Flood - Andrew H. Vachss [151]
He nodded and we went out the door into the street, about a block from where the Plymouth sat waiting dark and quiet, only a whisper of smoke from its exhaust. Max was already there.
Another block to go. I had to keep him off balance, stop him from thinking.
“Got your passport with you?”
He tapped his breast pocket, saying nothing. We were at the Plymouth—I walked over and opened the back door, climbing in myself so that it wouldn’t remind him of the last time he got busted. But he stayed quiet, slid in next to me like he was supposed to, and pulled the door closed.
It was dark in the car. Max didn’t turn around—with the black watch-cap over his skull and the canvas gloves on his hands he looked like anybody else.
“What’s with him?” the Cobra wanted to know. “I thought you’d be alone.”
“I do liaison work, friend—I don’t drive the cars, okay?”
The Cobra moved slightly away from me and reached his left hand across his body to roll down the window on his side.
“Don’t,” I told him. “From this point on the mission’s rolling. We’re in a gray sector here and we don’t need any attention, right?” The Cobra nodded, looking pleased, glad finally to be among true professionals like himself. The Plymouth rolled away from the curb with its catch.
The Cobra leaned back and we both lit cigarettes. I kept talking to calm him, but there was no place for him to go now—the back doors couldn’t be opened from the inside.
“You ever work before?”
“I did some jobs, local jobs—not in Africa, though.”
“How’d you know this was an African operation?” I said, sounding surprised.
“I know these things. I just read between the lines,” he said, grinning his winning snake’s grin.
“You do combat or penetration jobs?”
“Either one, man. Either one.”
“You got your choice with this operation.”
“You got a lot of guys signed up already?”
“We got ten men besides you already on-board here in New York, another fifteen in Houston. I understand our people on the Coast are doing real well too. You got any particular specialty? They pay extra for that, you know the scene.”
“Interrogation,” said the Cobra. No smile this time.
I nodded, then told him, “You’ll have to bunk with us for a few days until we’re ready to shove off. The accommodations are pretty good, we got food, TV, access to phones. We even bring in a whore or two every couple of nights.”
“I get my own,” he said quickly.
“Yeah, well, once you’re in we can’t have people just walking around the streets, right? Security. We bring in what the guys want.”
“Yeah . . .”
I figured he was thinking he didn’t know me well enough to ask me to bring him a kid for him to practice his specialty on.
55
THE WAREHOUSE LOOMED in sight. Max rolled in the front, slipped out from behind the wheel, and went back to close the door, all in one continuous motion. I knew he’d be hitting the switch to tell Flood the cargo had arrived.
Max opened the door on my side, I slid out, he walked around the back of the Plymouth, and opened the Cobra’s door. Wilson climbed out, stretched himself, yawned. He looked at Max, said, “He’s a zip . . .” in a surprised voice. I shrugged my shoulders in a what-can-you-do? gesture and pointed to the stairs. The Cobra started to climb, seemed to hesitate when he heard something, then realized it was just a radio. Hearing Hank Williams sing “Your Cheatin’ Heart” seemed to add a spring to his step. As he completed the first flight I slipped past him to show him the way to the second, where Flood would be waiting, leaving Max behind him. The Cobra was in a box, but not the box where he belonged—not yet.
I got to the door of Max’s temple and we couldn’t hear the music