Another Life (9 page)

* * *

I
used my key on the three-pound padlock, opened the chain-link, and stepped into their territory, a gallon thermos of Mama’s beef-in-oyster-sauce in one hand.
The big stud strutted out, eyeballing me same as always. His world was like his little girl’s coat: black and white. Either he recognized me, or I was a dead man.
Nova was a special brand of warlord: he
expected
tribute, but trying to bribe him would be suicide.
I poured out the contents of the thermos on the marble slab I’d installed over the concrete for just that purpose. Nova walked over, followed closely by his mate…and that orca-spotted little female I’d been courting so long.
While the others tore into Mama’s cooking, she slipped behind me and deftly snatched the solid cube of filet she knew would be waiting, just for her. “That’s my good little girl,” I said.
Then I squatted down and patted her. A real one this time, not just a quick touch of her head, like I’d been doing. I even scratched her behind one ear, just to make sure.
This time, she didn’t trot away.
“You want to come home with me?”
She sat, eyes shifting from my face to her father and mother.
“It’s time,” I told them.
The stud just watched. The mother looked at me. Into me.
Judge and jury, side-by-side. The only role still up for grabs was executioner.
I waited for the verdict.
Counted to fifteen in my head.
Then I started up the Plymouth. Let it reach operating temperature, the way I always do. I’d been keeping the passenger-side door open while I warmed up the engine for months now, getting them all used to the sight.
Usually, they all went right back into their dog condo as soon as I started up. This time, none of them moved.
The temp gauge said the Roadrunner’s engine was ready. I took one more look. Nova was nowhere to be seen. But his killer-witch wife was still there, standing next to her last child.
I opened the passenger door, patted the seat, said, “Come on, sweetheart.”
The dog I knew I was finally ready for jumped in next to me. I reached across her, closed the door. Her mother’s body was a statue, but her eyes crackled with death-threats.
I drove out slowly. Stopped. Went back, locked the gate behind me. And took my puppy home.

* * *

“S
he’s a
beauty,
boss!”
“She sure is, Gate,” I told the man in the wheelchair who slipped his hand back from under his guayabera shirt when he saw me come in the front door of the flophouse he “managed” from behind a thick wooden plank.
“Yours?”
“I hope so, brother. You know what they say.”
“Time will tell,” the shooter replied, confirming the only test a born convict recognizes.

* * *

I
f being carried up a few flights of filthy stairs bothered her, she didn’t let on. I opened the door to my place, put her down, said, “It’s yours, if you want it, Rosie.”
That’s when I realized I’d named her.

* * *

T
raining a dog isn’t any more complicated than immediately rewarding them anytime they do something you want them to learn. Every time they do it, you add praise and a command, so they make the connection. Eventually they don’t need the treats anymore. But that’s just the mechanics of training, not the heart.
Rosie was a young dog, not a puppy. I’d never had a semi-grown one before, but I knew this much: if she was ever going to be really, truly mine, I had to be hers first.
She spent hours inspecting the place. I encouraged her verbally, but I didn’t try teaching her anything. That night, I made her a bed out of thick blankets, right across from my cot.
When I opened my eyes the next morning, she was curled up next to me.
Some wino on a lower floor started screaming. Rosie jumped down and charged the front door, snarling, wagging her tail happily at the prospect of battle.
Defending her home.

* * *

W
hen I had to, I used to be able to leave my Pansy alone for days; I rigged it so she could get food and water by herself. But I’d raised Pansy from a pup, and she knew I’d
always
come back, so I never worried about her getting all anxious while I was gone. Neos aren’t exactly Jack Russells, anyway.
For the next couple of days, I took Rosie everywhere I went, but I didn’t want her to think that’s how it was always going to be. So I started leaving her. The first time, it was only ten minutes. The second I walked back in, she started spinning in place with excitement, then rushed me so hard she almost took me down.
Gradually, I increased the time between returns. “I’ll
always
be back for you, Rosie,” I told her, every single time.
Gateman was crazy about her, so I started leaving her with him, too.
“Watch this, boss!” he practically shouted when I came in late one night. Rosie had run over to me, and I was patting her and telling her what a perfect, beautiful girl she was, when Gateman yelled out: “Rosie, sit!”
And she did.
“Yeah!” Gateman cheered. “Come and get it, girl!”
She gave me a look, then trotted over and took whatever Gateman slipped her, swallowed it in one gulp.
“I never had a dog,” the wheelchair-bound shooter said. “I know she ain’t mine”—catching a look from me—“but I’m part of her family, right?”
“True blood,” I notarized. Then I glanced behind the counter, saw the trailer-hitch eye-bolt screwed into the floor, attached to a length of heavy chain.
“Got to have it, boss,” he explained. “This little girl sees anybody coming through that door, she just
goes.
No yap-yap bullshit for her; she’s a natural.”
He didn’t have to add “killer.”
“I know it, Gate. But, look, that means, if any of our crew shows up and she’s up there with me—”
“I call up and warn you, bro. She’s gonna be one of us, but we go step by step, am I right?”
I tapped fists with him. When I said, “Home,” Rosie charged up the stairs like a Great White who just heard a surfer convention was in town.

* * *

“R
ose is such a beautiful name,” Michelle said, stroking my dog’s triangular head. “Why do you have to call her Rosie? That’s a washerwoman’s name. Not fit for a princess, is it?” she asked the pit.
“When you train a dog, you need a two-syllable name,” I told Michelle. “It’s all about getting them to focus, lock in on whatever you’re saying, pay attention.”
“Oh, for the love of—”
“I know what I’m doing, honey.”
“Yes, you
are
quite the expert when it comes to females.”
“Give it up,” I told my sister. “You’re not winning this one.”
“Men are like that,” she said to my dog. “Aren’t they,
Rose
?”

* * *

O
nly a certified imbecile licenses a pit bull these days. They’ve got that “born bad” tag on them so deep that lawmakers all over are trying to make them illegal. They’re even a “banned breed” in some countries, and the disease is spreading. Pits can’t hire lobbyists, so nobody’s running around screaming about their right to own one, even if they can be dangerous in the wrong hands. I mean, it’s not as if they were something sacred…like guns.
You know how those gangsta-boy punks “train” their dogs to fight? They feed them gunpowder. Ulcerates the lining of their stomachs until they’re in so much pain all the time that it turns them vicious. I guess that doesn’t qualify as irony—not cute enough for the bloggers, and too nasty for the poets.
I couldn’t wait for Michael Vick to find Jesus, snatch himself some forgiveness, and go back to pro football. I could watch every game, hoping he’d get his spine snapped. Then they could just push his wheelchair into a swimming pool, and throw in a plugged-in space heater. Hey, if he can’t breed, what good is he, right?
Still, I wasn’t going to let Rosie walk around without tags and give some cop an excuse, so I did the good-citizen thing. The clerk didn’t even blink when I put down “Taurus Uniqua” as her breed. I wrote “Rose” for her name.
You pay the money, you get a dog license, no questions asked. But if you want AKC credentials, you have to paper the provenance. Otherwise, you can’t enter one of their oh-so-special shows.
The Nazis would have loved the spectacles those “dog lovers” put on: the winner is the one who comes closest to the physical-perfection template. Blue blood, blue ribbon, big bucks. That’s why some breeders “cull” their litters. Can’t have below-standard pups running around; those defective genes could pollute the perfection pool. A German shepherd with a spotted coat—now,
that’s
a sin against nature.
I had Rosie microchipped, too. Things happen. If she was running loose, a Good Samaritan might get her to a shelter. The phone would ring at Mama’s, and one of us would go get her.
Plus, I didn’t want some Animal Control idiot stopping Gateman’s wheelchair for walking Rosie without tags. I consider it my civic duty to prevent violence.

* * *

“T
hey had to take the leg, Prof,” I said. Straight out, the way I knew he’d want it.
“Kind of suspected so,” the old man said. “That skinny little nurse, Taralyn, I could see it in her eyes.”
“Prof…”
“What’s wrong with you, Schoolboy? I didn’t lose nothing I’m gonna need. I look like fucking Bojangles to you?”
“You look like you always do,” I told my father. “Sound the same, too.”
He looked around for a long few seconds. Said, “This setup, it’s not no charity ward. Am I right?”
“Yeah.”
“What’d you do, son? Sell your soul to the Devil?”
“Not my soul,” I told my father.
Then I told him the rest.

* * *

T
he papers quoted the cops as saying they had a “person of interest” in the double homicide that had been dominating the headlines. The crime was perfect fodder for tabloid slop, with a little TV-cop talk sprinkled in. Both victims had been shot in the back of the head—“execution-style,” of course—so the “Mansion Murders” must have been the work of a “professional.”
“The kid’s in temporary foster care,” Terry said, looking up from his laptop screen.
“That didn’t take long.”
“Come on, Burke. My part shouldn’t even count as an exploit, not with all the social engineering you did first.”
It was good to know I still had the phone skills—scamming the names of a random group of CPS caseworkers had been easier than bribing a congressman.
Terry’s first trick—accessing public records to get the vitals on each one—had hit pay dirt. “They let them use anything they want for a password,” he explained, shaking his head in disgust. “They don’t even require alpha-numerics, just has to be six characters or more. Pathetic. Most people, they just put in their own name or birthday. Hit it on the third try.”
I patted the kid—I was going to have to stop calling him that, even in my mind—on the shoulder.
“Nice work, T. Probably means the little girl told the cops what that woman they found next to her father was really there for. And you
know
the cops looked at the father’s computer. It was a crime scene, right? No warrant required. Maybe the whore’s prints were already in the system, too.
“The media’s gonna be all over this, so there’s no way CPS gets to look the other way…not with people looking at
them.
Guaranteed they’ll be asking that ‘mother’ some questions.”
“I’ve got some questions I’d like to ask her.”
“Leave that to the insurance investigators, T. Those cold-blooded bastards will be looking for as much ammo as they can stockpile. See, here’s a trifecta you can bet the farm on: the mother files a claim on the father’s big-bucks life insurance; the company denies it, and she sues.”
“She is just as guilty as—”
“More,” I said to Clarence, who had been standing quietly, watching the computer screen. “But that’s the kind of ‘trafficking’ that they don’t do TV specials about.” I was thinking of Beryl, the little girl I’d “saved” so many years ago. Thinking about what she’d become—even psychopaths will tell you the truth if they want to.
And how
very
much Beryl had wanted to.

* * *

“Y
ou didn’t ping me to make a progress report,” Pryce said. “And you didn’t need a meeting to get more money. So you must want something done.”
“A meeting. But not with you.”
“Who, then?”
“This ‘prince’ of yours.”
“Look, Burke, this isn’t a man you can just—”
“I’ll play by whatever rules you lay down. But if you want a win, I’ve got to get in the game. People always know more than they think they know, only that never comes out unless you ask the right questions. If this guy really wants the baby as bad as he—”
“What are you trying to say?”
“Trying? I already said it.”
Pryce looked at me, no expression in his inky eyes. An apex predator isn’t programmed for deep analysis. On
this
island, Pryce was a Komodo dragon—every living thing was his potential prey. He wasn’t trying to read me; he was reading the menu.
“There’s a lot of talk about you,” he finally said. “A man could get a headache, reading through all of the files.”
“Is that right?”
“Yes,” he said, almost sorrowfully. “The problem is, one piece of intel contradicts the other.”
“That’s because it’s not ‘intelligence,’ it’s politics. Like a Supreme Court judge: He doesn’t give a fuck about the law; he just knows what
he
wants. So he orders his clerks to go find enough bricks to build his ‘opinion’ with. Like that ‘partial birth abortion’ pile of crap they came up with.”
“You think everyone’s bent, don’t you?” Pryce said. Not being sarcastic, looking for that straight-from-the-source “intel” that he’d spent his life collecting. And using.
“No,” I told him. Not just because it was the truth, but because I don’t like pigeonholes any more than I like prison cells. “And I don’t think ‘every man has his price,’ either. No pun intended.”
“But the law itself—?”
“Bent? It’s downright twisted,” I cut him off. “All the way from the root to the branches to the dirty blossoms with that foul smell. In this city, the lower-court judges are ‘merit appointments’…meaning the mayor gets to pick whoever he wants. The higher levels, you have to run for election…meaning the party bosses get to pick whoever
they
want. Nothing to do with politics, right? Or money? Take it all the way to the top, it doesn’t change. Ask George Bush how this Miers broad got herself qualified to be nominated for the Supreme Court.
“What’s with the innocent act, all of a sudden? You actually think any of those judges
don’t
have a personal position on abortion? Or capital punishment? Or gay rights? No matter what they say, they know their real job is to make the Constitution dance to the tune of whoever appointed them, okay?
“Come on, tell me I’m wrong. Tell me they
don’t
come in with their own agendas, and twist their rulings to fit. What else are you selling today? Lobbyists got that rich by playing the horses? Congressmen made their fortune in the real-estate market? Jesus.”
Pryce just did his thing: watched, and listened.
And, despite knowing I should have shut up minutes ago, I hammered on, hating myself for falling under his spell. “Maybe you’re even one of those mopes who thinks jury nullification is some kind of ‘black protest’ thing? Better not ask the jury on the Emmett Till case. How come ‘states’ rights’ was good enough when they had to justify segregation, but it went down the tubes when medical marijuana showed up? How come kids who’ve been abused get actual lawyers in some states, but others only give them a warm, caring amateur who has to kiss the judge’s ass if she wants to be allowed in the courtroom at all?”
“Just Us,” Pryce said.
“Spare me the Paris Hilton stories, pal. A guy like you, you’ll never get it. Sure, that’s how cons spell ‘justice,’ but that’s not like saying you’re innocent; it’s saying you didn’t have enough coin to buy a walk-away. You rolled the dice and crapped out, that’s all. You don’t sit around and wait for things to
be
fair; you just learn to never
fight
fair.”
He looked at me for what I guess he thought was a long time. Then he said: “I mentioned intel for a reason, Burke—I’m not the only one with access to it.”
“Meaning, this prince guy has got friends who can pull files?”
“And that’s just what he
will
do, on anyone he meets with.”
“Including you?” I asked, guessing that it was one of the no-budget-line government departments that had contacted Pryce, not the Prince himself.
“That part’s no problem,” he said dismissively. “I’m on the books. You’re not.”
“So put me on them. Pick a name, make up a background—you know, whatever they do for you, every time they send you out.”
“You’re not listening,” he said. “There is no
Central
Intelligence Agency.” Pryce would know—he spent his life sliding through government walls like cigarette smoke through a window screen. “The Sheikh might have access to more than one source. Especially from the international desks.”
“So?”
He leaned back, a boxer dropping his shoulder to launch a hook. “Does the ‘4 Commando’ unit ring a bell with you?”
“Huh?” I slipped the shot, throwing back the look of honest confusion I’d been perfecting in police interrogations since I was a kid.
“Mad Mike Hoare’s crew,” he went on, unruffled. “In Katanga, it was the ‘
5
Commando.’ After that, he disappeared for a little while. Resurfaced in Biafra sometime in ’67 or so. Rumor has it that it was his team who escorted Ojukwu out of the kill zone, once it became obvious that Nigeria was going to wipe out the rebels.”
“Never met him.” The truth. “Never even heard of him.” A deliberately transparent lie.
“You
do
understand that you’re still listed as a war criminal by the Nigerians?”
“What’s a ‘war criminal’?” I said…a more polite form of “I don’t give a fuck.”
“Good question,” he answered, surprising me. “Everybody knows about the Geneva Convention. Because it was supposed to establish rules for armed combat between nations, it was assumed the combatants would be
members
of those nations. Of course, that never was the truth, but it wasn’t until the late Seventies that anyone admitted it. Then the Convention was amended—called ‘Protocols Additional’—to cover hired guns.
“Boiled down to the essentials, the Protocols say that mercenaries aren’t soldiers, they’re common criminals. If captured, they’re not entitled to POW status. They can’t be repatriated to their home country, because their home country isn’t at war with the country they were fighting in. Ask Simon Mann.
“So, what they get is a trial,” he said, parboiling the last word in a thick soup of sarcasm. “If the court finds the combatant to be a mercenary, they can do whatever they want to him.”
“Even if—?”
“A few years after Vietnam, some ‘guerrillas’ in Angola were put on trial right after they were captured. About a dozen in all. Three British nationals were sentenced to death. One American, too.”
“Sentenced?”
“They were executed about two weeks later. Firing squad. The rest of them got the kind of prison sentences nobody expected them to survive.”
“I’m guessing there was no U.S. Embassy there.”
“What if there was? America never signed that protocol. Why should we? America never uses mercs, it only sends ‘military advisors.’ If a private citizen commits a crime in a foreign country, he’s on his own.”
“Fuck you
and
your Protocols, Pryce. Isn’t there one about not using child soldiers, too? For my money, we should tell the UN to find a new place to live, turn the whole building into condos.”
“I was just giving you some info I thought you might—”
“What,
use
? This ‘war criminal’ crap, it’s just another way of saying that a tourist visa to Nigeria would only buy me a one-way trip. Is that supposed to be news?”
“I thought you might be interested in knowing the Nigerian government has a long memory.”
“Which government would that be? The guys who won that last ‘election’?”
“Don’t be deliberately stupid, Burke. The Prince is a Muslim. And Muslims rule most of Nigeria, no matter who’s supposedly in charge. Shari’a is the only law in the parts of the country they control, which is most of the land.”
“So?”
“So
they
have a list of every mercenary who served in the Biafran conflict.”
I made a “so what?” gesture.
“That’s right,” he agreed. “All they have is the name you were using at the time. No photographs, no fingerprints. But they
do
have access to an individual who says he can identify all his…former comrades.”
“I bet they do. The mercs who fought there were a real mixed bag. Some were just nigger-killers, some thought they were fighting Communism. But most of them were strictly about the cash. Not just the salary, the ‘finders-keepers’ booty. A diamond’s not a rare stamp or a painting. It doesn’t have a history that can be traced. Fits in your pocket, too.
“So, yeah, I’m sure they got one of them to point out anyone he’d ever seen in-country: Peace Corps volunteers, before they had to flee. Red Cross workers, before one of their supply planes was shot down. Even the priests who never left Săo Tomé—that was the staging area, wall-to-wall with mercs coming and going.”
“Is that where you flew in from?”
“Is this where I’m supposed to tell you if your guess is right?”
“I don’t guess,” Pryce said. “And I’m not dumb enough to buy what I already own. Those Canadian pilots are incredible, aren’t they?”
“I thought the Count was Swedish,” I said, acting as if he was talking about the mad-with-courage Quixote who built the “Biafran Air Force” out of spare parts, instead of the no-nerves pilots who flew ancient Connies over the war zone through the black night, diving down to a dirt runway lit only by flares, as casually as if they were dropping off a truckload of Budweiser behind a 7-Eleven.
“You were lucky,” he said, giving up.
“I was stupid,” I told him. “A stupid kid who thought he was going to be a hero. But if
you
don’t know what I was doing there, I’d be real surprised. And if you think I’d ever so much as set foot on that
continent
again, you should change therapists.”
He gave me a look that could mean anything.
“You think Katanga isn’t
still
a butcher shop?” I said, deliberately referencing where he’d started this game. He was an opponent I couldn’t KO, maybe, but I could take whatever he threw. For as many rounds as he wanted to go.
“I understand,” he said, calmly. “But the Prince could still have sources we don’t know about.”
“What he doesn’t have is a photograph,” I said, confidently. “And even if he did, it wouldn’t resemble what you’re looking at now. There’s no risk.”
“What would I tell him?” Pryce asked, throwing in the towel.
“Why tell him anything? I’m a man you hired. I don’t need a name for that. He wouldn’t expect me to give him one.”
“You don’t want to give him anything else, either,” Pryce warned.
“You don’t seriously think I’m walking into some
embassy,
do you?” I half-laughed. “Here’s how it goes. I pick the spot. I don’t search him; he doesn’t search me. He can bring anyone he wants, but the only DNA left behind at the scene is going to be his.”
“He’ll never—”
“This one’s nonnegotiable,” I told the shape-shifter. “He doesn’t like it, fuck him. At least you’ll find out how bad he really wants that baby back.”