Ernestina, Eris, Aequitas: to obtain that which is just we must ask that which is unjust.
August 24th
18:56 EST
Styx Street Slaughterhouse
Stalton's place is hidden in the old slaughterhouse.
I am perched across the street, high in a rusted water tower. I see every movement from here, the cars, the men…they walk below me, their secret actions made naked and bare. I am a hawk, circling my prey. At any moment, I may fall with a cry and a rush of wings, swooping down and raining my destruction on the guilty. The Joker killed an Angel. He awoke a Valkyrie.
Darkness falls. Fuck. I need IR. I wonder fleetingly if Stalton has them…in the failing light, my binoculars are useless. Yet still I wait. Five cars have come. I have counted 14 men entering. Twelve left again. Stalton, plus two. At least. Who knows how many are waiting with him in the shadows?
I peer down at the sprawling mess of the house. For a moment, I see it as it was, a century ago, when the Fringe was a bustling industrial sector, black smoke belching from locomotives, factory chimneys and the smell of soot, shit, and flowing blood are overwhelming. The tracks pass by from the north, the corrals beginning there, their live burdens unloaded and shepherded into the individual pens, each ending in a long, narrow islet with an iron gate, room only for one animal to pass at a time. The inspector stands there, the impartial God of the Herd, judging each for its merit. They are weighed, they are measured, some are found wanting. The cattle press and shove, lowing to continue forward down the long, dusty passage into the barn. They long for the safety and comfort of their familiar pastures…
Only death awaits them.
The tracks are still visible, a dilapidated livestock car overturned in their midst. A broken crane ends in a heavy hook-for removing the cargo too weak to walk. The corrals run east to west, in many places fallen, rotting boards and tangles of wire still stand as testament to the house's horror. I tilt my head, glancing down the tracks that led to destruction…
I have my approach.
August 24th,
21:34 EST
Styx Street Slaughterhouse
Clouds darken the sky. The smell of ozone grows strong in the still air. Only a drop or two of cold rain has fallen. All evening the storm is building, the electricity rising, rising…and finally a thunderclap, the dome of the sky is rent with forked, leaping lightening.
She is here.
I abandon my perch. My feet find the skeletal rails of the abandoned track. I follow it north. I cross Styx.
I've entered Hell.
The twelve foot tall chain link is cut and rusted in many places. It offers no protection. I slink through a rent in the fence, winding carefully through the coiled barbed wire. I stalk warily through the darkness, the lightning showing me my way. No rain has fallen. For now, the night spews her anger unheeding.
Perhaps later she will weep.
I am down on my belly, crawling like a snake. I twist past abandoned cars, empty oil drums, the ground a pounded dust of still stinking shit of century dead cattle. It has been seventeen years since Pakistan, but the slithering is cool and familiar, my body sliding liquid and sensuous over the parched ground.
Three men stand together on the perimeter, a trashcan fire lit between them. My crawl is stopped, seconds go by, minutes…time is agonizingly slow. Thunder rumbles as I inch forward, serpentine. Finally they are feet from me… Lightning explodes directly over us. From the silt and soil, the garbage strewn gutter, from the ash I rise. Hello, boys.
They start.
And fall. Art's Beretta is gripped firmly in the butt of my palm. Thunder and a silencer cover the gunshots. I touch each neck for a pulse, but the holes over their empty eyes tell me the shot was true. Art's Beretta has only failed me once. It never will again.
Too late I see their radios. Damn. I stoop and rise, holding one stained set in my hand. The storm continues to rage, the sky boiling with angry, black clouds. Changes in atmospheric pressure effect short wave radios-that's why emergency broadcasts are usually aired over AM instead of FM: they carry farther with a much more reliable signal. These radios aren't cheap by any means, but enough interference from a storm such as this could possibly render them ineffective.
August 24th
22:08 EST
Styx Street Slaughterhouse
My feet crunch noisily on gravel. Two naked, scissoring lesbians stare brazenly up at me from the cover of a Cyrillic porn magazine. Slowly the tome is lowered, and I stare into the face of the watchman. His hand moves quickly from its incriminating resting place and he stands, grunting in irritation and surprise.
Bastard. I know that face: handsome and heartless Dmitri Dostoevsky. I know his CV: Battery. Assault with a deadly weapon. Multiple counts of rape. He's been at large since Fear Night…and it takes all my self-control not to shoot the fucker on site.
He looks at the radio hung on the chair in confusion—he has heard no calls. He glances at me suspiciously, knowing I could not have passed the perimeter undetected. He radios for his friends and gets nothing but static. This Stalton is no fool—his men are well trained. Warily he asks me my name and my purpose, and our mutual friend Ben does all the talking. But still he is hesitant, calling again for the perimeter.
I point back the direction I came, towards the faint glow of a far-off fire, where three bodies and my coveralls lay, coated in filth. He has no reason to be suspicious. The storm is interfering with the radio signals, he shrugs. Can't raise them, I'll have to search you again, basic security measures-
I warn him I am armed, the Beretta holstered in the small of my back. Basic security measures, I say. He laughs humorlessly, taking the weapon, and pats me down.
He pays special attention to my ass and thighs, meeting my eyes as he does so. Basic security measures…his eyes are wolfish, and he grins. I raise an eyebrow but say nothing. Once I'm in I'll get my fill of blood…. But for now I need Horny here to give me the clear over the radio…
He raises Stalton. "Bitch here wants to see you…she's got cold, hard cash and a great ass." His gleaming eyes burn over my figure again. "She's packing a decent semi-automatic…"
I do not listen to the conversation, my eyes are fixated on the thumb over the call button, the whitening of the knuckle, the tension of the tendons, the pulsing of the muscles…His life-and misplaced lust-will end when that pressure releases.
He sees me eyeing him intently. Mistaking my interest he moves closer. His face is inches from mine, hand raised to his ear, thumb still pressing firmly against the call button.
"—yeah we're had a problem with the radios, some interference from the storm—"
Art's Beretta lies unloaded on the chair, the bullets scattered across the glossed pages of naked, sprawling girls. Dostoevsky sees me unarmed, helpless, and at his mercy. He thinks I am willing. He has been lusting for some real action, and the apparent intensity of my stare was all the invitation he needed…
Shit.
I have to play along until the call is ended. I need him alive…as long as it takes to clear me.
He stalks me in slow circles, coming nearer and nearer. I turn, facing him, our eyes locked. He comes behind me, sliding a lean arm around my waist.
His free hand finds my face, and I lick the palm as it caresses my quivering mouth, my pursed lips widening and sliding down with the pressure. His fingers explore my teeth, my cheek, then slide down to my neck. I loll my head back, leaning my open mouth back towards his. I turn. Again I our gazes lock.
His boss' ignored voice blips in and out over the channel. He is no longer listening.
My hands are on his back, inching slowly towards his belt, all the while that burning look never leaving his eyes. He has me only seconds from where he wants me, needs me…if only someone would let him hang up that damn radio…if only he could drop it like me to the ground, then his slavering mouth could find mine instead of just graze inches from it, still muttering affirmatives…
Hang it up, I tell him with my eyes, pressing against him. You already have an excuse…
Hang up and die, Dmitri.
I pull a little away from him. I feel his heart hammering as my fingers undo his belt. I saw the knife on my approach, still twenty feet away. I would have shot the bastard point blank after the call ended, regardless…but I know this creep's file—can see the high schooler's screaming face he raped on her prom night, her disheveled, three-hundred dollar hair falling down in her face, fake eyelashes dripping in her tears. Broken. Like my Angel. That same, heartless lust lurks now in his hideous, burning eyes. He brought this upon himself. I'm not the first woman he has found alone and seemingly vulnerable…
But I will be the last.
I slide my fingers across the skin under his waistband, groping for his knife. He trembles at my light touch. He glares into my eyes, his desire consuming him. He thinks me a vixen, a goddess, Aphrodite herself come down to worship him. He is no mere man but a god, about to receive his due…
He is wrong. I find him debauched, despicable, and worthy of death. It is coming quickly.
He can wait no longer. "You're cutting out," his voice is cool and crisp, and his eyes never leave mine as that thick, whitened thumb releases the pressure on the radio. It slips, forgotten, through his fingers.
We shudder simultaneously, anticipating two very different thrusts.
He doesn't scream when the knife punctures his kidney—he can't. The body's first response to that level of visceral pain is immediate inhalation. "Did you really think it would be that easy?" I hiss, unblinking. "You're a godfucking bastard and every one of the whores you've screwed and beat all thought the same thing…they were just too afraid to do it." I spit in his ear as I shove him roughly to the ground, his eyes wide in horror. He has only another sixty seconds of consciousness, maybe another few minutes to live…
But even sixty seconds can be an eternity. Anyone who takes advantage of a woman or a child forfeits his right to call himself a man. This horny bastard has spent the last fifteen years of his life placing his name among the worst of men. His gasping face flickers in my anger, and for a fleeting moment I see Angel's father…
December. Thirteen years ago. The dead woman with green eyes has been in the morgue not twenty-four hours, and it will be another twenty-four before I stumble screaming through the doors of Gotham Memorial, Angel deathly pale and twitching in shock…
I am in my small bathroom, hot water pattering behind me, steam fogging up the mirror. My hair is long and my eyes bloodshot. I am sitting on the closed toilet seat, head on my knees, hugging myself, weeping. It's your own fault you're so fucking upset, I hiss. What did you expect? Did you really think you would get to keep him?
But no retort comes to that burning, rhetorical question. I can't breathe, the shock of the silence crashing over me. Yes. Yes! I scream. I wanted to keep him oh God I just want a kid even one is one too much to ask—!
I sob, falling from the seat to the hard floor, gasping from the shock of pain and the truth. I press my trembling hands against my heaving stomach, feeling the shrapnel scars that stole motherhood from me at age twenty. Just one, one would be enough why can't I just have him I need him—
I held the boy against my chest for nearly twenty hours in the station. His bastard of a father was called in for questioning. He already had a history: Battery. Assault. Attempted Murder. There was no doubt in anyone's minds who was guilty. But Gerald had alibis…three drinking buddies. The neighbors heard raised voices. Gerald admitted to a fight. But he had left the house by noon…the body wasn't discovered until ten. Postmortem set the time of death at eight pm.
Gerald walks smugly into the interrogation room, casting his arrogant gaze over us, knowing he is safe. We chafe and shake, knowing there is nothing we can do. The only witness to the crime is a small child, eight or nine, silent as stone. They tried to take him from me, let a child psychologist examine him, but he whimpered soundlessly and dug sharp nails into my back until I cried out in pain. I sit the examination with him, his head still laid against my breasts. Dr. Quinzel probes him with questions, but he turns his face into my chest and shuts his eyes.
"What's his name?"
"We don't know," Gordon says lightly. "And we can't risk asking the father. We'll only rouse suspicions."
"A name is important," she says. "I don't think we'll be able to foster enough trust without one."
Enough trust? I wonder, looking at the child who refuses to be separated from me. One of his eyes peeps open, peering up at me. Then—he smiles! The corner of his tiny mouth curves, and he nestles closer against me, pale lids and lashes covering his expressive eyes. He trusts me…
"Just tell us what you can," Gordon's tired voice rings.
"You haven't given me much to work with."
"Dr. Quinzel, please," he urges.
"Post traumatic stress," she says. "That's to be expected, of course." Then she turns to me. "It may be years before he speaks."
Gordon sighs and meets my eyes. We don't have years. We now have less than four hours to release Gerald. Without convincing evidence, the bastard will walk…and the most we could do for this boy would be suggest he be enrolled in psychotherapy before knowingly handing him over to the man who killed his mother.
"How long have you known him?" she finally asks, surveying me with a look of disgust and detachment, appalled that I would cross the patient/provider boundary so extremely.
"Maybe twenty hours," I whisper.
"Attachment disorder," she states crisply. " Association by identity. He has made a psychological choice to accept you as his mother-figure, replacing the one he lost."
"Where does that leave us?" Gordon asks.
"At square one," she snaps. "It tells us his mother's dead and he watched it. It will take years to coax the truth out of him—assuming he hasn't forgotten. Memories are like software—traumatic events of this nature are either stored away subconsciously under the surface, or erased completely. You'd need weeks, years to examine him properly, longer to rehabilitate…" she sighs, glaring at me as though she can read my rebellious thoughts. "That child needs fulltime psychotherapy indefinitely, perhaps even for the rest of his life. It's the best hope you have for giving him a normal life."
He had chosen to forget. Chosen me to replace, to become his mother. They would force him to remember, to re-live that choice and that day…wouldn't it be kinder, I think, pressing him closer with a sudden pang, just to let him forget?
"Thank you, Dr. Quinzel," Gordon sighs, showing her to the door. "We'll do what we can…"
That bitch leaves with a slow shake of her head. The angelic boy stirs again in my arms, relaxing his desperate, vice-like grip. He knows, somehow, that danger is gone…
Replacing the one he lost…Yes, I think, staring down at his pale, sleeping face, the gentle curve of his jaw, the perfect line of his delicate nose. I choose this. I choose you. He trusts me because he knew, somehow, that I was looking just as desperately for him… For six years I have known I will never hold, never kiss a child of my own. I would never be a mother…
I am Sarai. I am Elizabeth. And like them I too have conceived. He is finally mine, and I love him. No newborn mother's stare has ever held so much wonder and release. I wrap him tighter in my GCPD blazer, nestling him closer in my arms, and I gently kiss his weary head, breathing in the sweet smelling scent of his curls. I don't stop to think who may be watching, don't care if my co-workers think I've suddenly gone soft, don't care if that bug-eyed witch doctor turns at the door and sees me. His dark eyes flit open, staring sleepily up into mine. I am lost in their soft stare, their impossible depths and flitting lashes, knowing somehow—somehow—I've found the love of my life: My savior. My child. My Angel. I am redeemed.
But I didn't get to keep him. Didn't get to take Angel home. Instead I surrendered him against my will, against my conscience, against even my own stubborn selfishness…
Twenty-four hours. Gerald leaves the interrogation room as comfortable and cocky as can be. He knows he's gotten away with it. He rounds the corner, and stops dead at the sight of Angel, and that smirk wipes off his face, turning an ugly puce. He's in deep shit, and he knows it.
My blood turns to ice. The bastard killed her. There is no doubt about it. Angel shudders at the change in my posture, cuddling closer, rubbing his face in my shirt. Then he looks up, and his hart's eyes widen in horror and in fear. His little fingers clench tighter around my blazer. The tension is thick enough, the silence so menacing that the hustle of the office grows dim, then silent.
Everyone is watching us. I feel Angel's chest tighten, his heart heaving.
Gerald licks his lips, his eyes darting.
Then—he changes! It is so sudden I blink in astonishment. He stoops down, less intimidating, his face softening, his voice lowering in pitch and timbre, safe and seductive…
"Hey," he says, looking straight into Angel's transfixed eyes, opening his arms. "C'mere."
"Hey, it's alright, kiddo. C'mere. Let's take you home," Angel trembles. I try to pull him closer but he resists…
No, Angel. No. It's all wrong. Don't go with him—!
"It'll be okay. I promise. C'mon," Gerald croons lowly, his arms still out, willing, waiting, he looks all the world like a concerned and compassionate father…
Angel trembles again. He is leaning, teetering…
No, Angel. No. Please no. Don't leave me, Angel please don't leave me—!
Suddenly he is gone, running and crying out flung into Gerald's arms and sobbing, sobbing into his shoulders, still wrapped in my blazer he is carried away screaming, Gerald rubbing his back and comforting him as he walks away down the steps I follow empty and staggering in agony as my Angel leaves me…
"I guess we were wrong," Gordon sighs heavily, watching them leave. "He didn't do it, after all."
I say nothing. I cannot.
I look down at the scars again. They spread down my abdomen, my thighs, and my right knee, fleshy and pink, transparent and shining in the light. For six years I have thought they took everything from me—a career, a husband, a hope—but I was wrong. Only now am I completely empty. Angel left me…and that betrayal cuts me even colder and crueler than laying in a Navy Hospital learning through goddamned facebook that the man you gave your virginity to—the man who promised to spend his life with you—has found another woman without scars who isn't sprawled on her ass in a body cast, who still has her uterus and two fucking ovaries to make her woman enough for him, to bear the children who should have been yours…
I thought I knew emptiness. We have now become intimate friends.
I sniff and stand, wiping snot and tears across my face, breath still hitching. The only thing Angel wanted more than a mother was a loving father. That's why he left me, I comfort myself, the words sounding hollow. The only reason. He wanted both and had to choose. I wasn't his choice…
But I wanted him. Still want him. I can feel his soft weight and gentle breath against my skin. I have never wanted anything more. Never. I pull back the shower curtain, wadding my clothes up to throw them across the room and my hand is suddenly damp.
Pink.
Blood. Blood on the crotch of my pants. Small, tiny spots hardly visible against the navy cloth. But I don't have periods. Can't have periods. Haven't since Pakistan, and that was six years ago…
How?
Angel in my arms, his perfect face laid against my shoulder, his liquid, deep eyes open and staring up at me. One hand rests gently on his chest, the other pressed under his head, over my heart…he is sitting in my lap. For nearly twenty-four hours. And the whole time, his rectum is slowly leaking blood.
I stagger, dazed.
That godfucking bastard. I know no thoughts I am only driving careening through traffic towards the house where Angel's mother died, her green eyes glaring up at me, pressing this burden on me from beyond the grave and I have failed her failed Angel failed everyone…I am shaking I am angry I intend to kill them kill them all—
I slam the brakes, the car whipping sideways over the curb. I don't park, don't pull the keys, I run to the house. I pray I'm not too late-
"Stop crying you little girl you know you like it you sick little kid you like it don't you you like to be fucked because you're so fucked up—"
I find him face down, sobbing, his shirt flipped up over his head and his pants twisted and shoved down to his ankles, and one of those bastards sodomizing him, his disgusting balls on my Angel's thighs, grunting and laughing. Laughing.
He dies laughing. I break his neck and fling him across the bed before anyone can respond to the clattering of the broken window. Angel is screaming, feet pound down the hallway. I shoot the first in the kneecap, the second in the thigh. Gerald knocks aside my arm and the lamp explodes. He slaps me across the face, I spin and sprawl to the floor. He grabs my hair and drags me, drags me towards the kitchen where the knives are-
I twist. I trip him with my legs. He falls. He is shouting to his friends for help to destroy the evidence the cops are coming—he stands again, my nails in his leg, running and thumping down the hall, trying to shake me. He reaches the counter, his hand outstretched…
He falls again, the knives scattering across the floor. He throws me into the countertop and I stagger, falling down the cabinet doors. His hand finds a thirteen inch blade, serrated and deadly. He lunges to stab me but meets my outstretched hand, impaling his own heaving throat on the three inch tip of the paring knife.
His eyes widen in surprise. He coughs.
I kick him off and stagger back down the hall, knives in hand. The other two are gasping, struggling to stand-one raises a Colt .45, I break his finger, his hand, his arm…
I am fury. I am vengeance.
No hesitation. I plunge the knives in. I don't just castrate them. I take it all. They scream like dying horses as the metal excises the entirety of their pelvic bowls, blood and urine gushing in a viscous, nauseating flow. They fall, both femoral arteries cut, bleating and shrieking…they do not scream for long.
In the kitchen, Gerald is dragging himself to the door. He will never escape me. I am death. I am a hunter. I pounce on my prey, my hands like talons find his feet and I rush him backwards down the hallway towards the scene of my slaughter, his hands scrabbling across the linoleum, reaching for the remaining knives.
"You. Are. Sick!" I shout, straddling him, shaking him, one knee in his groin, blood is bursting in bubbles from his lips, the paring knife caught in the cartilage rings of his trachea. "Fucking bastard!" I scream a thousand curses at him, my snarling teeth inches from his face, the fury of my tears and spit spattering his skin. My fist crashes into his jaw. More bubbles of blood, he raises his hands to defend himself. "It's called pain!" I roar, "Get used to it—" I punch him again, "because I'm sending you Straight. To. Hell!" every syllable is accentuated with a blow.
"He trusted you!" I seethe, that ruined face between my hands. I am shaking it, shaking it and teeth are dropping from the gaping mouth. "He fucking trusted you, you cock-sucking bastard!" One more lunge of the knife, and I take that hideous, hairy lump of flesh and force it down his jaws. His hands struggle against mine, pawing me away…
I drop him, shaking in rage. I step back, teeth still barred. Sputtering and gagging, he chokes on his own genitalia.
Even in my anger, it is justice. It is poetry…
It still is.
Dmitri Dostoevesky lays sprawled before me, eyes wide in death. Somewhere in Gotham City, the seventeen year-old whose virginity he stole is vindicated. Does the fact of his death change anything? No. She will have those memories forever…
But here is one predator that will never hunt again. I reload Art's Beretta, and toss the disgusting magazine onto the corpse's defiled face. It is a fitting shroud.
August 24th
22:17 EST
Sytx Street Slaughterhouse
Art's Beretta is again on my back as I approach that final door. There will be no turning back. Once I enter, I must see this through, no matter who, no matter how many. I spare the corpse one last glance, and push through the rotting wood.
The long house is dark and eerie. The only light is flashes of lightning that blaze through the holes and cracks in the crumbling roof far above, casting eerie, shifting shadows. It is haunting and terrible. My heart beats faster in fear. I am open. I am blind. What am I walking into?
I pass broken hooks, chains and grapples. Enormous, dried bones litter the walkway, femur, scapula, vertebrae…The house reeks of death. Long ago the Hebrews build a temple as a dwelling place for their god. I wonder fleetingly what fools in Gotham erected this structure for Satan.
There is an odd, breathy sound from the numerous pens up ahead, like wind blowing across the gaping, open jaws of Hell. I round the corner and I freeze.
Dogs.
There must be twenty of them, skeletal, starving, snarling pit bulls. They lunge behind wire cages, maddened by the fury of their hunger. Looking at me they slaver and shake, strings of spit frothing from their gaping mouths. Horrific scars mar their thin coats…both the souvenirs of their countless, brutal fights, and the burns and lashes that drove them to such depravity. There is nothing left in their yellow eyes but rage and an insatiable thirst for blood.
I shudder. I do not pity them, simply understand.
They continue to bray as I walk past.
August 24th
22:28 EST
Stalton's Armory
I reach the end of the stalls, passing the sand arena and bleachers where the handlers loose their blood-crazed dogs. Here at the end there is a newer excavation and metal stairs leading down beneath the dirt floor. I descend slowly, rapping on the fireproof door.
"Dmitri? Is that you?" It is the voice from over the radio. A small panel opens, and we stare eye to eye. It slides shut again, locks twisting and grinding, then the door itself swings slowly inward.
"Come on in, little lady," Stalton drawls lazily as I slink through the doorframe. His face hardens. "Dmitri didn't come with you?"
"He had a pressing engagement with Ingrid and Nastia," I state evenly. "He hated to keep them waiting."
He chuckles good-naturedly. "That euro-trash bastard and his porn," he shakes his head. "Well, what's a trick like you doing in a joint like mine, ay?" His eyes twinkle in his humor. He is not frightening but conversational, not intimidating but kind. I am not prepared for this.
But I remember a charred car and a judge, exploded hospitals, a desperate search for a missing DA and his assistant, twenty-four hours of grief mourning Gordon before he miraculously returned from death, bringing with him the Devil himself…the chill of two laden passenger ferries given the choice to live or kill. I see the dogs, starving and satanic. His superficial kindness will not save him. Wordlessly I hand him twenty crisp, hundred-dollar bills.
"Ah," Stalton says. "I understand perfectly, Miss-"
"Paltron."
He nods. "Alright then, Miss Paltron. I'll show you around the supply room…"
August 24th
22:43 EST
Stalton's Armory
Stalton is ex-military. Army, to be exact. He was in Iraq for the Second Gulf War, consulting both as an engineer and security buff for Blackwater. He recognizes my training immediately, whistling at my service record. "Marines, ay?" he shakes his head, lighting up. "Damn. That's some pretty tough shit. Where did they have you stationed?"
"Pakistan?" He grins, pulling the Marlboro from his mouth. "You ever cross the border to go Laden huntin'?"
"Mostly we followed convoys, guarded politicians." I say tersely, shouldering an AK-47 from the racks, testing her feel. She is beautiful and deadly, heavy but not burdensome…
"Shit, girl. A Kalishnikov?" He whistles. "I don't sell a lot of those anymore. They're 'anti-American.' Leave it to Hollywood to shovel that shit. My dad died in the Cold War fighting Russians, but that gun there is still the best damn assault rifle ever made. I don't have any problems with who makes it."
Stalton talks about the gun, its uses, its history. The hilarity of CIA buying them black market from USSR satellites…then selling them to the Afghanis to use against the Russians. The sobering thought of how many Americans died by them twenty years later in the first Gulf War. "It's what you call ironic, really," he says disgustedly. "People should know better. You can't just ally with someone because you have a common enemy. Christ, once that enemy's gone they'll just turn on you." He knows his shit, and he's passionate about it. Had we met in a different time, different place, I might have bought him a beer and swapped stories with him…
"How much do you want for it?"
"Four hundred." He says, shrugging. "But I'll give it to you for three," he winks, taking the cigarette out of his mouth to smile. "Think of it as a military discount."
"Here," he says briskly, as though suddenly remembering. "I've got to show you something. I know you'd be able to appreciate this." He leads me to a back room and flips on the lights. Pay dirt. The fucker is loaded with military hardware, all the initials from IR to RPG. Five days ago, I stood not twenty feet away from the governor's limousine when it exploded into metal shards and hot, belching flames. A high whine, a small puff of white smoke…And now here she is. Lovingly I fondle the unfeeling barrel of the launcher. Hello, beautiful…
"Where the Hell you get this shit, Stalton?" I turn.
He smiles enigmatically. "Professional secret, sorry."
"Damn." I pick up a grenade, tossing it in the air and weighing it in my hand.
"Careful!" he barks.
I smile tauntingly. "Stalton, you have them sealed." Each is fitted tightly with a plastic cap, holding the pin snugly in place. "And you're the one fucking smoking."
He shrugs and laughs at his own foolishness. "Old habits die hard."
He has plastic explosives by the crate-load. "How many of these things to you think it took to blow up the Legacy?" I ask disinterestedly. Was the bastard behind it? Shit. He had to have sold the equipment…
He shakes his head. "It would take thousands. And I've sold enough…Christ. I would hate that. I don't think I could live with myself…but even thousands still wouldn't do the job right. I read the reports from NIST in 2005, ramming FEMA's ass for the World Trade Center report. For a structure to completely intercalate—I mean, it looked just like a telescope folding down…" He shakes his head, taking a long drag on the cigarette. "God. All those people."
I respect him against my will.
"Fuck. I hope the Taliban doesn't claim responsibility. No more war in the Middle East for me. If those fuckers still can't get a democracy going…well, let 'em live in a dictatorship. It's what they deserve." He lets out a puff of smoke, venting his mouth and his frustration.
"What do you think did it?" I ask casually, placing the explosives back in the crate.
"The Twin Towers fell because the jet fuel ignited. It was just hot enough to soften the steel infrastructure—you know, hat trusses, floor joists, the anchors the entire building hung on. They softened, and the weight of the top floors crushed them. From there, the building just surrendered to gravity…"
He shakes his head again, shuddering. "What goes up must come down. Damn. Ain't that perverse?"
"You're saying the Legacy burned." I am confused. Misplaced. I came here for information on the Joker. I came to kill. Instead I find almost an ally, almost a friend. A man who respects a woman, a service record…even life. He is nothing, nothing like the Joker or his minions.
"More like melted. I didn't go into architecture, but I know my damn physics. I've done security contracting work—antiterrorism stuff for Blackwater. You'd have to place plastics along every floor, every joist…and even then you're just blowing up every floor one at a time. You think some secretary's not going to notice that? And there's about thirty seconds of Legacy footage from Channel 18. It's all aerial shots, but there's no evidence. You'd have to blow every floor simultaneously, and there'd be windows breaking, debris shooting out…but the windows are only collapsing on the lower floors as it sinks. It wasn't just damn similar it was identical to 9/11."
"You'd need a heat signature in the thousands," I state, my eyes back on the launcher. "Even your suppler couldn't work that sort of magic." I trace my fingers down its long barrel. I shudder, knowing this is the firepower available to our enemies. Fuck. And the GCPD have been fighting crime with toys all these years. Suddenly the declaration of martial law seems almost welcome…
"You'd need serious power. Surface to air sort of shit. And that would be pretty fucking noticeable. But whatever it was, it was concentrated in the core of the building, maybe even below ground. Bu you think security's not going to notice that, either? Not since 1993. World Trade Center took care of that one, too. No way that's going to happen again. Every building in this city got inspected for safety precautions back in the nineties, and again in the early 2000's. Cost a ton of money—the taxpayers complained like Hell."
He pauses for a moment, watching me toy with the sights on the rocket launcher.
"Naw. It had be underground. That's the only thing I've been able to think of. Something melted the core, and she fell."
"Yeah?" I ask. Was Stalton just guessing, or showing off? If he was responsible, he might just be leading me on, impressing me with his 'hunches.' I glance at him surreptitiously from the corner of my right eye. No. He was simply musing. "But what the hell could do that?"
"Fear Night."
I turn sharply as he lets out a puff of smoke. It hits my face and I sneeze. I begin to cough. "What?" I choke.
"Whatever the hell happened in the Narrows happened pretty damn quickly. We're talking about a weapon that could vaporize millions of gallons of water through miles of piping—hell, some of the mainlines have yet to be replaced. You have any idea how fucking hot that would have to be?"
Shit. I can't stop choking. My eyes are watering. I lean against the wall, covering my mouth. This happened yesterday, too. But then I was alone. Now, I'm in the lion's den. I can't afford to be weak…
"Sorry 'bout that." He says absently, throwing the Marlboro down and crushing it with his heel. "But I figure whatever the Hell that thing was, microwaves, ultrasound…whatever it is, it's back."
I don't respond. I can't breathe. Can't speak. I should've got some fucking antibiotics…
Agony. My lungs are crushing, burning, my lips turning blue. My knees collapse. I fall. Stalton's arms are around me hoisting me up by shoulders and knees. My vision tunnels as he carries me back up the steps like a rag doll. The last thing I feel, the last thing I see is Stalton's rough hand on my face, his worried eyes looking down into mine…
August 24th
23:00 EST
Styx Street Slaughterhouse
I am coughing gently, stirring fretfully. I wake. Angel's worried eyes slowly disappear…I blink. They are back.
Angel's eyes are gleaming, dark on white, liquid like light…
But these eyes are cloudy green. I start.
"Hey, Paltron?" I hear Stalton's voice low in my ear. "You alright?" I am lying on a stainless steel table, my legs dangling obscenely. It is much too short to be meant for a human being. He is bending over me, concern written all over his thick features, one hand laid lightly on my right breast—
I shudder and pull away.
"Sorry, sorry," he mumbles, embarrassed. "I just, uh, had to rub on a lot of ammonia…"
"I smell like piss," I croak, groggily sitting up, my eyes tearing from the rising fumes.
"Yeah, well. It's one of the main ingredients of urine…and smelling salts. Straight is cheaper, and they use it on the dogs," he eyes at me curiously. "You alright?"
"Fucking fine," I say, leaning over my knees to spit. "How long have I been out?"
"Maybe four minutes….Look, are you sure you're fine?"
"Freakin'-A," I cough.
He is rummaging through a shelf, replacing the bottle of ammonia. I look around the tiny room. I am sitting on the operating table, and the walls are lined with surgical instruments and chemicals, whips and heavy chains. In the corner, a car battery and two empty electrodes are surrounded by dry sponges. Even in this hell pit, I look back at Stalton, a strange guilt rising inside me. He could have robbed me, raped me, but he chose to save me instead.
He raises his eyes at my raging confusion.
"You surprise me," I finally choke over the ammonia fumes.
"Yeah, well," he shrugs. "What was I supposed to do? Nothing?" He cringes, almost sadly. Yet beyond the open door, the dogs are barking, howling with the epileptic flares of lightning. His two-faced, hypocritical kindness, staring back, incriminating, demanding justice.
There is a very pregnant pause. I realize now the dogs are not his.
I cough again, hacking fat drops of phlegm.
"I'll radio Carson. He's asthmatic, you know? He's usually got an inhaler on him—"
"It won't work," I whisper, standing slowly.
"Damn radios," Stalton curses. "I should've gone with a cell phone plan," he mutters to himself, raising a finger to silence me. "Let me try one more time—"
"They're not going to pick up," I whisper again.
"This must be one mother of a storm," he says, the radio still pressed to his face, staring out at the dog's crazed antics. "It's even got the dogs upset…"
But it isn't the storm. It's the scent of fresh blood that raises them to hysteria.
"It's not the storm," I say quietly, pulling Art's Beretta from under my coat. I bring the stock of the pistol into the back of his neck and he falls, the useless radio clattering from his hand.
August 24th
23:09 EST
Styx Street Slaughterhouse
Stalton wakes. I have him bound roughly, sitting against the wire of the arena. His arms are held in place by slip ties, his feet knotted together, his hands sitting out in his lap. He groans as he comes to. I offer him water.
He drinks.
"What the hell?" he asks.
"We're going to have a little talk." I state hoarsely, crouching down in front of him. Before him I have laid out the iodine, the cauterizer, and piles of bandages. I also have the car battery and sponges. I have come to far. I need to know, need to finish what I have come for…
"Who are you?" he finally asks.
"Gwen Paltron. GCPD." I flash my badge. "I need to ask you some questions."
He looks at me nervously, weighing his options. "DMITRI!" he yells.
I toss him the bastard's radio. "He's dead."
He stares at that radio for a long, long time. "You're no fucking police officer."
"You're wrong. I am," I sit down across from him, toying with the cauterizer. "But if the bad guys aren't going to follow the rules, than neither am I."
"The feral cat is always the best mouser," he whispers sadly, with that same, slow turn of his head. I feel a sudden pang. We understand each other, Stalton and I…
"What do you want?" his eyes are riveted to the flat head of the heated metal, sweat beginning to bead down his face. "What do you want?" he asks me again.
"Your supplier. Your customers. I need names, addresses. Points of contact. Everything."
"I can't tell you that." he licks his lips again, shaking his head. "No."
But you will.
I shrug and pull the pack of Marlboro's out of his shirt pocket. "Want one?" he nods, and I place it in his trembling lips.
"Let me say it so we both understand," my voice does not betray me. "You have twenty-eight knuckles on both your fingers and toes. Two ears. Two eyes. You also have two testicles…we could be here a very, very long time," I state evenly, lighting his cigarette with the cauterizer. "You were kind to me. I want to do this the easy way. But I need to know. I will know. It's just a question of how long it takes."
Stalton looks at me over the burning tip of his cigarette, the only light in the abandoned slaughterhouse. Behind us, the dogs snivel and snarl. Doubt grows in his eyes. I'm a soldier. I'm a cop. I'm a woman. He just saved my life… he sees the struggle in my eyes. He licks his lips nervously. "You wouldn't do it."
Dmitri's knife flicks. He howls in pain, blood oozing from the stub of his left pinky. I press the cauterizer deep into the flesh and the blood stops flowing, the tip blackened…
"Twenty-seven." I look directly into his eyes. They too, do not betray me. He finds no pity here.
Stalton begins to spill.
August 24th
23:40 EST
Styx Street Slaughterhouse
The arms come from a supplier, ex-military. I press him how to contact. I force him to make the call. I have a meeting in two days with a retired Lt. General about restocking grenades and the possibility of another rocket launcher. Stalton promises cash. The Lt. General is only happy to oblige. I get the names of mob bosses, their phone numbers, their weapons of choice. There are Russians, Italians, a Puerto Rican gang and a black Kingpin…
The interview is relatively painless. He rarely needs probing. He keeps his balls, his eyes, his ears, all twenty-eight joints in his feet and eight and a half of his fingers. Finally it is over, and he rests his head against the wire cages, panting.
"What now?" he croaks as I light him a final cigarette.
I look away. "I don't know."
He needs to die. But I don't have the heart to kill him.
"You aren't going to kill me?"
He isn't directly connected to the Joker. He probably wishes the Bastard was safely back in Arkham or in Hell where he belongs. But he sold military grade explosives and hardware to countless criminals, all who used them to terrify Gotham, many who turned thug for the Joker himself. He knowingly passed instruments of fear and destruction to men intending to use them on innocent civilians. Who knows how many hundreds of lives he had the power to save but refused?
I am staring again at the bronze star in my hand: To Serve and Protect. That is my duty. It was my Angel's duty.
…Stalton, what do I do with you?
His was a different sort of cruelty, a different sort of lust. He finds taking human life distasteful, but for the right price he will sell to anyone, consequences be damned. Those snarling, mistreated pit bulls reveal his principles for what they truly are: ash. As long as their owners pay their rent, as long as their torment and horrible death continues to bring him money, he is willing to look away. What was I supposed to do? Nothing? His own convictions condemn him.
He is Gotham, turning a blind eye to violence. Apathetic, uncaring, as long as nothing affects him. If he is not directly involved, he believes his hands to be clean. But it's people like him who watched Kitty Genovese die, as guilty as the bastard who stabbed her. His selfishness is sickening.
And yet—
And yet he saved my life. Is it strength, or something more sinister, that enables me to look beyond this personal merit? Can this one life, this one good deed absolve him?
"No," I finally say, not looking into his eyes as lightening flashes through the gaps overhead. "But I can't promise the same from the dogs."
He shakesis head slowly, a sad, sad smile around the burning tip of that final cigarette. Surrendering. Understanding. Conceding.
The gates are opened with a lever, releasing the pressure and turning the bottom out. The dogs must slink under the wire to get into the arena, scraping blood from their backs, incensing the fight. I lift the lever—
"Take care of yourself," Stalton whispers in the dark.
—and twist. I walk away. Above the thunder I hear a rising snarl and a scream.
An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth…The dogs have their justice, and my hands are either as dirty or as clean as his. But I find that lie as hollow for me as it was for him in the end.
Lightning flashes again through the crumbling roof and rain begins to fall. Her anger assuaged, empty as ash, the night begins to weep.