Flood - Andrew H. Vachss [150]
He stood facing me in a karate stance, slightly modified so it wouldn’t be too obvious—keeping both hands in sight. I didn’t like that—it didn’t mean he wasn’t packing a gun, just that he thought his hands were enough to do the job. If he decided to take me out, Max wasn’t close enough to stop him. He would never get out of the building alive, but that was no comfort. Revenge was Flood’s game—mine was survival. I kept both my gloved hands clasped on the handle of the attache case, holding it in front of me.
The seconds slipped by as the Cobra eyed me. It was like the staring contests young bloods would get into on the yard when I was in prison—the kind of game you can’t win. If you drop your eyes, the other con thinks you’re weak—and a weak man in prison doesn’t stay a man for long. If you lock eyes for real, you’ve got to fight. And if you have to fight, you have to kill. Once you’re on that slide, you can have a decent life for yourself inside the walls . . . but you can never get out. I had to end this part fast.
“You know me?” I asked him.
“No,” he said softly, “I just wanted to see . . .”
“See what, pal? You did this before, right?”
“Yeah . . . right,” but his eyes never shifted and he didn’t move.
“All right, let’s get rolling. I got some contracts for you to look over and we got a place for you to stay with the other guys until we move out.”
“Where is this place?”
“It’s downtown, near the docks. Come on, pal. I don’t want to stand in this goddamned stairwell all night, okay?”
And I walked past him like there was nothing for him to do but follow me, deliberately leaving my back exposed to anything he wanted to do—but finally getting myself out of the line of fire between him and Max.
I heard the sharp intake of breath through his nose as I went past. He wasn’t relaxed—wasn’t going for it yet. I kept walking, talking over my shoulder about the “operation” like he was right next to me. When I got to the bottom of the first flight of stairs, I turned around and looked back. The Cobra had moved down a few steps, but he wasn’t coming along—just staring down at me.
I turned to look up at him, now holding the attache case in one hand while the other was comforted by the feel of the revolver in my coat pocket. With twenty feet between us the odds had changed: between my pistol at his front and Max the Silent at his back, he was deader than disco if he moved wrong.
The Cobra seemed to realize he’d lost the edge, and he started toward me. I shrugged my shoulders elaborately, calling up to him:
“Hey, pal, you in or you out? I got a rendezvous at oh-two-hundred over in Jersey and two other men to pick up. What’s your problem?”
“Let’s go,” he said, flashing his snake’s grin for the first time, and staring down toward me.
I turned and went down the next flight, like I expected him to catch up. I was part-way down when I heard movement behind me—he was coming. The muscles in the back of my neck tightened as I concentrated on the sounds. An amateur would try to rush up behind me and knock me down the stairs, but the Cobra would want to get close and do it right.
Now he loomed up silently on my right side, lightly touched my arm. “Can’t be too careful, right?” he hissed, and fell into step with me. I could only see his right hand—the left was somewhere behind me. The Cobra was back in control, he thought.
One more flight to go. I still couldn’t see his left hand. When he spoke he turned to look at me and his body got closer—it wasn’t an accident.
“How long’s this operation going to run?”
“Hey, you know how it works, it runs until it’s over. You’re in for the duration, right? You draw a month’s pay up front in cash, the rest goes to wherever you want it sent.”
“Yeah, right . . .” It was like I’d thought: all he knew about mercenary work was what he’d read in magazines.
We got to the lobby together, walking past the Prof, who tried another “Shine, suh?” which got no response from me. The Cobra, in character, said, “Shine this, nigger,” hawking and directing a blob in the Prof’s general direction.