Summer Cool

28

It was a jeep, like Paine had thought. He had hoped the night air would be cooler, but the desert hadn't given up its heat yet and he continued to sweat. They put him in the back. Paine saw that they were just off the highway in a little settlement of modest houses, dusty yards, chicken wire enclosures, rusted vehicles on blocks. They pulled out on the highway and now Paine knew where they were: between Tucson and Kitt Peak. The stars were out, brushing the sky with tiny lights. Somewhere behind him the domes would be open, searching.

The jeep went fast. When they got nearer to Tucson's glow one of the two followers, at their leader's order, threw a blanket over Paine and the stars went away. It was a wool blanket, and made him sweat more. They rode for what Paine estimated to be another twenty minutes.

Finally, they slowed, curled into a short stretch of road, stopped.

The blanket was lifted_; a black face hovered over him. "Nothing personal, man," the face said, and then the butt end of an AK-47 clubbed him to unconsciousness.

Literally, a padded room. Paine felt himself underground, a dampness ordinarily missing from the desert. It was still hot. He was stripped down to his boxer shorts. He had been thrown on an old mattress in one corner. A single light bulb in the middle of the beamed, insulated ceiling illuminated the blue-padded walls, the white-painted concrete floor. The room was about twenty by twenty feet. There was no staircase. Except for his mattress, and two dog bowls next to it, one containing water, the other empty, there was nothing in the room.

Paine's head hurt. He drank water from one bowl, urinated into the other. An exchange of liquids. There were no basement windows in the room.

Paine was used to waiting, and he waited. His stomach began to ache for food, but none came. His head ached and there was nothing to help that except a month of fishing.

Sometime during the wait he napped_; when he awoke it was hotter in the room. Midday. He could almost feel the sun moving overhead, turning the desert into heat haze. Paine sweated freely, watched the sweat take part of his weight away. He finished the water in the bowl, felt no urge to urinate again, wanted more water.

He napped again, fainting, actually, and sometime in the middle of it he was awakened by a sound. A corner of the room opened up, insulated ceiling pulled up and hinged back. A long metal ladder was lowered, rubber feet angling to hard purchase against the painted floor.

One of the black men scampered down the ladder, stopped halfway, waited for a burden that was lowered to him. Another of the black men came down behind him, and they brought down into the room something long and heavy in a canvas duck sack. They carried it to the far wall and dropped it on the floor. Paine sat up on his mattress but they ignored him, walking back to the ladder and climbing up. The ladder stayed.

Paine rose and was moving to the ladder when the leader of the black men came down it. "Sit on the mattress," he said in a flat voice. His two compatriots followed him down, one bearing a pitcher of water, the other a bowl of fruit-bananas, an apple, two oranges.

They refilled his water bowl and Paine drank half of it; the water had been iced and tasted good. The fruit bowl was put down beside the mattress. Paine ate a banana immediately under the watchful eyes of the black leader_; the others stood to either side of Paine, brandishing their weapons.

There came a sound from above, and the black leader immediately took the fruit bowl away from Paine. He handed it to one of the others, who put it out of reach, and as he did this a figure climbed quickly down the ladder. When he turned around and smiled, Paine knew it must be Kwan.

He was tiny, perhaps four foot ten or eleven. He wore baggy khaki trousers and a loose T-shirt that had a picture of a bottle of Coca Cola on it. He moved gracelessly, all jerks and angles. His face was wide, flat, and empty, a clean slate with eyes, flat nose, prim mouth. He wore no facial hair, and was balding on top, a monk's fringe of black hair framing his head.

When he walked from the ladder to the bundle against the far wall, Paine saw the source of his gracelessness: one of his feet was turned out from the ankle at an odd angle, apparently broken and badly reset.

"Mr. Paine, I wanted you to see this," Tiny Man said. His voice was startlingly American inflected. He produced a small penknife, bent to the canvas-enclosed bundle on the floor, made a small incision at one end and ripped a line all the way down. He pulled the sack aside and there was the unmoving figure of Philly Ramos.

"Wake him up," Tiny Man said to the leader of the blacks, who immediately went over to Philly, bent, and began to slap his face. The blows had no effect at first. Then Philly seemed to swim out of the place he had been. He looked drugged. He focused on the black man standing over him and smiled. "Poppa, how are you, man?"

Poppa hit him again, hard, with the flat of his palm across the face, and Philly's eyes became clearer and focused on Tiny Man.

"Jesus," he said. "Christ, man, you promised me."

"When I promise, sometimes I lie," Tiny Man said. He turned away from Philly as if he were of no further importance.

"Sit him up," he said to Poppa, and Poppa obliged, sitting Philly up away from the wall and pulling the remains of the canvas bag away from him.

"Mr. Paine," Tiny Man said, "I want you to remember this, because this man did a wrong to you, but mainly because it will make an impression of what you have become involved in."

Tiny Man whirled toward Philly, at the same time lifting something from the inside of his baggy trousers.

Philly looked up at him and suddenly knew what was happening. He began to scream. Tiny Man's blade, which looked something like a long, not very wide, meat cleaver, came down and across, halfway cutting Philly's head from his neck. Philly's scream turned into a gurgle of blood, and the second swift fall of Tiny Man's blade finished the guillotining. He then proceeded, with fast, tautly muscled strokes, to detach Philly's limbs from his torso.

Paine tried to turn his head, but Poppa put his hands to either side of Paine's face and made him watch. One of the AK-47s pointed close by Paine's face, making him keep his eyes open. The dull, meaty sounds of Tiny Man's blade hacking at flesh were like nothing Paine had ever heard before.

It was over in a matter of minutes. Poppa released Paine's head and he turned to vomit, missing the dog bowl with urine in it, soiling the mattress. The fruit he had just eaten came up readily, followed by watery yellow bile.

When Paine straightened himself and opened his eyes, Philly's lifeless face was staring into his. Tiny Man held Philly's hair tightly in one hand, and he put this hand on Paine's head, gripping the hair, and brought the two heads close together.

"Would you like to say good-bye, Mr. Paine?" Tiny Man asked. "He will be fucking no more men, or killing any of my loyal workers."

Tiny Man yanked Philly's head away, threw it disdainfully into a far corner of the room, and went to the ladder.

He was about to climb up it when Paine said, "You killed Coleman, Johnson, and Quinones."

Tiny Man looked back at him in wonderment. "Of course. Did you think Bob Petty did those things? Petty has even more foolishness than honor. He has been following me for the past week, trying to do the same thing to me that I've been doing to his men. Johnson, he tried to hide, unsuccessfully. Coleman, he tried to warn, again unsuccessfully. I was even able to lure him away from Quinones for the half hour I needed."

Kwan had his foot on the ladder when Paine asked, "Why did you act now?"

"Because I knew Petty was coming for me."

"How did you know that?"

Kwan smiled and shook his head. "You are as foolish as your friend, Mr. Paine. I was told, of course."

"By who?"

"By someone in your government." Tiny Man smiled again. "We will see your friend Bob Petty soon, Mr. Paine. Bearing all of his foolishness and honor, he will come to save you." He began to scamper up the ladder, the three black men just behind him, one of them bearing the remaining fruit in its bowl.

"Perhaps," Tiny Man said, "I will let you say good-bye to him, too."