The darker mask, p.21
The Darker Mask, page 21
They weren’t a very big crew. Four all together. One woman and two men. One woman, two men, and Flow, whatever he might be. The driver parked the blue van on an empty side street and the pair walked to meet the others. The driver threw the van’s keys down one of the sewer grates they passed. As the wind slapped their clothes Flow adjusted his hood, pulling it far down, hiding all inside.
The driver had seen his partner’s face once and vomited right afterward. This didn’t mean he was scared though. Just the opposite. The driver slapped his partner on the shoulder and it felt the same as always, as if there were nothing underneath. If the driver hadn’t seen that face he’d swear his partner was made of smoke.
“Tony Flow,” the driver said. “You’re not really carrying your end of the conversation.”
That driver was a small man with a seven-foot mouth.
Tony Flow. That’s what they all called him, the other members of his crew. Since he didn’t speak, couldn’t speak, he had no flow. Thus they gave him a name that called attention to this. A way to taunt him. It would be like calling your fat friend Boney Jones. Or your crippled neighbor, Walker. This is what passes for wit in certain circles.
They walked on one of the desolate, industrial streets that Greenpoint does so well. Where abandoned warehouses border functioning warehouses that seem only months from closing too. Where the roads are like a sheet of peanut brittle. The area was yet another tombstone in the graveyard of American industry so you can be sure these two were the only traffic out tonight.
“Do you think you went to college, Tony? Before she found you? You’d have to go dressed up like a mummy, but I bet there’s people who look as bad as you at a few campuses.”
Tony Flow turned to the driver, who’d earned a nickname of his own long ago.
The driver said, “I’m wondering how you would’ve done on the oral exams!”
While it’s true that Tony Flow was a criminal, that he could not speak, and that his body would sicken even a mortician, the worst part of his whole anguished existence still really might be the driver’s fucking jokes.
“Aw come on, Tony. Why so quiet?”
They reached the corner and she was already waiting there. Her and Baker, the last member of their crew. She clapped her calloused hands.
“Tony Flow and Colossus are late again,” she said.
“My name’s Kevin,” the driver said, but he stared at the ground when he said it.
She didn’t tolerate even that much backtalk however so she reached out and slapped Kevin in the face. Kevin went head first to the ground. Then he stayed there.
“Can I get up?” he asked.
She stamped one booted foot near his head. “You better ask me nicer than that.”
Kevin said, “Could I get up, please?”
She didn’t even do him the courtesy of speaking, she just grabbed the collar of his jacket and yanked him to his feet again. She bent down so she’d be at his eye level and swept the hair out of her face.
“Now what’s my name?” she asked.
Zofia Erland, a former physician’s assistant whose family had emigrated from the Lodz province of Poland. She looked as though she hadn’t eaten a good meal in fifteen years. Thin and tall, six feet of bear meat, and she hovered over poor little Kevin Patterson, one arm cocked to hit him again.
The New York Post ran a photo of her on its front page back in 1985. Wearing her white uniform and thick-soled shoes, a nurse coming out of a liquor store with a bottle of cream sherry. One foot out the door and she’d already unscrewed the top. She looked ready to down that bottle the way others guzzled Tab. But the truly damning aspect of the picture? The liquor store clock could be seen behind the glass, and the time read 8:18 a.m. Zofia Erland, registered nurse, liked to binge before work.
And because of this predilection a number of her patients died. She’d been under investigation by the hospital, but hadn’t guessed that a newspaper would send photographers after her. The families of the victims had been making a lot of noise and a couple of editors must have heard. In the front page shot Zofia Erland looked tired and gloomy, but the uniform was crisp and the contrast only made her seem more ghoulish. Right above her face, in enormous white lettering, the New York Post immortalized her in a headline: Nurse Boozy.
“What’s my name?” she asked the driver, Kevin Patterson, again.
“Boss,” he said.
Tony Flow didn’t like to step in between Nurse Boozy and her underlings, mostly because he didn’t want to be reminded that he was one too. Also he never could calm Nurse Boozy. Baker had that magic. Him alone.
“Sounds like Colossus is sorry,” Baker said, his mouth at Boozy’s ear. His voice was deeper than the Mariana Trench and even Tony Flow felt soothed when he heard it. So why had he earned a cool nickname like Baker? When the rest of them were only fit to be mocked? Well, that’s because Nurse Boozy had given it to him. Baker was the only man she’d ever met who truly knew how to warm her biscuits.
“How sorry is he?” she muttered.
Baker cooed. “He knows he shouldn’t fuck with you.”
She dropped her fist and turned to Baker. “And what about you?”
Baker put his hands up. “Baby, I surrender.”
Nurse Boozy grabbed Baker by the back of the neck and lifted him a few inches in the air. Talk about turned on. They kissed like it was the last time, or the first. When the people are attractive that sort of thing is called passion, but right now the sight only made Flow want to puke.
Flow didn’t feel like waiting around to see if they’d undress so he walked to the warehouse wall nearby and bumped it with one elbow.
“Not that building,” Baker said after Nurse Boozy set him down. “There.”
Baker pointed farther down the block, to a five-story warehouse that overlooked the East River. Baker’s actual job in this operation was to scout for profitable locations. Flow walked, but Nurse Boozy grabbed the back of his neck.
“Did I say you could move?”
So he stopped and she pressed herself up to Tony Flow, mouth against the side of his hood.
“Want to go back in the water?” she whispered, her breath smelling like gas fumes.
Tony Flow might not know where his abilities came from, but Nurse Boozy knew what to thank. Fifty years of drinking had transformed her into something unfeeling and indestructible. That’s what happens when you mix a lifetime of booze with a natural reservoir of hostility. They make for a potent cocktail.
Nurse Boozy could walk naked through a snowstorm or dive into a fire and you couldn’t pierce her skin with a bullet. Her epidermis felt like armadillo hide. And she had that clobbering strength, like every mean drunk who ever terrorized a dive. Forget about being pickled, the woman was practically embalmed, and it wasn’t actually clear whether Nurse Boozy could die. Who knew cream sherry gave super powers.
Flow turned to her now, a stance of opposition, and Nurse Boozy seemed ready to kill him with one punch. Cocked a fist, about to throw it right through Flow’s freaky face.
Then Flow wobbled from left to right. He couldn’t keep his balance. This actually made her smile.
“Are you drunk?” she asked.”Is that why you’re lining up with me?”
That kind of courage she could understand, and even forgive. He wasn’t insubordinate, only a lightweight drinker. She slapped one hand on his right shoulder and turned him around.
“Get us inside the building, Tony,” she said.
The smash-and-grab is just about the first procedure that a thief learns. All you need is a glass case (or window) and something to break said glass, then reach inside and pluck out whatever you like. Nurse Boozy’s crew worked on much the same principle, but instead of jewelry cases they crashed through warehouse walls. It was Tony Flow who made this possible.
He walked toward the five-story factory building and steadied himself by spreading his feet apart, a wider stance. Baker came closer to help out, catch Tony Flow in case he fell.
“You’re doing fine,” Baker whispered.
Nurse Boozy squeezed Colossus’s fat hand so tight that the little man nearly crumbled.
“Is it you that gave him drinks?”
Kevin said, “He was with those bums in the park. He loves them.”
They reached the warehouse walls, thick brick, dirty and old but sturdy. Flow craned his neck and looked at all five stories. Floors three through five looked abandoned. What might be on floor two?
Then Flow made the mistake of turning toward Manhattan, seeing that illuminated skyline again. He felt shame then, the kind of shame that usually only hit him the day after they’d done a job. For a moment Flow wondered if, when he was rescued, his conscience might’ve floated over that way and dragged itself to shore. And from there it witnessed his cravenness, his greed. It saw him now and he felt its disappointment.
He turned away from the Manhattan skyline.
“Go get the truck,” Nurse Boozy said and the driver jogged to a darkened lot across the street.
They had a whole plan for these missions. Steal a van and abandon it somewhere near the crime scene, then switch to a truck and use that truck to haul out all the loot. The cops would be so busy tying the van to the crime that they’d usually miss the signs of the truck until long after the truck, too, had been abandoned. This drill had been the single bright idea of Mr. Kevin Patterson’s life.
They moved from borough to borough, this team, hitting the Bronx most recently before this. They’d even made it out to Connecticut a few times. They couldn’t stay in one area for too long. They weren’t just dodging the cops, they even had to keep wary of Homeland Security. Big explosions tended to generate interest these days. They really hated the way 9/11 had inconvenienced them.
So Colossus ran into the lot and Flow stepped away from the warehouse wall and Baker helped him keep steady. Only Nurse Boozy walked closer to the warehouse because only Nurse Boozy had no fear of what came next.
Flow stood in the street, about fifteen feet from the warehouse walls. He did not feel too good. He stood over six feet, but the guy only really weighed a few ounces, even just a couple sips of hard liquor had him spinning. And he’d really gulped it down with Janusz. Right now Janusz was probably sleeping it off inside the warm Citibank center on Manhattan Avenue, snuggled up beside the ATMs. But Tony Flow had to work.
Flow shut his eyes (he did have eyes) and closed his mouth (he had one of those too). He concentrated on his belly. He imagined his belly as a great, gray cauldron full of oil. The more he focused on this image the easier it became to see and once he had that in mind he imagined a fire set beneath it. The fire grew and the oil in the cauldron bubbled, began to boil. Soon it spat, it steamed, it spilled over the sides. The oil thrashed in the cauldron, so much so that it nearly seemed alive. And then Flow felt his own belly grow warm. More than warm, hot. Downright scalding.
Then that feeling rose and Flow’s throat burned. He retched, as if he was going to vomit, and felt the oil traveling up into his mouth. And it burned even worse there, he just couldn’t keep it inside, so he opened his mouth and let it out, a gushing flurry of bile. It looked like buckshot coming out of his mouth. Gray droplets flew across the street and toward the warehouse wall, and as soon as they hit brick that goddamn brick exploded.
Tony Flow spat explosives. He was living artillery.
But something had gone wrong.
Flow couldn’t figure out the problem though, not exactly. He knew he’d produced too much this time, he could tell that because he’d blown up a lot more than one small section of the warehouse wall, it looked as though half the building had been bashed in. The first floor, the second, the third, they were all exposed.
Still, that wasn’t the real sign that things had gone cockeyed.
It was the screaming that tipped Flow off.
Who was doing it? Couldn’t be him, he didn’t have vocal chords. He felt dizzy, ready for a blackout, but fought past the drunkenness, and the scene became clearer.
Baker thrashed on the ground.
He made sounds, but not words. How can you form words when you’ve only got half a mouth? Half a face actually. And your left arm is all gone. And your rib cage is exposed because the flesh had blown right off.
Baker wriggled and writhed, but he did not die. Better if he had, right away. He choked on blood and when he tried to cough it sprayed out sideways through his exposed lung.
They’d been here to rob a furniture warehouse. Not some crappy merchandise either. One of these finer boutique stores that had been popping up around Greenpoint in the last few years. They made handcrafted bedroom sets, credenzas, armoires, you name it. They made the kind of fabulous items that cost more than hybrid cars. Meant to cater to the affluent groups who’d been flocking to the neighborhood in recent years. But, unfortunately, their goods were fashioned from wood and fabric. The kind of stuff that catches fire if you’re not careful.
Normally this wouldn’t be a problem. Flow could control how much explosive he spit, down to the smallest drop, and use just enough to get through the walls without damaging the bounty. Then Nurse Boozy would go in and haul each item out herself (maybe Baker would help with the little tables and such). But not this time. This time Tony Flow overdid it with his volatile bile and Baker got blown into fractions. Talk about division. Then the furniture caught on fire and the whole warehouse got lit. In the seconds it took for Baker to die the fire spread to the second floor.
The second floor was where that furniture business kept various supplies. Among them cans of varnish remover and thinner, various cleaning compounds and solvents, all highly flammable.
“Baker!” Nurse Boozy yelled and ran from the sidewalk to the street, but he died before she got there. She stared at Baker patiently.
A body, a thing now.
Get up baby, that’s what she seemed to be thinking.
She put her ear to what remained of his mouth.
Then here came Colossus, pulling the truck into the street. Tony Flow and Nurse Boozy both looked at the little man, easy to see in the truck’s big windshield. He moved slowly, maybe five miles an hour. Looked at them, saw Baker, then up at the blazing building. The fire nipped at the third floor already. Kevin Patterson was no fool, he pressed down on the accelerator and drove right past his crew. Blew through the stop sign and just kept going.
“That motherfucker,” Nurse Boozy said as she watched the red lights of the truck recede.
Then she punched Flow directly in the chest.
He didn’t expect it so it should have hurt even more, but he was drunk and those drunks have a way of surviving trauma. The secret is that liquor, it keeps them naturally relaxed. So she hit him, but she didn’t punch through his body like she’d hoped. She only sent him flying back. Knocked him right out of his Timberlands.
He flipped backward and the boots (which weren’t tied all that tight) went to the left and the right. Nurse Boozy stepped over Baker’s body, coming toward Flow again.
But without those boots to anchor him down the winds of the East River played a little game. They call it Upsy Daisy. The wind lifted him. Not too far, maybe five feet, but that was enough. When Nurse Boozy swung again she only connected with the wall of the building behind him. Some bricks cracked, but Tony Flow kept safe for another instant.
Drunk or not, Flow needed an escape. Colossus, that rat, had taken the truck and he couldn’t outrun Nurse Boozy. Still, that tough old drunk couldn’t glide.
He slipped his jeans down, which wasn’t hard because they were a few sizes too large. Last he slid off his big sweatshirt. He hadn’t been this exposed since that day, three years ago, when Nurse Boozy fished him out of Newtown Creek.
Because there wasn’t much light Flow only showed as the silhouette of a man. Narrow shouldered and lithe. Skinnier than a hipster (and that’s boney indeed). But then he stepped forward and light from the burning building illuminated him.
He was more than thin, the guy was nearly flat too, like he could slither under a closed door. You could pop him onto a slide and study his kidneys with a microscope. Frankly, Flow was almost two-dimensional. No wonder he weighed so little. His body looked as if it had been molded out of butterfly wings. It might’ve even been beautiful, in the dark.
In the light his skin had a faint green tinge, but was otherwise transparent. You could see the liquid spiraling through his veins and witness the aggressive organ. Look there, at his thin heart, thumping and pumping. Not quite invisible, but he was a see-through man.
What was he?
What had made him this way?
He asked himself those questions every morning.
Without anything to weigh him down now, Flow’s flimsy body tossed even higher in the wind. So much that he had to grab at the roof of the building behind him for fear that he’d be sent out to sea.
Nurse Boozy watched him buoy off. She seemed weaker once he was out of arm’s reach. Without people genuflecting she was only an old woman with a sneer.
“I saved your life!” she yelled.
Flow didn’t stay for the story this time.
She turned back to Baker and lifted what remained of the corpse, threw the body into the warehouse fire. No matter who he’d been to her before, he was only evidence now.
“I’m going to kill all of them,” she shouted.
Was it a threat to Flow or a promise to Baker?
Flow grabbed the roof of the warehouse and used his hands to keep secure. Across the street the blaze continued to grow, it ravaged all five stories now, a fire hot enough that even brick burned.
Flow kept moving along the top of this one-story building. He looked like a scuba diver reaching for the ocean shelf, hands picking at sea anemones while the feet float high and kick.
