Biofire, page 24
McNolte got to his feet and tried to keep steady as he stepped over to the window, pulled himself up with his hands, got his arms out, then used his elbows to drag himself through.
He landed beside her in a garbage bin filled with old food and trash from Wee’s kitchen. The stench made his stomach turn over.
Rain pelted his sweaty face. Ice-cold rain. It seemed to cut through his skin like the bullets from which they had been running.
The woman was already clambering out of the bin.
“You have a car?” she said, shouting to be heard above the relentless rainfall.
McNolte forced himself up and out of the bin even though he felt weak and shaky all over. Even so, he felt marginally better than he had inside. Standing beside the woman, he looked around them. They were in the alley that ran beside Wee’s Café, and directly across from them was a dirty, graffiti-marred brick wall.
McNolte was winded and tried to catch his breath as he spoke. “A car? You kidding? If I could…afford a car…I’d drive the hell outta this city…and never come back.”
It was not until that moment that McNolte realized the shooting had stopped. Cries and screams came from inside, voices that cut through the sound of pouring rain like knives.
McNolte was soaked. He had left his coat behind in the booth inside and his clothes were drenched, clinging to his body uncomfortably.
“Are you all right?” the woman said.
“I…think so. I was feeling pretty bad for a while, there, but now I’m—”
“I’m sorry!” she shouted, pressing clenched fists to her temples. “I’m so sorry, really. That was my fault. I didn’t mean to, but I got so scared that I couldn’t control it, and it just came out.” She dropped her fists and turned to him with a look of anguish. “I’m so sorry, I really am. I’m just…glad it wasn’t worse.”
He cocked his head and frowned at her. “Worse? You couldn’t control what? What the hell are you talking about?”
“I’m just sorry, that’s all,” she said, turning away from him, then gasping as she stared at the window through which they had just escaped.
Black smoke was beginning to ooze out of the small, rectangular opening.
“Oh, shit,” McNolte said. He said it with sadness, but not without surprise. In a greasy spoon like Wee’s Café, it was not surprising that the kind of pandemonium that had just broken out in there would end with a fire, most likely in the kitchen. Probably a grease fire, which could not always be readily extinguished. Especially by people who had been shot. He feared anyone who had not been killed by the bullets would be trapped by the fire, and he felt an instant urge to help them, to help get any survivors out before the fire got too big.
But he thought of that man in the white surgical mask with the machine gun. He was still around, not far away, and his target was pretty obvious: he was after the woman.
“Come on,” he said, grabbing her hand. He led her in a hurry along the alley toward the front of the diner, toward 12th Street. “I live a block from here.”
They hurried along 12th, hands clasped, and rushed up the steps of McNolte’s building and through the entrance, up the stairs to his floor. He did not let go of her hand as he struggled in his soaked pocket for the keys, pulled them out, fumbled for the right one, then opened the door. He released her hand then and pushed her into the apartment, his hand flat against the back of her wet rubber poncho. He followed her in, slammed the door behind him, and flipped the light switch.
“Hello, McNolte,” a voice said.
He looked past the woman at the smiling man sitting in his old, worn recliner.
It was Milo. He held a gun in his right hand, and in his left, the apartment’s light reflected dully on the surface of the short, thick blades of the pruning shears he held.
18.
Taking Care of Business
* * *
“Hello, Milo,” McNolte said. “You look like a duffle bag.”
The skinny young man was dressed in a baggy black suit with a black shirt and a narrow tie the color of dried blood. The baggy coat and pants were covered with little zippered and snapped pockets. He sat in the recliner, feet up. His overcoat was draped over the back of the chair. The zippers dangled and glinted as he sat up in the recliner, then stood, letting the gun hang at his side in his right hand. He made sure McNolte saw the pruning shears in his left hand. With thumb and fingers hooked through the handles, Milo chittered the blades open and closed rapidly several times, making sharp, metallic biting sounds.
“Yeah, well,” Milo drawled, smirking, “you look like your evening’s ruined.”
“You’re too late for that, Milo, believe me,” McNolte said with a humorless chuckle. He turned to the woman and saw that the nervous fear had returned to her face, tightening her features.
“I figure I don’t have to tell you why I’m here,” Milo said, pacing slowly in front of the recliner, a few steps in each direction.
McNolte took the woman’s elbow and led her toward the kitchen, whispering to her, “I’m sorry. Just bear with me, here.” He took her around the short, stubby bar that was the only thing dividing the kitchen and living room in the small apartment. He led her to the small stove, put both hands on her shoulders, and said in a soft breath, “Stay right here.” Then he turned and faced Milo, who was already sitting at the bar in one of the tall aluminum chairs, his left elbow propped on the edge, pruning shears clearly visible. He smiled, flashing his silver tooth.
“Maybe you weren’t listening,” Milo said. “You know why I’m here, right?”
McNolte went to the bar. “You want money.”
“Very good. Tell him what he’s won, Johnny!” He laughed at his little joke.
“I have money.”
“Oh, really? You have all the money?”
Fear pierced McNolte’s gut. “Not…all of the money. But you know every time you come I have money for you, right?”
“Look, McNolte, I’m just takin’ care of business, right? You know my boss. His patience lasts only so long. So don’t jerk me around, okay? I mean, I got better things to do with my time, too.”
“Milo, what more can I do?” McNolte asked quietly, spreading his arms as if in surrender. “You know I don’t have the balance, I can’t get that kind of money together. The payments are the best I can do.”
“Well, my boss thinks you can do a lot more. That’s why I’m here.” He raised the shears, aimed them at McNolte, and clapped them open and closed a few times.
The high, sharp, metallic sound made McNolte’s scrotum shrivel as he imagined one of his fingers between the thick, powerful blades. He shuddered uncontrollably.
“I’ve got money in my closet. I’ll get it for you, right now.” McNolte’s own words frightened him; he did not have very much money in the closet, just cash he had been setting aside for himself from every story payment, every advance, just a little from each so he would always have something for groceries when he needed it, and when Milo saw exactly how little there was, McNolte was afraid he would start using those shears.
Milo stood slowly, his heavy-lidded eyes giving away nothing. He shrugged with one shoulder. “Fine with me. Money’s money, right?”
With a sigh of relief, McNolte hurried over to the closet, opened the door, reached in and pulled the chain that turned on the light. A footstool stood in the middle of the closet so he could get to the top shelf, and he stepped up.
“Course, I’m not gonna make any promises,” Milo sneered, snapping the shears a few times. “I mean, the boss wants it all. Everything you owe. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have sent me over here with these.” A single clack of the blades emphasized his words.
McNolte nearly fell off the stool when he heard that last sound. He knew the amount of money he had would not even come close to satisfying Milo if Mr. Trafficante had decided he wanted the rest of the money owed.
“It’ll just take a second,” he said, his voice hollow and rough, hoarse. “I’ve got it in a box up here. You can take all of it, Milo, all of it.”
“Yeah, sure,” Milo said. And his chuckle made McNolte’s blood curdle.
Emma moved slowly away from the stove and made her way silently to the side of the young man in the black suit with all the zippers and snaps. As she stood beside him, she turned her head only slightly and looked at him from the corner of her eye.
The heavy, half-closed lids of his eyes reminded her, somehow, in an upside-down way, of Rupert, Landon’s big iguana, right after he’d had a couple of sandwiches and some potato chips. But unlike Rupert, Milo gave her the creeps. He radiated smirking menace the way a space heater radiated warmth.
She looked down at his hands, at the gun and the shears. The gun she understood, but the shears…they were simply frightening.
Emma knew what she had to do, but she could not do it in such close proximity to McNolte. She had to get this Milo creature away from McNolte so she could deal with him herself.
“You’re a little behind the times, aren’t you, McNolte?” Milo said. “Keeping your money in a closet, I mean? You know, they got these places for that now. Whole buildings.” He laughed again, amused at himself.
Sounding distracted, Milo said, “Well, I figure there’s no sense in opening an account if I can’t—”
Emma moved quickly, while McNolte was talking and Milo was listening to him. She threw herself on the closet door and slammed it shut before McNolte finished his sentence. Then she spun around to face Milo, her back pressed against the door.
His eyes were still half-closed as he looked at her with only the vaguest hint of surprise.
“That chair!” she blurted, pointing at the chair he had been sitting in at the bar. “Give it to me!”
“Hey, what the hell’re you doing?” McNolte asked from inside the closet.
“Hurry!” she hissed at Milo. “Give it to me!”
He stared at her as if she had spoken in a foreign tongue.
“Damn!” she barked, running to the chair herself as sounds of movement came from behind the closet door. She grabbed it, took it back to the closet, and wedged the back of it hard beneath the doorknob. Then she turned to Milo again.
“The hell’re you doing?” he said. He no longer sounded relaxed; now he sounded suspicious.
“You want your money?” she said. “I mean, all of it? He’s just jerking you around, you know. I know where he really keeps the money. I mean, the big money. The money he doesn’t want you to know about. All of it.”
“Who the hell’re you?” he said, eyebrows rising high above his sleepy eyes.
She rushed him, stopped an inch from his face, and he did not even flinch. They were eye to eye. She clenched her teeth and said, “I’m his ex-girlfriend. And the money’s in the recliner. You were sitting on it, asshole.”
He pondered that as he stared at her for a while, then: “What do you mean, it’s in the recliner?”
“What did I just say? Did I stutter? I mean, yes, it’s inside the recliner, you moron. Now, do you want it? Or do you want me to let him out so you can listen to his crap and be jerked around for a while longer?”
He turned and looked at the recliner, then at her, then at the recliner again.
“Okay,” he said, nodding slowly. “I’ll take a look.”
Milo walked crab-like to the recliner, glancing repeatedly at Emma with suspicion. He tossed the pruning shears onto the sofa, then pushed the recliner onto its side with his foot. It fell with a thump, and somewhere inside, a weary spring twanged.
Emma walked toward him until only the recliner separated them. She hoped she was a safe distance from McNolte, who was pounding on the closet door from inside, cursing angrily.
“So where is it?” Milo asked. “In a box? A bag? What?”
Emma did not respond. She simply stared at him, focusing. Flaming.
“Hey, you deaf, or something?” he said. Perspiration was beginning to shine on his forehead. He swayed slightly, reached up and ran a hand down his face. He began to look pale, and a little worried.
Emma did not want to kill the guy, but he had to be taken out of the way fast. If he died as a result…well, she would feel bad. But not for long. Recently, Emma had passed a point of no return. She was far more concerned with survival than with morality.
“Hey…” His voice grew thick and ill-sounding. He frowned at her, eyes widening slightly beneath his furrowed brow. “What…what’re you…doing to me?” he whispered.
She did not respond right away because she was too busy concentrating hard on what she was doing. Then, as he began to sway like a drunk, she said, “Just takin’ care of business, Mr. Lizard.”
About ten seconds later, Milo fell forward onto the overturned recliner with an ugly exhalation. His gun slipped from his hand and thumped to the carpet.
“Let me out of here, dammit!” McNolte shouted.
And she did.
McNolte rushed out of the closet as soon as the door opened, breathless and sticky with sweat. He had begun to feel claustrophobic and a little panicky; he was glad to see his living room again.
“What the hell was that all about?” he said. He looked at the woman, then turned around, looking for Milo.
He found him.
“My God,” McNolte muttered, staring at Milo, walking around him with caution. “What…what did you do to him?”
“Do you really want to help me?” she said, approaching him. She stopped directly in front of him. They were no more than two inches apart. “Do you?”
McNolte took a moment to gather his thoughts. He had been locked in the closet, then had come out to find Milo lying unconscious on his overturned recliner. He shook his head in a jerky motion, like a cartoon character after being clobbered with a giant mallet.
The woman stood before him, darting eyes burning with fear, hands clutched together over her abdomen as her weight shifted back and forth from one foot to the other.
Her desperation was palpable, her fear a hot, foul breath in his face.
He looked at Milo, limp on the recliner, then turned again to the woman’s face, raw with pleading.
“Is he dead?” McNolte said.
“No, just unconscious.”
“What did you do to him?”
“Never mind. Do you want to help me or not?”
“Yes, I want to help you. But I don’t understand what—”
“Then we have to leave. Right now. We have to get out of the city.”
“What? You want to leave the city?”
“You have people after you, I have people after me. Isn’t that right?”
“Where would we go?” He was not sure why he asked the question because leaving the city was absurd. He was still in the process of putting his life back together, and that life was right there, in the city. He did not know why he bothered to ask, but he was so caught up in her fear and desperation that it had come naturally.
“Who cares?” she said. “What difference does it make? Someplace far away enough so they can’t find us. Anyplace. Someplace they wouldn’t think to look. Right? Doesn’t that sound good? I mean, I can’t…do this…alone. I don’t want to. I’m afraid. I’m going whether you come with me or not, but…I’m afraid.”
McNolte placed his hands on her shoulders. “Who’s after you?”
“That doesn’t matter right now. We don’t have time for talk. I can tell you later, I’ll tell you everything. But not until we’re on our way to someplace else. If they could find me in that diner, they can find me here.”
McNolte squeezed her shoulders gently. They were warm beneath his hands. “Look, maybe that’s not necessary. Leaving the city, I mean. I can’t just pick up and…go. See, I know who’s after me, I know what they want and what to expect from them. I’ve been dealing with it for a long time. But you…maybe we don’t have to leave the city.”
Her mouth opened to respond when a key rattled in the lock of the door.
McNolte was shocked when she released a sharp gasp, fell on him, and wrapped her arms around him, clinging tightly.
He turned to see P.W. enter the apartment with a smile, turn, and close the door.
P.W. said, “Sorry I took so long, but I was—” He froze when he saw Milo draped over the recliner. “Well, shit on a stick. Did I miss somethin’?”
McNolte welcomed the distraction. He turned to P.W. and said, “Look, we’re gonna need a ride right away. To South Street.”
“Okay, fine.” He looked at Emma. “Who’s this?”
McNolte turned to her and said, “Um…I don’t know. Who are you?”
“My name is Emma,” she said, sounding weak, deflated.
“And who the hell is that?” P.W. said, pointing at Milo.
“That’s the guy I told you about. Milo.”
“What’d you do to him?”
“It wasn’t—” McNolte glanced at Emma and the look in her eyes, at once pleading and threatening, made him snap his mouth shut. Then he said, “Well, it wasn’t easy, P.W.”
P.W. looked at Emma with vague suspicion.
“We’ve got to get out of here, P.W.,” McNolte said. “Emma’s got somebody after her and I’ve got, well, an unconscious Milo on my hands.”
P.W. said, “Okay, you wanna go? Fine. But let’s take care of some bidness first.”
He walked around them to get to Milo, leaned down and picked up Milo’s gun from the floor, examining it carefully. “.45 automatic,” he muttered. “Colt Commander. Well, this pup’s gotta have some extra clips on him if he’s any good at what he does.” He leaned over Milo’s still form and reached beneath his jacket, feeling around his waist. “Ah-hah,” he said, standing. He held up two clips for McNolte and Emma to see. “Toldja.” He slipped them into the pocket of his down jacket, then slid the gun beneath the waist of his jeans in the small of his back beneath his jacket. “Okay, then, grab whatever you need and let’s hit the road. We’ll talk in the car.”
P.W. was no longer smiling. With more authority than McNolte had ever seen the man exhibit, he led them out of the apartment.
