. Collins,” he said. “Why didn’t you tell us who you are? We could have saved ourselves all this unpleasantness.”

Then his expression changed and he said to Farley and Cobb, “Get this fucker upstairs.”

I was marched up two flights and taken to what looked like an interrogation room. The walls were painted a dull, battleship
gray
and there was no furniture other than a steel topped table that was bolted to the floor, and three fold-out steel chairs.

Cobb sat me down in one of the chairs being none too gentle about it and then he and Farley left with a few parting remarks of ‘dickwad’ and ‘pecker wood’, thrown over their shoulders.

To my left there was a large mirror and I’d seen enough cop shows to know that there was a hidden observation room behind
it
. I wasn’t sure if there was anyone behind the glass, but it did give me the strange sensation that I was being watched.

What I really wanted to know was why I was here at all? Why was I still even alive? Why had Tucci changed his mind about dropping me from the tower?

Not that I was complaining you understand, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that it could only mean one thing. And if I was correct, then the short flight from the roof of the BOK Tower may have been a preferable option after all.

I sat there for what seemed like an hour and then Tucci entered the room and I saw that my fears were well founded.
There were two men with him, and while t
hey didn’t look much lik
e Jake and Elwood, they were C
orporation agents nonetheless.

They walked in and surveyed the room like I wasn’t there at all, then sat in the chairs opposite me. One of them put an aluminum briefcase on the table.

Tucci was left without a seat, and he looked annoyed by that. He stalked from the room, leaving the door open. Outside I could see a passageway painted a similar shade of
gray
. I could see something else too, a slim waft of smoke, as though someone was out there smoking.

I heard Tucci returning, dragging his chair like a spoilt child. He walked in and slammed his seat down, slumped into it and then flashed the Corporation agents a look of disgust. They simply ignored him and continued staring at me.

“You’re Chris Collins,” one of them said, and before I could resp
ond he continued, “I’m agent Roy
, this is agent Stu. We’re here to help you.”

“Help me how?”

“You have some information we need, vital information, crucial information, you might even say life and death information. And if you did, you wouldn’t be exaggerating.”

“But I don’t…”

Agent Roy held up a hand. “You help us and we help you. Tell us what we need to know and we’ll have you re-united with your little girl within the next 24 hours.”

“With Ruby? You’ve got Ruby?”

“Safe and sound,” Roy said.

I looked back at him and for a brief moment a feeling of elation and relief greater than I’d ever felt before welled up in me. These men had Ruby, and for the price of answering a f
ew questions, I could be
with my little girl within, what had the man said, 24 hours? 

After three years of searching, after being so close to giving up hope. Right at that moment I would hav
e told them just about anything.

But then Agent Roy made a crucial mistake. He allowed himself a subtle victory smirk. The corner of his mouth curled ever so slightly into the ghost of a smile, and I just knew
that
he was lying.

I decided to play it out anyway. “Shoot,” I said,
“
whatever I know I’ll tell you.”

“Good man,” Roy said and allowed himself a fully-fledged smile this time. The other agent had still said nothing and sat staring at me from behind his dark glasses. I wondered if this was some variation on good cop / bad cop, maybe happy cop / catatonic cop.

“Where is the trigger?” Roy manage
d to ask, before Tucci cut in
.

“Uno momento, fellers,” Tucci said, and then rubbed thumb and forefinger together in the time honored hand sign for money.

Without looking at him, Stu slid the briefcase across the table.

“What the fuck is this?” Tucci demanded.

“The finders fee,” Roy said, as though speaking to an imbecile, “One million dollars.”

“And what am I going to do with a million dollars?” Tucci wanted to know. “You may as well give me the pink slip for every car on every lot in Oklahoma, but oh, wait a minute I already own all of that.”

“Correction,” Roy said. “The Pendragon Corporation owns Oklahoma, and everything else west of here. You are an employee…”

“I’m an independent contractor,” Tucci pouted.

“An independent contractor granted certain concessions in exchange for results. Results I might add that have fallen well short of expectations.”

“What am I supposed to do with the goo goo juice you send me? I may as well be doping these Zs with Dr. Pepper.”

“Well, perhaps if you’d actually being applying the
medications
we’ve been shipping to you, rather than trading them to Virgil Pratt in exchange for…”

Just then the door opened and a man stepped into the room, a small, slight man in jeans, a white shirt and cowboy boots. He wore a Stetson that matched his shirt and a six-shooter in a tied down holster like a gunfighter of old. Contradicting that image were the large
, yellow tinted eye
glasses he wore.

“Now you boys wouldn’t be talking out of school about me would ya?”

“Virgil,” Tucci said getting to his feet,
“
I though I told you to stay behind the glass?”

“Shut the fuck up Stan,” Virgil said, “you been fucking this thing up wholesale from the get go. We’ll guess what boys, there’s a new sheriff in town. Name’s Virgil Pratt. But then, you already knew that.”