This is part of the Brejcha Personal and Disability Resource Site. Welcome to:
©1998 F. Alexander Brejcha
Originally published on the webzine Exodus
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Blood, garbage, and death.
"...it's seven forty-five a.m. and a good morning to our listening audience..."
I tried to ignore the tinny voice from the small radio on Tommy's hip, only to stumble over the rotting flesh of a dead dog that was a magnet for swarming and bloated flies settling in for a morning feast in the alley. Wild dogs were a problem, and the Vigilantes put out poisoned food to control them... The Vigilantes...
A numbing explosion of sound throws Billy back and tears his hand out of mine. The enforcer stands there smiling.
"Now it's you and me, sweet-heart. Brown sugar, so sweet to eat!" His leer and darting tongue leaves no doubt as to what he has in mind; especially not when he reaches down with his free hand to stroke his groin. He moves in on me as I turn and try not to scream as I see the bloody pulped mass on the ground that used to be Billy's face...
I forced back the overwhelming memory -- it was too raw... too fresh -- and slapped at a fat fly trying to get a free meal from the blood-soaked bandage on my arm. The brief flash of physical pain was a welcome distraction as I hurried past the canine corpse.
"...and it's a bright and shiny morning here in New York City," the radio ground on. "Get your coffee and get your juices flowing. Today's pollution count is acceptable and you'll be able to breathe out there..."
Over the crumbling building shells around us, a sullen July sun struggled up to add its load to the already suffocating air and I tried not to laugh as I worked up some saliva to spit out the taste of the city. 'Acceptable pollution count'? Screw that D.J.! He sure wasn't out in this 'acceptable' air. But I didn't have to look far for a distraction from my burning lungs. My feet were hurting from all the walking and the make-shift bandage on my arm was really starting to cut in, aggravating the pain from my wound. I stopped to loosen it, even if the stink of corruption was so bad that I was afraid of infection from just exposing my wound. But since no new blood flowed, I breathed a sigh of relief.
A small brown hand tugged on my good arm.
"Move lady! More Copmen come!" Tommy Scrounge wanted to get out of the open. His eyes were scanning intently all around us as he urged me along.
He had a right to be nervous. Now that the rest of the local vigilante patrol had found their enforcer, dead with my bullet in him, they were out for my blood, and more, if the enforcer had been any indication. A young woman and a child alone, with only one gun for defense, would be considered good sport as well as fair game. Not that the Vigilantes were supposed to operate this deep in the Ring. They were only supposed to guard the borders, but apparently they were doing more than just keeping the gangs out of the 'Burbs and 'Hattan.
I would have to be careful. I was off my home-turf here, and Tommy didn't have any gang support around. But for some reason I wasn't worried. His eight year old body might have been scrawny and scarred, but his alertness and knowledge of the area had already saved my ass twice. First, by grabbing me and pulling me into a hidden underground passage after I had shot the enforcer, and later, by somehow sensing when the other Vigilantes were coming and finding us a hiding place until they had disappeared.
As we walked, shadowed doorways and glass-less windows stared at us, occasionally revealing a furtive flash of hidden occupants following our progress. It was if my fugitive status was known to all those who still tried to eke out an existence in the decayed neighborhoods of the Ring.
"For our morning news summary, I'll start with the network soap operas..."
"Please!" I reached for the radio strapped to Tommy's belt. "Turn him off! I can't stand that cheerful ass-hole this early."
My hand was sternly slapped. "So don't listen. Listen for static." He looked disgusted as he climbed nimbly over upthrusting and cracked paving blocks where a vanished construction crew had once begun to do something with the bombed-out-looking block. "This be my alarm. Copman cruiser make static." He shook his head at my display of ignorance.
Even if we looked like we could be mother and son -- I had always looked a little older than I was -- I once again felt as if I was the child here. No surprise. I was a 'Burber and not to be trusted on my own here in the bowels of The New York Ring. The electric cruisers of the Vigilantes were deadly silent, even the motor hum was damped out, and I had to trust Tommy to know when one of the small and fast armored cars was coming.
Then, as we made our way past a shadowy doorway, an iron grip appeared from out of nowhere to snag my wounded arm.
"Not so fast, sister," a deep voice rumbled out of the darkness as I was drawn into the hall beyond the doorway. "T.S.! Get in here! The Vigilantes have some new cruisers and you may not hear them."
My eyes were adjusting and I studied my looming captor curiously. The contrast of his hand on my arm made my skin look almost white by comparison, and his green khaki pants, laced military boots, tight green tee-shirt, and the red-and-green bandanna tied around his forehead all branded him as a member of the Rustler gang. But his speech was in sharp contrast to his appearance. His diction was too refined for a Ring gang member, and totally at odds with the hard-muscled body and battered face that looked down on me dubiously.
"What on earth brings you down here?" he wondered. "Are you 'Burber or 'Hattaner?"
"'Burber," I admitted weakly.
"Figures. And look at you, girl!" He smiled a little teasingly. "What is that you're wearing? Slum-wear by Saks 5th Avenue? The blood and torn material help a little, but still..." His expression mirrored Tommy's just moments earlier.
Tommy tugged on his shirt. "Hey Hammer, chill out! She wasted a copman and need to ground till the heat's off. And she hurt bad. Copman shot 'er 'fore she offed him."
My captor's ebony features froze. "Get lost, Tommy. Check around for cruisers, and then get Patchman to the war room." His eyes were cold and hard as they speared mine for a moment before tracking down to my arm. His hand loosened its grip and carefully probed to check the wound and bandage.
"Nothing broken," I told him. It's just a flesh wound."
"You killed one of the Vigilantes?"
His voice was flat and menacing, and the same haunting image of Billy's death threatened to overwhelm me again. I forced it down, shivering and trying not to puke as I yanked my arm away.
"After he killed my boyfriend, put a gun in my mouth, and then ordered me to strip and spread 'em. And he wasn't talking about 'up against the wall for a search'." Sour bile kept backing up as I forced the memory down. "He just made one mistake: Billy made me carry a gun, and learn to use it."
Icy disapproval thawed to sympathetic respect. "I see he got off one shot."
"I had to reach my gun."
"Go ahead, girl!" For a moment, proper diction lapsed into slang. "But you still didn't tell me what a nice... if dangerous, sister from the suburbs is doing in the ghetto ring. Back home or in Manhattan: that's where you belong."
"University Research. Sociology."
His right eyebrow climbed incredulously, and after a moment, a deep, rolling laugh erupted.
"I'm sorry," he managed to gasp after a moment. "Girl, I'm afraid you're a little late. My thesis proposal was filed three months ago, and I've been on-site for two. I'm afraid you're going to have to pick a different 'hood for your project." He wiped the corner of his eye with the back of a hand, a wide grin still splitting his face wide. "I've got this one sewn up, and there isn't room for a rookie." He sobered slightly. "Are you graduate or undergraduate?"
I tried to keep calm. "Senior year undergraduate honors, independent study."
He shook his head. "I'm doctoral, so I have seniority, and priority. But come on, let's get that wound cleaned up before it gets infected. My name is Mark Brown, by the way." He held out a calloused hand that swallowed mine in a surprisingly gentle grip.
"Pamela Reynolds," I answered automatically.
"Not entirely pleased to meet you." His friendly look took the edge off the words as he released me and pointed down the alley. "Let's get out of here. Go down to the end of the alley; there's a door to the right and down."
I followed his directions, acutely aware of his bulk behind me as he followed, casting wary glances around.
"I've got a sensor on me," he explained, pulling out a small box from a pocket. "But I want to be sure. It's tuned to their tracker frequency and it looks like the Vigilantes must have gone the other way. Tommy knows these blocks like the back of his hand, and he led you right."
As I went down three trash-littered steps to a door made of warped planks, he suddenly chuckled.
"I've got a new research study proposal for you, Pam: how many sociologists and students are there per gang in The New York Ring?"
I tried to fight it, but couldn't help responding as he laughed again.
"That's better." He reached past me to run a small box over three dirty stains on the door, which slid silently aside to reveal a brightly lit room. "You've got a beautiful smile, but let's get it out of sight."
I entered, staring around the sparkling room as Mark locked us in.
"Welcome to a small haven of sanitary sanity." He waved his hands around the carpeted basement room. "The Rustlers' War Room."
The room was mostly bare, except for a bunch of folding chairs facing one spotless plaster wall where a detailed map of Greater New York was nailed up. The lopsided band of the ghetto 'Ring' surrounding the pristine Manhattan, and held back by the equally unmarked suburban areas, was divided with bold black 'hood borders that sectioned the pale crimson Ring.
Mark circled one particular a patch of color -- so much like washed-out blood -- with a finger. "This is the Rustlers' turf." Then he smiled briefly and tapped a small black star in the middle. "And you are here. The Vigilantes don't know about this place, so we're safe." Pressing on a section of the wall next to the map, he opened a panel to reveal a pullman kitchen.
"This used to be a small apartment," he explained as he removed my bandage carefully after opening a large metal box with a red cross painted on its lid. "The Rustlers refurbished it and set it up as a command post. Only a few people have 'keys'." He turned on a faucet that to my surprise released a stream of steaming water.
"How did you get to be one of the lucky ones?" I asked, gritting my teeth as he gingerly washed my arm with a hot and rough wash cloth to remove the clotted blood staining it.
He put down the rag and pulled up his shirt. His wash-board stomach was marked by a ragged and puckered white line that ran across it in stark contrast.
"I got careless. But the other guy didn't have a mark on him when he woke up." He sounded satisfied as he dropped his shirt and pulled out a spray bottle of antiseptic solution to liberally douse my wound and surrounding arm. "I've built a rep as the 'blood who don't need weapons'. Nobody 'disses' me now." The slang sounded strange when spoken with professorial diction.
"It's taken a couple of months and a few other scars," he continued. "But I've taken on all comers without killing one. Just trashing them. I dished out a couple of broken bones until I refined my technique, but I'm slowly getting a message through to them: it's not necessary to kill to be dangerous, cool, or a 'man'."
"Your experiment, I take it?" I tried not to wince at a sudden flash of pain.
"Exactly." He frowned. "But here you come along and waste a Vigilante. By now, T.S. will have told everyone. I just hope it doesn't set me back to much. I'm trying to change this gang's behavior patterns." He dabbed my arm carefully with sterile gauze torn loose from a package. Fresh blood had started seeping out as clots dissolved or were dislodged from his treatment, but he quickly covered my wound with fresh gauze and wrapped silk-tape around it to seal off the wound.
"There. That's the best I can do here. I don't have any syntha-skin or an irradiator probe, but you should be okay." He pulled out a fresh piece of gauze to dab my eyes gently.
"You're all right!" He nodded approvingly. "Not a sound. And I know that had to hurt like hell!"
I unclenched my teeth, jaw sore, but finding myself laughing for some reason.
"That's got to be the understatement of the century!" I took the offered gauze and wiped my eyes briskly, as much to hide new tears as anything. Then my knees went rubbery without warning and Mark guided me deftly to a chair.
"I'm sorry," I began, but he put a light finger on my lips.
"Don't. You watched your boyfriend get blown away, you were nearly raped and killed, and you had to kill a man and run from others who would have casually killed you." He winked. "I think you're entitled to a moment of weakness. You sound like my wife. She was mad at herself for screaming during her delivery." He paused. "She had twins, one of them a breech."
I cringed. That was one experience I was in no hurry to try. But I felt the tears pour out again as I finally faced the fact that Billy was dead. I had only known him the four weeks that we had worked together to plan our study, but we had been hitting it off so well that I had been starting to hope that he might be 'the one'. But now he was gone!
Mark dropped down in the chair next to me and I felt massive arms pull me close cradle me lightly, comforting.
"They're nature's purging mechanism," he offered as I tried to hide the tears. "Nothing to be ashamed of. Just let it go." He fell silent and sat there patiently holding me.
Eventually, I ran dry and pulled away, feeling foolish.
He shook his head a little wistfully. "It's a shame we had to meet like this. I think you and Kathy would get along great. She teaches middle school in Rye.
Suddenly the door across the room slid open and Tommy slipped in, followed by a tall, heavy-set brother in his twenties. His face was a patchwork of brown and puckered pink and white blotches, his right eye twisted in scarred leer.
"Yo, Hammer. This the sister who offed the copman?"
Mark released me and seemed to change as he rose to meet the newcomer. Gone was the relaxed posture, replaced by a bold and cocky stance that screamed 'challenge'.
"Yo, Patchman." His speech was suddenly different, too; rough and loud. "She'd no choice. Copman wasted 'er man and tried to slam 'er."
Patchman's good eye inspected me for a moment, reluctant respect clear, and then he turned back to Mark. "Cool. But she bringin' down heavy heat. The Man's noticin', too. Anything moving the copmen this much, gets the real heat up."
"She under my protection," Mark warned, moving up one step to put me firmly behind him."
"Chill, Hammer. No pain. I just want her gone home. This be no place for 'burbers."
Mark was silent for a moment as he turned to me, eyes narrowed in thought. It was a fascinating tableaux. On closer examination, the younger Patchman was a lot more formidable looking than I had thought. There may have been a fair bit of fat on his frame, but his arms rippled with muscles even more massive than Mark's. Still, there was no question about who was in charge. Looking at Mark, I had the impression that the slightest touch or sound could unleash a tornado of action capable of leveling anything. And it was also clear that there was bad blood between the two men. I tried not to get nervous.
Mark studied me. "Going home would be a real problem. Wouldn't it?" His eyes narrowed, but I saw a teasing glint in them. "No place to hide there." He obviously wasn't worried by Patchman.
Taking his cue, I released my earlier fear and played it up. "No! The first time I step out in public, I'll be nailed."
Patchman looked confused. "For wasting a copman? The 'burber heat don't care about them, or us."
"No, she got warrants on her in the 'burbs, too," Mark lied smoothly. "She hidin' here."
Patchman digested that for a moment, and then seemed to relax. "Straight. I'll see if I can find a body to thaw out and set up for copman." He studied me carefully, muttering: "Blue jeans, dark red tank-top and sneakers..." He nodded, and then gave a stiff wave as he headed for the door. "C'mon, T.S.."
Tommy raised a clenched fist and flashed me a big grin as he followed Patchman out. "Later," he called out as the door slid closed behind them.
I felt a little queasy as I looked up at Mark.
"'Thaw out a body and set it up'?"
His jaw was clenched tight as he nodded. "The poisoned food the Vigilantes put out for the wild dogs sometimes gets eaten by people. Not always by accident, methinks." His scowl grew even darker. "I swear some of the food donated by the food-banks is bad. But if a gang finds a body in good shape, they often keep it on ice as a way to distract pursuing Vigilantes. If they have a female body that could pass for yours, they'll do a micro-thaw and dress it in similar clothes and plant it under rubble so it will look like you got caught in a building collapse. It might not work since the Vigilantes really want you, but it's worth a try." He looked ill for a moment. "It's been a tried and true technique for years --"
"But you don't like it," I stopped him. It was obvious.
He shook his head. "No, I don't, but I can't alter everything at once."
"So why did you change your mind about me?" If he was off-balance, maybe I'd get a straight answer.
He just grinned. "I thought you were in sociology, not psych." My face was burning, and he laughed. "You're not dark enough to hide a blush. But don't feel bad. I'm in psych, and your pop question approach is a good technique -- usually."
"So, are you going to tell me?"
He nodded and dropped into a chair. "I will, because I need your help. Then later, to return the favor, I'll get you into another gang. What's your study?"
"Ever hear about Curitiba?"
"Brazil, mayor Jorge Batista revived Jaime Lerner's plans for vitality --"
"Okay, okay!" I held up my hands in surrender. "You know it. Well, I wanted to --"
"-- try out his theories on a micro-cosmic scale?" Mark guessed.
I nodded. "Yes. I wanted to see if the combination of reorganized recycling, remodeling, and clean-up could change the self-perceptions of a 'hood and bring about an overall revital..." I stopped as I saw his expression. "What's wrong?"
"Too much book study and not enough field work. Something like that would have to be instituted on a city-wide scale. Even if you can get it going in one 'hood, all you'll do is set it up for a turf war and take-over. There is a parity system at work here, with a very delicate set of checks and balances. Any 'hood that gets too rich or too clean immediately becomes a target from all sides for raiding until parity is restored. You're thinking of each 'hood as a discrete unit, just waiting to be turned into a nice controlled test environment, but you have to treat the Ring as a whole, even if it seems to be a group of self-contained sections. Think of the Ring like an organism of sorts, and one striving for homeostasis. Your plan would never have worked."
I wanted to deny him, to correct him... prove him wrong... Anything but admit he was right. After hearing stories about the Ring from students in one of my classes, I had researched it, and been appalled. Something had to be done! Which is why I had sat down with Billy to plan my study. But I was starting to realize that my sheltered suburban upbringing had not prepared me for the reality of the Ring, which was proving to be an order of magnitude beyond what I had imagined. What Mark was saying made sense. I felt tears well up again as I realized Billy had died for nothing, and it was my fault!
Mark seemed to guess what I was thinking because he grabbed my arm.
"Don't! You want to blame somebody? Blame the Vigilantes!"
As if on cue, the door exploded into fragments. The force of the blast threw me to the floor, my ears ringing, and fresh blood dotted my arms where flying metal and concrete had cut me. Mark had been closer to the door, and he was just forcing himself to his feet, shaking his head, as two armed figures entered the War Room through the shattered remains of the door: Vigilantes. The skin-tight grey suits with their bright red fist decals on the chest were unmistakable.
The small room shook again as two riot guns fired, the spread of miniature razor pellets from one shredding the open panel to the pullman kitchen, while the load from the other virtually obliterated the meticulous map on the wall. But Mark was unscathed. Somehow he had managed to duck and roll, and with blinding speed he rose behind them to slam heavily muscled arms down with crushing force on the gun hands of each Vigilante.
Numbed arms dropped the deadly weapons, and before the intruders could react, a raised knee, a spinning elbow blow, and a clenched fist three times the size of mine had laid the two Vigilantes out on the floor, unconscious, but unmarked. And Mark wasn't even breathing hard.
I had not even had time to rise from the floor, and my ears were still ringing from the explosion that had forced the door and the shotgun blasts. Mark rushed over, grabbed my hand and hauled me to me feet with an effortless pull.
"Let's go, girl. Now!" He pulled me towards the remains of the metal-reinforced door that had been torn apart by the carefully placed charges, but stopped briefly to search the unconscious figures on the floor, not finding anything on the first, but giving a satisfied grunt as he pulled an old revolver out of a pouch on the other's belt, handling it with a handkerchief and wrapping it up.
"Come on," Mark urged again as I was hauled along, my feet barely touching the ground as we went up the steps into the alley. The revolver was tucked away somewhere as if he had no intention of using it and the riot guns lay neglected on the floor in the room behind.
"You're not taking any other weapon?" I asked as I caught my breath. Mark had stopped at the mouth of the alley, and was scanning the street.
"I don't use guns," he answered tersely, and then pulled me out and across the street. He had taken out the detector that was supposed to warn of the presence of Vigilante cruisers, and with a frown, dropped it and ground it under a heavy heel.
"Piece of shit," he grumbled, and then drew me along to the other side of the street where we ducked into another alley, and after a few doorways, through a half-open door where the brilliant whites of Tommy's wide-open eyes greeted us inside the gloomy hallway.
"What's up, Hammer?" he wondered nervously. "I heard the blasts." He turned to me. "You okay, pretty sister?"
"Fine, Tommy. And call me Pam." I surveyed the damage and decided that I was. A few scratches that had already stopped bleeding, and a few bruises from hitting a couple of chairs on the way to the floor, but nothing that needed immediate attention.
Mark was glaring out into the alley. "How the hell did they know about the War Room?"
"I don't know, Hammer," Tommy almost whined. "Honest!"
"Chill, T.S.. I know you didn't squeal." Mark reached back reassuringly to touch Tommy on the shoulder. "It was just a rhetorical... I was just thinking out loud." He looked over at me. "Obviously they have a better intelligence operation than I thought. And they want you real bad!" He pulled out the wrapped gun he had taken from one of the attacking Vigilantes, careful not to touch the metal. "This was meant for you."
"What do you mean?"
He ignored me and cocked his head. "I need to know something: how the hell did you expect to get your research study started in this hood?"
"I had a contact waiting --"
"Who?" Mark interrupted. His face was shrouded in shadows, but I had a feeling I wouldn't been too comfortable with his expression, had I been able to see it. The building anger in his voice was bad enough as he said: "I would have known about something like this."
"Daani Barret." I was starting to get a queasy feeling in my gut.
"There is no Daani Barret in this 'hood. Was... she?" he cocked an eyebrow and I confirmed his gender guess as he went on: "Was she supposed to meet you somewhere?"
I nodded. "Yes, but we got jumped by Vigilantes before I made it to our meeting place. What are they doing so deep in the ring?"
"What type of gun did the enforcer use to shoot you?" Mark asked, continuing to ignore my questions. "Could you tell?"
I shrugged, starting to get pissed off. "A handgun of some sort. An old revolver." I started to understand the significance of the gun and tried to get a closer look at it.
"Like this?" He held it out, carefully cradling it in the handkerchief.
I shrugged. "It could be, but I really can't be sure."
"Well, it probably is." Mark hissed in the gloom. "It's the same set-up, they just jumped you early."
"Set-up?"
"A set-up." As he moved forward into the light spilling in from outside, the expression on his face was frightening, especially after the solicitous concern he had shown earlier.
"The Vigilantes don't use hand guns," he explained. "Especially not old revolvers. These are 'hood weapons because they're easy to get since the new laws cut down the supply of automatic weapons. But the Vigilantes use automatic riot guns like the ones they used back at the War Room if they want scatter, or mini-machine guns for rapid-fire."
My stomach wasn't getting any better as I realized what he meant. "There never was a Daani Barret, was there?" Mark shook his head. "And there were no sympathetic gang members waiting to help me get my research study going."
"No. You were sucked in to set us up. You were supposed to turn up as another victim of 'brutal Ring-inhabitant violence', in order to justify the need for the Vigilantes. And it's not the first time. They intentionally stir up trouble so the regular police will think the big bad gangsters in the Ring are threatening to spill out into the 'Burbs or into 'Hattan on a rampage. They also do raids in 'Hattan and the 'Burbs, leaving signs of gang involvement, and then jump us and either 'recover' some of the stolen goods, or just 'give up' because it's disappeared. That way, the Vigilantes are looked on as a lesser evil because they 'control' us to keep us in the Ring. The regular police don't even patrol the Ring anymore. We're on our own."
"You're talking about them like they're just another gang."
He sighed. "They are. But they're a gang unofficially sanctioned by the police because they seem to keep us from invading their nice clean neighborhoods." His fists opened and closed rhythmically with grey-knuckled intensity. "It's the perfect scam. Who's going to question it? You want to believe it."
He seemed to be excluding me from his condemnation of outsiders, but the words still stung because he was right. I had certainly never questioned the constant barrage of images that painted the Ring as a totally savage and uncivilized environment. I had even gone in to try to do my bit to 'clean it up', supremely confident that I was qualified to show 'them' what to do.
Mark had put away the gun and was deep in thought, eyes focused somewhere in the distance, while Tommy fidgeted nervously and looked back and forth between Mark and the empty alley outside. I was just wishing that I had never left the university. Finally Mark's eyes focused on me.
"It's going to be the only way. We don't have enough to prove it otherwise." He didn't explain, and I didn't like the way he looked at me as he said: "Come on," and grabbed me again to pull me out into the open.
"Stay here, T.S.," he called over his shoulder. "Keep an eye on the Copmen when they wake up. I'll find you later."
"Cool, Hammer. I'll spot 'em. Where you to?"
"I'm going to move her over to Slasher turf, and see if they can smuggle her out of the Ring. They owe me, and the Copmen won't be looking for her to cross there."
"Cool." Tommy gave him a wide grin and thumbs up.
He went back down the alley the way we had come, while Mark pulled me off in the opposite direction, keeping to the shadows as much as possible and scanning the streets carefully at every intersection. Then, after a number of blocks, he stopped and we entered a slightly less dilapidated building with a metal gate on the doorway that he opened with a key from his pocket.
"My own little safehouse," he explained. Down the main hall and to the right, we entered a large, comfortably furnished living room. It was as clean as the War Room had been, but much more homey, with colorful throw rugs scattered on a polished parquet floor. A brown and rust couch rested under the front window, flanked by matching recliners and facing a slate coffee table.
"This is my place. No one knows about it but me."
Turning around, I could see why. Behind a paper-covered desk near the door, one whole wall was taken up by a floor-to-ceiling book case, packed with books that ranged from medical dictionary-sized tomes to skinny paperbacks. I moved closer and scanned them curiously. They included history, sociology, psychology, and even science fiction. I turned to him and started to ask him about his surprising library, but he stopped me.
"Please. Sit down." He pointed to one of the recliners placed next to a large planter with ficus and a tall, spiky-leafed plant I didn't recognize. "I owe you an apology, and then I need to ask that favor I mentioned before."
"An apology?" After saving my life twice, he hardly owed me any such thing, but I was curious to hear him out.
"Yes," he admitted. "I've known all along that you were coming.
I didn't disappoint him as I shot out of my chair angrily, but he stopped me effortlessly and pushed me back down.
"Please! Hear me out. "Yes, I knew you were coming, and I had people in place to protect you, but for some reason they jumped you earlier than expected and we weren't there to protect you."
His pained expression and obvious anger over the Vigilantes' actions finally sank in, and as I calmed down, I thought about everything that happened.
"Sounds like you have a Vigilante inside man in your gang," I ventured.
"I know." Mark's jaw was clenched tight and he nodded.
"That's why you told Tommy you were sending me out with the Slashers... you have no intention of doing that," I realized. "Is it Tommy?"
Mark shook his head. "I don't think so. I can't be sure, but I think it's Patchman. He's second in command, and next in line to run the Rustlers, but since I came on the scene, I've developed such a rep that I think Carlo Montegna -- he's the chief -- is getting ready to move me into Patchman's place. I was planning on saying no, because I don't want to be that involved with my own subjects. It might invalidate my results. I even told Patchman I wasn't interested in a promotion, but I don't think he believes me."
"But you think he'll get Tommy to tell him your plans?" I guessed.
"I'm counting on it. Tommy's known him for years and won't think twice about telling him where I'm going."
"Pulling the Vigilantes in that direction --"
"And leaving you a clear way out," he finished. "That's the favor I need to ask you." He went over to the desk and bent to pull a small package out from under it where it had been attached with duct tape. He came towards me and held it out.
"There's a video tape in here with all the evidence we've been able to gather on the Vigilantes' activities. There isn't enough in here, by itself, to convince the police --"
"But together with my testimony and the fingerprints on that gun you were handling so carefully, it might pull the plug on the Vigilantes," I interrupted, guessing what his 'favor' was. "You want me take everything to the 'Burb police and tell them how I was ambushed." As he nodded, I started to get suspicious, seeing his suddenly embarrassed expression.
"You were going to videotape their ambush of me as the final piece of evidence!" I rose angrily as I saw that I was right, pushing his hand with the package aside to glare up at him. "You were going to let them attack me!"
He actually backed away as I pressed on. He towered over me by a good foot and probably outweighed me by ninety pounds, but I was pissed!
"No," he protested. "I had people all around the ambush site, some with cameras, yes, but all of us armed with riot guns and tear gas. We would have stopped them."
"With more killing," I accused, moving in on him.
His eyes flashed pain as he put the tapes aside and stopped me with a gentle hand on each of my shoulders. It was like trying to move a brick wall.
"No, Pam. Not with more killing. Our riot guns were loaded with rubber stun pellets. Same issue as your suburban riot police use. No one would have gotten killed." His eyes were actually moist. "There's been too much fucking killing!"
The unexpectedly harsh curse and his anguished face acted like a cold shower to wash away my anger, and I reached up to put my hands on his.
"What happened?" I asked softly.
He looked down at me, a sudden smile playing on his lips. "Are you sure you're not a psych student?" Then he pulled free and went over to the window to stand there looking out silently.
I didn't say anything.
"I shot my own brother," he finally answered.
"What?" I stared at him.
He nodded, still looking out. "I was a cop. In Manhattan. My older brother and I had been in a gang, in a 'hood right on the 'Hattan border. I got lucky and found an outreach group trying to help gang youths reform -- one of the last of that type of efforts," he commented bitterly. "But my brother didn't want any part of it."
"So you got out of the Ring --"
"-- and I got 'civilized'," he confirmed. "And eventually educated."
"And then what happened?"
He moved away from the window and settled in the recliner I had vacated, long legs stretched out in front of him as he looked up at me.
"I went into police work, because the outreach group that had helped me had been composed of cops trying to help stop problems from developing. This was long before the Vigilantes" he added, "and the Ring wasn't as discrete or isolated as it is now. But the shooting happened my second year on the force. I was still pretty much a rookie, and I was responding to a call about a warehouse burglary right on the border with the Ring."
I saw it coming and he nodded. "You guessed it: my brother was in on the burglary, things got hairy... and I wound up with the first death on my conscience." His eyes had closed and his mouth was twisted. Then his eyes snapped open and he sat up. "And the last death! I quit the next day because I knew I would never be able to do that again, regardless of who it might be. It was a clean shoot and Internal Affairs cleared me, but it was months before I could sleep a whole night without living through it all over again."
"So you went into school to try a different approach to cleaning things up?" It wasn't a question really, and he nodded.
"Yup. And putting the Vigilantes out of business was a key part of my plans. I wasn't really happy about using you, but we had... would have had you covered."
"Except Patchman sold you out."
"And almost got you killed!" Mark was suddenly on his feet, that deadly anger blazing on his face again. "He's going to pay for that!"
If I had not heard, and believed, what Mark had been saying before, I would have measured Patchman's life in hours. I had a feeling the younger man might have preferred that because, while I wasn't sure what Mark had in mind, I was pretty sure Patchman wasn't going to be wearing Rustler colors much longer, and that that would probably be the least of his punishment.
Mark calmed down after a moment and went back over to the desk to get the tape and the gun, putting them into a bag.
"Here." He pressed it into my hands. "I wouldn't blame you if you hated my guts, but you've got to get this out to the real police. They've got to face what's happening, and they've also got to realize that they can't keep turning their backs on the Ring and trust the Vigilantes to keep the peace. With the Vigilantes gone, I know I can cool things down. That's my revised project. Everyone in the Ring knows what's going on and they're sick of it, so I'll be preaching to a converted audience. I have a feeling my message won't have too much trouble reaching out to other 'hoods, and we can start unifying the ring and making some real changes."
The bag seemed terribly heavy even though Mark's hands swallowed and supported my own. I was still furious with him as I thought about Billy lying there on the ground, his face an unrecognizable mask of blood, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized Mark wasn't to blame. He had not brought Billy and me into the Ring, he had not pulled the trigger, and if anything, it was thanks to him and Tommy that I was still alive. And with his help, the Ring had a very good chance of getting cleaned up.
"Very touching."
The sarcastic comment that drifted out of the shadows galvanized us and we turned to face Patchman standing there with a riot gun in his hands, very carefully aimed at Mark's head. He had apparently come in through a back entrance while we had been talking.
"This one isn't loaded with stun pellets, by the way," Patchman warned. "It's one of the ones you left on the floor back in the War Room, and I reloaded it." Gone were the tones of the 'hood, replaced by diction as clear and precise as Mark's. "And I wonder what Kathy would think of this little scene. Pam's a fox, though. Bird in hand, and all that." He grinned at me briefly, the scarred flesh of his face twisting and stretching to further deform him into an inadvertent parody of the Vigilante whom I had shot.
Mark ignored his crack as I moved off to the side nervously.
"I take it my cover is blown?" he asked.
"Oh, no, my friend. I just thought Tommy's tale seemed a little too helpful. You're one suspicious son of a bitch, and you'd never have told Tommy your plans unless you wanted me to know. But that's okay. I passed on your message to the Vigilantes anyway. I wanted to get you to myself to make you a proposition." He raised the riot gun quickly as Mark shifted a fraction of an inch. "Don't! Hear me out. Together we could clean up, you know? I can use someone who can 'pass' in the 'Burb and 'Hattan to scope out targets. Why should the Vigilantes have all the fun? I can take advantage of their safe passages and some of their fences. But I can't do it all myself because... well, I'm a little too... 'memorable'."
"And if I choose not to help?" Mark was almost quivering in anxiousness to jump Patchman, but the other wasn't about to give him a chance.
I could already imagine the deafening report of the riot gun, and the shredding of Mark's face -- an obscene echo of Billy's death -- and I kept moving away. Patchman ignored me and jabbed the gun in Mark's direction.
"If you don't work with me," he threatened, "I'll spread the word about who and what you are... and I'll be sure to embellish a bit. You'll have to forgive me." His face contorted in an obscene smile again. "Think about it. What do you think will happen if the 'hood finds out that a patronizing 'burber has been sent in here to weaken 'hood spirit and strength while the 'Burb gets ready to launch an attack on the Ring? And of course, that information will 'mysteriously' spread to the rest of the Ring.
Patchman finally noticed that I had almost made my way to the desk.
"Freeze, sugar, or I pull this trigger."
I shrugged. "Go ahead! He's the one was going to leave me to be ambushed and maybe killed." I snorted. "Yo