Under Siege

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

President Bush left for Camp David in the mountains northwest of Frederick, Maryland, around nine a.m. for a weekend retreat to hash out foreign policy issues with the secretary of state and the national security adviser. Before he boarded the helicopter, however, he had another session with Dorfman and Attorney General Gideon Cohen.

“What does this Zaba character know?”

“More than enough to convict Chano Aldana,” Cohen told the President. “He had at least half a dozen personal meetings with Aldana that we know of — four in Cuba and two in Colombia. He gave orders to his subordinates to assist in shipping cocaine from Colombia to Cuba. He personally supervised at least four transshipments on to the United States.”

“Is he talking?” Dorfman asked, a little annoyed that Cohen, as usual, was putting the cart before the horse.

“Not yet. Judge Snyder appointed him a lawyer yesterday. Guy named Szymanski from New York.”

“The shyster that got those S&L thieves acquitted last week?”

“Yes. David Szymanski. He’s got a national reputation and Judge Snyder called him and asked if he would serve. He agreed.”

“Szymanski could dry up Niagara,” Dorfman said acidly. “If Szymanski can’t shut him up, this Zaba has a terminal case of motormouth.”

“I talked to the secretary of state about this matter. He felt it was important that we get top-notch counsel for Zaba. We may well want Cuba to send us some more of these people to try, and we need to show the Cubans that anyone extradited will get quality counsel and a fair trial. That’s critical. I personally asked Judge Snyder—”

“Okay, okay,” George Bush said, breaking in. “Will Zaba talk or won’t he?”

“I think he will,” Cohen told him. “The Cubans put it to him this way: If he cooperated with us he could eventually return to Cuba a free man. When he gets back there he can always blame Castro.”

“Who’s conveniently dead,” Dorfman remarked.

“No doubt Cuba will publicize his testimony as an example of the corruption of the old regime.”

“No doubt,” George Bush said. “You going to let him cop a plea?”

“If Szymanski asks, yes. Zaba will have to agree to testify against Chano Aldana. His sentencing hearing will be delayed until after the Aldana trial.”

“Won’t that give Aldana’s lawyer something to squawk about?” Dorfman asked.

“Yes.”

“How about this drug bust on Monday night? Is that on schedule?”

“Yessir.”

“You and I and the director of the FBI will have a press conference Tuesday morning. Schedule that, please, Will.”

“Yessir.”

“And Will, go see that the reporters are moved back far enough so that I don’t have to hear any questions on the way out to the chopper.”

Dorfman departed. When they were alone, George Bush said, “Gid, I know that you and Dorfman strike sparks, but I need you both.”

“The asshole thinks he was born in a manger,” Cohen said hotly.

The President was taken aback. He had never heard Cohen blow off steam before — apparently lawyers at blue-chip New York firms didn’t often indulge themselves. “That’s true,” the President replied with a wry grin, “but he’s my asshole.”

Cohen’s eyebrows rose and fell.

“There’s no way in the world I can please everyone. Dorfman attracts the criticism. He takes the blame. He takes the heat I can’t afford to take. That’s his job.”

The attorney general nodded.

“This drug thing … We have to just keep plugging at it. We’re trying and the voters will understand that. Only pundits and TV preachers expect miracles. And I don’t want anybody railroaded. Our job is to make the damn system work.”

Harrison Ronald got back to his apartment around noon. He locked and bolted the door and fell into bed with the .45 automatic in his hand. He was instantly asleep.

At five o’clock he awoke with a start. Someone upstairs had slammed a door. The pistol was still in his hand. He flexed his fingers around it, felt its heft, and lay awake listening to the sounds of the building.

When this was over he would go home. Home to Evansville and spend Christmas with his grandmother. He hadn’t talked to her in five or six months. She didn’t even know where he was. Tough on her, but better for him. She was getting on and liked to share confidences with her friends and minister.

Oh well. It would soon be over. One more night. When he walked out of this dump in three hours, he was never coming back. The landlord could have it — the worn-out TV, the clothes, the bargain-basement dinnerware and pots and pans, all of it. Harrison Ronald was going straight back to the real world.

He had leveled with Hooper about why he wanted to go back. He was going to have to learn how to live with fear — not just the fear of Freeman McNally — but fear itself. He had learned in the Marines that the only way to conquer this poison called fear was to face it.

Ah me. Ten months in a sewage pond. Ten months in hell. And this time tomorrow he would be out of it.

He lay in bed listening to the sounds and thinking about the life he was going back to.

Thanos Liarakos was in the den when he heard the kids shouting. “Mommy, Mommy, you’re home!”

She was standing there in the front hallway with the kids around her, looking at him. Her hair and clothes were a mess. She just stood there looking at him as the girls squealed and pranced and tugged at her hands.

“Hug them, Elizabeth.”

Now she looked at their upturned faces. She ran her hands through her hair, then bent and kissed them.

“Okay, girls,” he said. “Run upstairs a while and let Mommy and Daddy visit. No, why don’t you go out to the kitchen and help Mrs. Hamner fix dinner. Mommy will stay for dinner.”

They gave her a last squeeze and ran for the kitchen.

“Hello, Thanos.”

“Come in and sit down.” He gestured toward the den.

She selected her easy chair, the antique one she had had recovered — when was it? — a year ago? He sat in his looking at her. She had aged ten years. Bags under her eyes, lines along her cheeks, sagging pouches under her jaw.

“Why’d you come back?”

Elizabeth gestured vaguely and looked at the wall.

“You didn’t stay at the clinic. They called and said you walked away.”

She took a deep breath and let her eyes rest on him.

“Still on the dope, I see.”

“I thought you’d be glad to see me. The girls are.”

“You can stay for dinner if you want. Then you leave.”

“Why are you doing this to me?”

“Don’t give me that shit! You’re doing this to yourself. Look at yourself, for Christ’s sake. You look like hell.”

She looked down at her clothes, as if seeing them for the first time.

“Why don’t you go upstairs, take a shower, wash your hair, and put on clean clothes. Dinner will be in about forty-five minutes.”

She gathered herself and stood. She nodded several times without looking at him, then opened the door and walked out. Liarakos followed her to the foot of the stairs and stood there for three or four minutes, then he slowly climbed the staircase. He stood in the bedroom until he heard the shower running, then left.

He had said she would stay for dinner on impulse; now he regretted it. Could he manage his emotions for two hours? He loved her and he hated her, both at the same time. The irresistible tidal currents tore at him.

Hatred. In her foolish weakness and selfishness she abandoned everything for that white powder. Abandoned the children, him—yes, him—was it hatred or rage?

Love. Yes. If there were no love there would be no hatred. Just sorrow.

And then he was outside himself, staring at this man from an angle above, watching him walk, seeing the meaningless gestures and the twitching of the facial muscles, knowing the pain and knowing too that somehow none of it really mattered.

It didn’t, you know. Didn’t matter. The kids would grow into adults and make their own lives and forget, and he would keep getting up every day and shaving and going to the office. Age would creep over him, then decrepitude, then, finally, the nursing home and the grave. None of it mattered. In the long run none of it mattered a damn.

Yet there he was, standing there imprisoned on this tired old earth, being ripped apart.

“Lisa, tell your mother what you’ve been doing in school.”

The child prattled about mice and gerbils and short stories. Elizabeth kept her eyes on her plate, on her food, concentrated on using the knife and fork at the proper time, on handling the utensils with the proper hands. She patted her lips with the napkin and carefully replaced it in her lap.

“Susanna, your turn.”

The child was deep into a convoluted tale of fish and frogs when Elizabeth scooted her chair back a moment and murmured, “Excuse me.” She bent down for her purse.

Liarakos snagged it. “I’ll watch it.”

His wife stared at him, her face registering no emotion. Then it came. A snarl which began with a twitching of her upper lip and spread across her face.

Liarakos flipped her the purse. She caught it and rose from her chair and went along the hall toward the downstairs half bath.

“You girls finish your dinner,” he said.

“Is Mommy going to stay?”

“No.”

They accepted that and ate in silence. They finished and he shooed them upstairs. Minutes later Elizabeth came back to the dining room, gliding carefully, her face composed.

He sat in silence watching her eat. She picked at the food, then finally placed the fork on the plate and didn’t pick it up again.

“Don’t you want to know where I’ve been?”

“No.”

“Could you give me a ride or some money for taxi fare?”

“You can get wherever you’re going the same way you got here. Good-bye.”

“Thanos, I—”

“Good-bye, Elizabeth. Take your purse and go. Now! Don’t come back.”

“Thanks for—”

“If you don’t go right now, I’ll physically eject you.”

She stared at him for several seconds, then rose. After half a minute he heard the front door open, then click shut.

Harrison Ronald looked at his watch for the forty-fifth time. Two hours and three minutes until he had to be there.

He examined his face in the broken mirror over the cigarette-scarred dresser — would they read it in his face? He could see it written all over his kisser, plain as a newspaper headline. Guilt. That was what was there. Old-fashioned grade-A guilt, the kind your momma always gave you, shot through with cholesterol and saturated fats and plenty of salt and sugar. I did it! I’m the snitch! I’m the stoolie! Whitey sent this chocolate Tom to tattle on all you shit-shoveling niggers and pack your black asses off up the river.

If Freeman asked him the question his face would shatter like frozen glass.

Two hours and two minutes.

Coffee? He had had three cups this evening. That was more than enough caffeine. No booze. No beer. No alcohol, period.

God, he was going to get stinking drunk tomorrow night. He was going to go on a world-class bender and stay yellow-puke drunk for three whole days.

If he was still alive tomorrow night, that is.

Two hours and one minute. A hundred-and-twenty-one minutes.

He picked up the automatic and ran his fingers over it. He would take it with him tonight. In ten months he had never carried a gun, but tonight … Maybe it would give him an edge, since they wouldn’t expect it.

Two hours flat.

Captain Jake Grafton was feeling expansive. He had had a delightful day with his daughter, Amy, and had finished most of his Christmas shopping. Callie had gone by herself to buy Amy’s presents and presumably one for Jake. He had glimpsed her sorting through his clothes this morning, probably checking sizes. This evening the captain smiled genially and let his eyes rest happily on Amy Carol, then on Callie at the other end of the dinner table. Two beautiful women. He was a very lucky man.

The captain’s gaze moved down the table to Toad Tarkington, who was paying no attention to anyone except his wife, Rita Moravia, who sat beside him. Tomorrow Toad would probably have a crick in his neck. Rita was also the object of Amy’s undivided attention. Amy adored the navy test pilot, but this evening as she regarded Rita a curious expression played about her features.

When Callie’s gaze met Jake’s, he nodded toward Amy and knitted his brows into a question. His wife shook her head almost imperceptibly and looked away.

One of those female things, Jake Grafton concluded, that men are not expected to understand or concern themselves about. He sighed.

Across the table from the Tarkingtons sat Jack Yocke and his date, Tish Samuels. Tish was a lovely person, with a pleasant smile and kind word for everyone. In several ways she reminded Jake of his wife, like the way she held her head, the way she listened, her thoughtful comments…. Tish also listened intently to Rita as she finished telling a flying story. When Rita concluded, Tish smiled and glanced at Yocke.

Whether the reporter knew it or not, the woman was obviously in love with him. Yocke seemed mellow, more relaxed than he had been the first time he was at the Graftons’. Or perhaps it was just Jake’s mood that made him seem that way.

As usual when he was relaxed, Jake Grafton said little. He nibbled his food and took sparing sips of wine and let the conversation flow over him.

Callie turned to Yocke and said, “I’ve been reading your stories on Cuba. They are very, very good.”

“Thank you,” Jack Yocke said, genuinely pleased by the compliment.

Callie led him on, and in a few moments Yocke was talking about Cuba. Toad even tore his attention away from Rita to listen and occasionally toss in a question.

At first Yocke’s comments were superficial, but it seemed as if the company drew him out. Even Jake began to pay attention.

“… the thing that impressed me was the sense of destiny that the people had, the common people, the workers. They were gaining something. And then I realized that what they were talking about, what they wanted, was democracy, the right to vote for the leaders who made the laws. You know, we’ve had it here for so long that we’ve become blasé. It’s fashionable these days to sneer at politicians, laugh at the swine prostituting themselves for campaign money and begging shamelessly for votes. And yet, when you’re up to your eyes in dictatorship, being ordered around by some self-appointed Caesar with big ideas in a little head, democracy looks damned good.”

His listeners seemed to agree, so Yocke developed the thought: “It’s funny, but democracy rests on the simplest premise that has ever supported a form of human government: a majority of the people will be right more often than not. Think about it! Errors are part of the system. They are inevitable as the political currents ebb and flow. Yet in the long run, a shifting, changing majority will be right a majority of the time.”

“Will these countries which are embracing democracy for the first time have the patience to wait for the successes and to tolerate the errors?” Jake Grafton asked, the first time during dinner that he had spoken.

Yocke looked down the table at the captain. “I don’t know,” he said. “It takes a lot of faith to believe in the good faith and wisdom of your fellow man. Democracy will stick in some places, sure. I think it needs to get its roots in deep though, or it’ll get ripped up by the first big blow. There’s always someone promising instant salvation if he could just get his hands on the helm and throttle.”

“How about democracy in America? A fad or here to stay?”

“Jake Grafton!” Callie admonished. “What a question!”

“It’s a good one,” Yocke told her. “One of the common errors is to get rid of the system. We’ve got a lot of problems in America and two hundred and fifty million people advocating solutions. I should know — I make my living writing about the problems.”

“You didn’t answer the question,” Toad Tarkington said, and grinned.

“I don’t know the answer,” Jack Yocke told him.

“I don’t think anything could make us give up our republic,” Callie declared.

“What do you think, Captain?” Tish Samuels asked.

Jake snorted. “The roots are in deep all right, but if the storm were bad enough…. Who wants coffee besides me?”

As Callie poured coffee, Jake saw Rita speaking softly to Amy. The youngster listened, her face clouding heavily, then she abruptly fled the room.

Jake folded his napkin and excused himself. He didn’t get past Callie. She thrust the coffeepot at him, then followed Amy into the bedroom.

“How do you want it, Toad?” Jake leaned over the lieutenant’s shoulder.

“In the cup, if possible, CAG.”

“Rita, have you picked up any new lines to teach this clown? His act is getting real stale.”

Rita grinned at Jake. “I know. I was hoping that since he works in your shop now you could give him some help.”

“You work for Captain Grafton?” Jack Yocke asked Toad.

“Maybe I should go visit with Callie and Amy for a minute,” Rita said, and rose from her chair. She came out of it supplely, effortlessly. Toad and Jake watched her until the bedroom door closed behind her.

“Yeah,” Toad said to the reporter. “CAG can’t get rid of me. Actually I have been of some small service to Captain Grafton in the past in his epic struggles to defend the free world from the forces of evil and all that. I suggested yesterday that he buy a Batmobile and I’d keep it over at my place until he needs it. He doesn’t have a garage here.”

“What do you two do over in the Pentagon?” Yocke asked.

“It’s very hush-hush,” Toad confided, lowering his voice appropriately. “We’re drafting top-secret war plans to go into effect if Canada attacks us. We figure they’ll probably take out the automobile plants in Detroit first. Surprise attack. Maybe a Sunday morning. Then—”

“Toad!” Jake growled.

Tarkington gestured helplessly at Tish Samuels, who was grinning. “My lips are sealed. Anyway, it’s a real dilly of a tip-top secret, which as you know are the very best kind. If the Canadians ever find out …”

As they cleared the table, Jake said to Toad, “Rita seems to be fully recovered from that crash last year.”

“She’s got some scars,” Toad said, “but she’s amazed the therapists. Amazed me too.”

They had the dishes in the washer and were in the living room drinking coffee when Amy and Rita came out of the bedroom holding hands. Both looked like they had been crying. Callie headed for the kitchen and Jake trailed after her.

“What was that all about?”

“Amy worships Rita and has a crush on Toad.” Callie rolled her eyes heavenward. “Hormones!”

“Ouch.”

Callie smiled and gave Jake a hug. “I love you.”

“I love you too, woman. But we’d better get back to our guests.”

“Aren’t you glad we invited Jack Yocke?”

“He’s a good kid.”

Fear increases exponentially the closer you get to the feared object. Harrison Ronald made this discovery as he drove toward Freeman McNally’s northwest Washington house.

He could feel it, a paralyzing, mind-numbing daze that made him want to puke and run at the same time.

He was paying less and less attention to the traffic around him, and he knew it but couldn’t do better. That was another thing about fear — a little of it is necessary, keeps you sharp, makes you function at peak efficiency in potentially dangerous situations. But too much of it is paralyzing. Fear becomes terror, which numbs the mind and muscles. And if the ratchet is loosened just a notch, the terror becomes panic and all the muscles receive one message from the shorted-out brain — flee.

He drove slower and slower. When the traffic lights turned green he had to will himself to depress the accelerator. A man in a car behind raced his engine and gunned by with his middle finger held rigidly aloft. Ford ignored him.

In spite of everything, he got there. He eased the car down the alley and into a parking place behind McNally’s row house. The guard was standing in the shadow of a fence. Ford killed the engine. He was not going to retch, no sir. Under no circumstances was he going to let himself vomit.

“Now or never,” he said aloud, comforted by the sound of his voice, which sounded more or less under control, and opened the door. The guard walked toward him with his hands in his coat pockets.

Oh, damn! This is it!

“You Z?”

“Yeah, man.”

“Ain’t nobody in there. You’re supposed to go over to the Sanitary and pick up a load.”

He stood there beside the car staring at the man. It didn’t compute. Think, goddamn it! Think! The Sanitary Bakery …

“The guard’ll meet you there.”

Ford turned and reopened the car door. He seated himself, then tried to remember what he had done with the key. Not this pocket, nor this … here! He stabbed it at the ignition. Turn the key.

With the engine running a tidal wave of relief rolled over him. He pulled the shift lever back a notch and let the car drift backward, toward the alley.

Everything’s cool. Everything’s cool as a fucking ice cube.

Look behind you, idiot. Don’t hit the pole.

As the guard returned to the shadows he backed out into the alley and fed gas.

The relief turned to disgust. He had sweated bullets all day, for what? For nothing!

Maybe he should just split. Why not? He had proved to himself he could make it through today. That was the main thing. Nothing’s going to happen tonight, and why should he deliver another load of shit for Freeman McNally? The feds already had enough evidence for 241 counts on an indictment. Why add another?

What are you proving, Harrison? You’ve had no sleep, you’ve been scared shitless for ten months, you killed a guy, you got enough evidence to send McNally and friends up the river so long that crack will be legal when they get out, but you have to be alive to testify.

Why dick around with it another night? Don’t lose sight of the main thing—you’ve made it through today.

But he knew the answer. He pointed the car toward Georgia Avenue and fed gas.

“How well do you know Captain Grafton?” Jack Yocke asked Toad Tarkington. It was about ten o’clock and they were standing on the balcony looking at the city. It was nippy but there was little wind.

“Oh, about as well as any junior officer can know a senior one. I think he personally likes me, but at the office I’m just another one of the guys.”

“By reputation, he’s one of the best officers in the Navy.”

“He’s the best I ever met. Period,” Toad said. “You want paper shuffled, Captain Grafton can handle it. You want critical decisions wisely made or carefully defended, he’s your man. You need a man to lead other men into combat, get Grafton. You want a plane flown to hell and back, nobody’s better than he is. If you want an officer who will always do right regardless of the consequences, then you want Jake Grafton.”

“How about you?”

“Me? I’m just a lieutenant. I fly when I’m told, sleep when I’m told, and shit when it’s on the schedule.”

“How does Captain Grafton always know what the right thing to do is?”

“What is this? Twenty questions? Don’t you ever lay off?”

“Just curious. I’m not going to print this.”

“You’d better not. I’ll break your pencil.”

“How does he know?”

“He’s got common sense. That’s a rare commodity inside the beltway. I haven’t seen enough of it in this town to fill a condom, but common sense is Jake Grafton’s long suit.”

Yocke chuckled.

“Better watch that,” Toad admonished. “Your press card may melt if you crack a smile. Your reputation as an uptight superprick is on the line here.”

Jack Yocke grinned. “I deserved that. Sorry about those cracks the first time I met you. I was having a bad day.”

“Had one of those myself one time,” Tarkington muttered. He stamped his feet. “I’m getting cold. Let’s go inside.”

Harrison Ronald stood by the side of the Mustang and stared at the right front tire. Flat.

Traffic whizzed by on Rhode Island Avenue. When he felt the wheel pulling and heard the thumping, he had pulled into a convenience store parking lot.

Fate, he decided, as he opened the trunk and rooted in it for the jack and lug wrench. On the way to his rendezvous with destiny, Galahad’s horse threw a shoe. How comes this stuff never happens in the movies?

He got the front end off the ground, but the lug nuts were rusted on. Damn that Freeman, he never had these tires rotated or balanced or aligned. Got so damned much money he never takes care of anything.

He needed a cheater bar or a hammer. Frustrated, he sat on the pavement and kicked at the end of the lug wrench. The wrench flew off, scarring the nut. He tried it again. And again. Finally the nut turned.

A police cruiser pulled into the lot and stopped in front of the store. Two white cops. They got out of the cruiser, stood for a moment or two silently watching Ford wrestle with the wrench, then went inside.

Jesus, didn’t they see the outline of the automatic in the small of his back, under his coat? Those shitheads. A weapon was the first thing they should have been looking for.

As Ford kicked at the last nut, he glanced through the big plate-glass windows. The cops were sipping coffee and flirting with the girl behind the counter.

He skinned his knuckle and it started bleeding. Well, it wouldn’t bleed long. The dirt and grease would get in the skinned place and stop the blood. His father’s hands had always had chunks missing, cavities full of dirt and grease that slowly, ever so slowly, healed just in time to be ripped open again. As a kid he had looked at his father’s thick, heavy hands and asked, “Don’t they hurt?”

Dad, wherever you are, my hands are cold and hurt like hell and my ass is freezing from the pavement and my nose is dripping.

He wiped his nose on his sleeve.

So what did’ya expect? The cops’d help? Get real!

Jack Yocke found himself staring at Tish Samuels. He had been watching her for several minutes when he realized with a start what he was doing. He glanced around to see if anyone had noticed. Jake Grafton met his eyes. Yocke smiled and looked away.

Okay, so she’s not Playboy beautiful, she’ll never be on the cover of Cosmo. In her own way she’s lovely.

Standing there watching her move, watching her gestures and body language, he remembered the Cuban madonna on the hood of the truck with the baby at her breast. How long had he looked at that girl? Thirty seconds? A minute? That woman had been life going down the road. In spite of war, revolution, poverty, starvation, she rode with courage from the past into the future.

He looked at Tish and tried to visualize her on the hood of that truck. She could ride there, he concluded. She’s a survivor.

He poured himself another drink and settled on the couch to watch Tish Samuels.

Maybe he was just getting older. His ambitions somehow seemed less important than they used to be and he was rapidly losing faith in his own opinions. How many of his colleagues truly believed in the ultimate wisdom of the voters? Opinionated, egotistical iconoclasts — Jack Yocke marching bravely among them — they believed only in themselves.

Okay, Jack. If your meager brains and wisdom won’t be enough, what will be? What do you believe in?

Musing thus, he found himself contemplating his shoes and in his mind’s eye seeing the people walking on the road to Havana, walking as the dust rose and the sun beat down, walking into the unknown.

In front of the Sanitary Bakery Harrison Ronald turned the car around on a whim and backed it up beside the others. Six other cars. A crowd tonight.

He went to the door and knocked.

The man inside shut the door behind him and bolted it and jerked his head. “They want you upstairs, second floor, way down at the end.”

The interior of the warehouse was dark, no lights. The only illumination came from streetlights outside through the dirty windows high up in the wall. He knew what was in here though and went along confidently as his eyes adjusted.

Second floor, down at the end. God, there was nothing down there but some empty offices with six inches of dust, dirt, and rat shit, and some broken-down furniture that was so trashed the last tenant had left it.

He checked the position of the automatic in his waistband at the small of his back and pushed against the thumb safety to ensure that it was still on. Wouldn’t do to shoot yourself in the ass, Harrison Ronald.

He went up the stairs and turned left, toward the east end of the building. He could hear moaning. A male voice.

He stopped dead. Someone groaning, a deep, animal sound.

Harrison Ronald stood frozen, listening. There! Again!

He slipped his hand under his coat and touched the butt of the automatic again, then pulled his hand away.

No one in sight. Just the windows and the dim light and the black shapes of the pillars that hold up the roof. And that sound.

The terror seized him then. He started shaking as the low animal sound curled around him and echoed gently down the vast, empty, dark room. Someone past screaming, someone who had screamed his lungs out, who was now past words and pleas and prayers, someone who was past all caring. Someone who moaned now only because he still breathed.

There was something else. A smell! He sniffed carefully. Burned meat. Yes, burned meat, the smell of fried fat, acrid and pungent.

Oh, my God!

Harrison Ronald Ford walked forward. Toward the door cracked open and the light leaking out.

The moans were louder, and the voice.

“You betrayed your brothers, your brothers of the blood. Sold out to the honky fucks, sold out your flesh and blood, sold out …” Freeman McNally. Harrison Ronald recognized the voice. Freeman McNal—“What did they pay you? Money? You’ll never spend it. Women? You’ll never screw ’em, not with what you got now. Ha!”

McNally was insane. Crazy mad. His voice was an octave too high, on the verge of hysteria.

“Kill me.”

Silence.

A scream. “Kill me!”

Harrison Ronald Ford pushed open the door. The stench was overpowering.

A naked man was tied to a chair in the middle of the room and above him an unshaded bulb burned. At least, he had once been a man. Strips of flesh hung from his frame. His crotch was a mass of raw meat. His face — Harrison walked closer to see his face — only one eye left — the other socket was black and burned and empty. On his chest were more burns. Amazingly, there was very little blood.

“Put the gun away, Sammy.”

He looked around. Other men sat in chairs around the wall. On the floor was a laundry iron with bits of flesh still clinging to it, a wisp of smoke rising.

“Put the gun away, Sammy.” It was Freeman. He was standing against the window. He had a pistol out and was pointing it.

Harrison looked down. The Colt was in his hand. He lowered it, then looked again at the man in the chair.

“Kill me.”

“The shithead sold us out. He was whispering tales to the feds. He admitted it, finally.”

He could kill them all. The thought ran through Harrison’s mind and he moved his thumb to the safety. Five of them, seven rounds. Freeman first, then the others. As fast as he could pull the trigger.

Freeman walked over to Ford and stood looking at the man in the chair with his arms crossed over his chest.

“Isn’t that some heavy shit? I’ve known him as long as I can remember. And he sold me out.” Freeman snorted and shook his head. The sweat flew from his brow. “And all this time I thought it was you, Sammy. Shee-it!

McNally shook his head again and walked back to the window. There he turned and pointed his pistol at Harrison Ford. “You got a gun. Kill him.” He said it conversationally, like he was ordering a pizza.

The tortured man was staring at Ford with his one eye. His hands were still tied behind the chair, or what was left of his hands. Traces of white showed through the seared flesh — bones.

“Shoot him,” Freeman said, making it an order.

Harrison took a step closer. The eye followed him. Now the badly burned lips moved. He bent down to hear. “Kill me,” the lips whispered.

Harrison thumbed off the safety. He raised the Colt and pointed it above the raw, oozing hole where the man’s left ear had been. The ear itself lay on the floor by the iron.

“Sorry, Ike,” Ford said, and pulled the trigger.