Andrew Vachss - Two Trains Running

“No, man. I don’t.”

“Me, neither. But I know what a ‘spook’ is. A spook is a haunt. A ghost. Something you scared of. The white man who calls us spooks, he’s not lying. How many of our people got hung from trees? Shot like mad dogs? Dumped in graves nobody will ever find? All those dead niggers, that’s their ‘spooks.’ I can hear them, calling to me.”

“For real?”

“Real as life, brother. Real as death. You know how a preacher say he ‘got the call’? Well, I did, too. Not to preach. Not to yell and scream and beg. Jesus ain’t for us. If he was, he wouldn’t be white. And he wouldn’t stand by and let them do us the way they do.”

Rufus’s voice dropped a few degrees, in volume and in temperature. “Let Mister Dioguardi be happy with his tame nigger, Rufus Hightower. Nigger like Rufus, he be too stupid to make up some phony list and say he copied it down from what he seen in the man’s room. He’ll never see the real me, brother. You can’t actually see a spook.”

“Never see us coming, you mean!” Kendall said, holding up a clenched fist.

The man he called Omar tapped Kendall’s fist with his own, a blood oath.

1959 October 05 Monday 03:10

Carl loved this time of night. Or, rather, morning, he corrected himself. On the other side of town from where he ruled the Claremont’s front desk, it was as if he rode through a transparent-walled tunnel, watching the filth and degeneracy of the streets flare like a match just before it dies. He could feel the desperation just outside his steel-and-glass cocoon, the whores and junkies and con men and burglars and drunks and… all trying to make one last score, one final connection, one more try, before they were driven back by the coming morning, when the good citizens would take back the streets. Temporarily.

Carl wished they could meet at HQ. How glorious that would be, especially in the meeting room itself, with the crossed flags standing sentry to their cause. But he understood why this was never to be.

The warehouse district was a thing of such beauty that it sometimes brought moisture to Carl’s eyes. Most, he knew, would look upon it as a cluster of abandoned buildings, symbolizing the death of the town’s industries. But Carl saw a different symbol entirely. He saw… Cleansing! This is how whole cities will look, someday. The streets empty, free of vermin, awaiting the occupation of the Master Race.

1959 October 05 Monday 03:51

“Lights,” the man seated behind the tripod-mounted binoculars said to his partner.

“Ready.”

“Turning. Got a… I’m not sure what that is. Wait! It’s the Mercedes.”

“Romeo, Zulu, nine, two, zero?”

“Roger.”

“Logged.”

“Turning left into Sector Four. Hey! Hear that?”

“I don’t hear anything,” the other man said.

“Neither do I,” the spotter said. “Even with all these windows open.”

“So he’s parked?”

“Yeah. Close by.”

“This is our post.”

“Come on! This is the third time. Whoever he is, he’s not out for a night drive.”

“We’re not supposed to-?”

“We can go over the roofs,” the spotter said. “They’re all pretty much the same height. He can’t be more than a block or two away, and we’d still have-”

“-the high ground,” the other man finished. He unzipped a padded bag, removed a heavy-barreled rifle. “All right, but it has to be quick.”

1959 October 05 Monday 03:54

The Commander’s car was nowhere in sight, but Carl was unconcerned. He flashed his brights three times, quickly. A door next to what had once been the loading bay began to climb upwards, slowly exposing an empty slot. Carl knew the electricity to the warehouse had been cut off years ago, and the Commander was cranking the door by hand.

Carl backed his Mercedes into the open space. He watched through the windshield as the door descended, turning his whole world dark.

1959 October 05 Monday 03:59

“Now what?” the man holding the rifle whispered.

“Somebody opened that door for him. From inside.”

“You want to try to get-?”

“No. We’re in perfect position here,” the spotter said. “Let’s just wait. We only saw one come in. What we want is to see everyone who comes out.”

1959 October 05 Monday 04:02

Karl climbed out of his Mercedes. He closed the door lightly behind him, but the sound was still audible in the empty building. Suddenly, a hand-a powerful hand, it always was, when Karl called up the image in the privacy of his shower-grasped the back of his neck. Obediently, Karl allowed himself to be propelled forward, his eyes now picking up the streaks of phosphorus that appeared on the concrete floor. Arrows, pointing the way to his destiny.

Around a corner, and there was light. Faint light, from a three-cell flashlight, positioned so close to the wall that only a pale aura was visible. But there was enough light for Karl to see the roll of carpet on the floor. And the blanket-covered sawhorse.

The hand on the back of his neck clamped tightly, but Karl never flinched. His hands were steady as he undressed.

“The Spartans never went into battle without the special strength they drew from their Boys of War,” the Commander said, his lips an inch from Karl’s ear.

1959 October 05 Monday 04:44

“Car number one-”

“The known.”

“Right. Car one-the known subject-entered Sector Four at oh three fifty-one. Entered Building 413 at oh three fifty-four. Exited oh four thirty-six. Car number two-unknown subject, Foxtrot, Echo, Bravo, eight, eight, one, local plate-exited oh four forty.”

“He must have come in from across the open ground to the east,” the rifleman said. “That’s why we haven’t see him before, I bet. But now, whoever he is, he won’t be unknown in a few hours.”

1959 October 05 Monday 05:58

“Nice time for a briefing,” Special Agent David L. Peterson said grumpily to his partner. “Six in the morning.”

“The Bureau never sleeps,” Mack Dressler replied laconically.

“Nothing ever bothers you, does it, Mack?”

“Not anymore, it doesn’t,” the older man said, settling himself in a metal folding chair.

A tall man in a navy-blue suit suddenly strode into the large room. He had dark hair, worn slightly longer than current Bureau fashion, and an aristocratic face.

“I’m betting Yale,” Mack whispered. “He looks a little too loose for Harvard.”

“Gentlemen,” the man at the podium addressed the thirty men seated before him. “My name is M. William Wainwright, Special Agent in Charge of the Organized Crime Task Force, Midwest Branch. I’ve called you in this morning to review our objectives and bring you up to speed on the current initiative.”

“The Invisible Empire,” Mack muttered sarcastically.

“The Klan?” his younger partner whispered.

“Pretty hard to be invisible when you’re walking around with a sheet over your head, partner,” the older man answered, his voice as soft and dry as sawdust. “This guy’s talking about the Mafia. You know, the mob the boss said didn’t exist until a couple of years ago.”

“As you already know,” the speaker continued, “there exists within America a tightly organized network of criminals. Originating in Sicily, this…”

As the speaker droned on, two assistants entered from the side, one carrying a large easel, the other several sheets of poster board. When they completed their setup, the speaker unclipped a pen-size object from his breast pocket. With a snap of his wrist, a professorial pointer emerged.

“This,” he said, “is the overall structure, at the national level.” A brief biography of each individual followed. “As you can see, there is a quasi-military structure to the organization, with a distinct chain of command.”