Free Lone Wolf #10: Harlem Showdown by Mike Barry
Authors: Mike Barry
worked his way toward one of the far shelves on which an array of machine guns perched. “We live in a system of choices; we can choose what we will, we are condemned to nothing, we can be whatever we wish to be.”
“And those are the choices,” Wulff said, following him, “those are the choices upon which the church of the divine is founded.”
“Why, of course,” Father Justice said, “of course. Your grasp of our theology is improving. Did you ever think that it was anything else?”
VI
Gianelli had him scented out. Gianelli had the prick scented out; he knew where he had to be, he knew that he was closing ground. He had been closing ground all the time on him in the three days that he had been on the trail; now it was narrowed down to just a couple of streets, no more than fifty houses. In one of them the vermin lurked. He would get him. He would get him and kill him.
But first things first. First things were always first; now it was time for a shot of the needle. Gianelli had been a heroin addict for forty years, piss on all of the newspaper articles and popular scientists that made it look as if you dropped dead after a few years of it. Bullshit, all of it was bullshit; it was a habit like cigarettes or alcohol or sex; keep it within bounds and you could live with it, let it get the upper hand and you were in trouble. But a strong man could keep it in perspective. For forty years he had been on and off horse; he was not dependent, he simply used it when he needed, didn’t when the need was lacking. He liked to think that he took the habit the way they did in the old country; there were a lot of people in Europe who could use heroin or get along without it. But Americans, Americans, they had no sense of control.
Carefully, stirring, blending, Gianelli prepared the mix. He was in his own furnished room, a tight construct four flights up in the west seventies of Manhattan, a good base of operations, exactly the kind of place you wanted when you were on a vendetta, as he was, because you were traveling so light, had so little sense of connection to these rooms that held you that they could be barely said to exist; on the other hand—always, always, Gianelli tried to think on the other hand, see the other side to a question—you had a place to sleep when you needed it, you had an abode of some sort. You had a place to shoot some dope.
The stuff was bubbling now and he took it off the stove looking at the fluid as it lay there in the spoon, the little insolent bubbles prodding and poking themselves to the surface like little messages from under the earth. He swilled it around in the spoon to get the consistency just right and then carefully, unhurriedly, carried it over to the side of the room where the syringe and needle were, put the plunger delicately into his hand, inserted the plunger into the spoon and drew the clear, dead-white fluid all the way up behind the needle.
Nothing to do then but to slide it in, but Gianelli allowed himself that one, necessary moment of hesitation before he did so. In many ways this was the best part of all, the anticipation, waiting for the stuff to go in, extending the moments until the needle would bite in a sacred way into a vein and begin to pulse through its bright messages of salvation. No need to rush it, he had all the time in the world. Looking at the spoon, he thought that he could see not only bubbles but also little, astonished animals swimming around in it, animals that were part of the compound, small, vital, living things that would be injected into his bloodstream and were in themselves the heart of the connection. Wasn’t that the folklore of horse after all? That there were little men in the fluid, little creatures swimming in the substance that added their life, their thoughts and vitality to yours so that it was not one brain but many occupying the surfaces of one’s skull? Of course it was. It was very important folklore. Unhesitatingly, thinking
“And those are the choices,” Wulff said, following him, “those are the choices upon which the church of the divine is founded.”
“Why, of course,” Father Justice said, “of course. Your grasp of our theology is improving. Did you ever think that it was anything else?”
VI
Gianelli had him scented out. Gianelli had the prick scented out; he knew where he had to be, he knew that he was closing ground. He had been closing ground all the time on him in the three days that he had been on the trail; now it was narrowed down to just a couple of streets, no more than fifty houses. In one of them the vermin lurked. He would get him. He would get him and kill him.
But first things first. First things were always first; now it was time for a shot of the needle. Gianelli had been a heroin addict for forty years, piss on all of the newspaper articles and popular scientists that made it look as if you dropped dead after a few years of it. Bullshit, all of it was bullshit; it was a habit like cigarettes or alcohol or sex; keep it within bounds and you could live with it, let it get the upper hand and you were in trouble. But a strong man could keep it in perspective. For forty years he had been on and off horse; he was not dependent, he simply used it when he needed, didn’t when the need was lacking. He liked to think that he took the habit the way they did in the old country; there were a lot of people in Europe who could use heroin or get along without it. But Americans, Americans, they had no sense of control.
Carefully, stirring, blending, Gianelli prepared the mix. He was in his own furnished room, a tight construct four flights up in the west seventies of Manhattan, a good base of operations, exactly the kind of place you wanted when you were on a vendetta, as he was, because you were traveling so light, had so little sense of connection to these rooms that held you that they could be barely said to exist; on the other hand—always, always, Gianelli tried to think on the other hand, see the other side to a question—you had a place to sleep when you needed it, you had an abode of some sort. You had a place to shoot some dope.
The stuff was bubbling now and he took it off the stove looking at the fluid as it lay there in the spoon, the little insolent bubbles prodding and poking themselves to the surface like little messages from under the earth. He swilled it around in the spoon to get the consistency just right and then carefully, unhurriedly, carried it over to the side of the room where the syringe and needle were, put the plunger delicately into his hand, inserted the plunger into the spoon and drew the clear, dead-white fluid all the way up behind the needle.
Nothing to do then but to slide it in, but Gianelli allowed himself that one, necessary moment of hesitation before he did so. In many ways this was the best part of all, the anticipation, waiting for the stuff to go in, extending the moments until the needle would bite in a sacred way into a vein and begin to pulse through its bright messages of salvation. No need to rush it, he had all the time in the world. Looking at the spoon, he thought that he could see not only bubbles but also little, astonished animals swimming around in it, animals that were part of the compound, small, vital, living things that would be injected into his bloodstream and were in themselves the heart of the connection. Wasn’t that the folklore of horse after all? That there were little men in the fluid, little creatures swimming in the substance that added their life, their thoughts and vitality to yours so that it was not one brain but many occupying the surfaces of one’s skull? Of course it was. It was very important folklore. Unhesitatingly, thinking