Free Carnage by Maxime Chattam Page A

a slave. You were born subhuman and that’s what you’ll always be.’
    Lamar gripped the torch in his hand, running his forefinger over the top of it.
    ‘Well, I say “you”,’ Quincey continued, ‘what I should have said is “your kind”. Because you’re bowing out tonight, mister.’
    The light shook a little while Lamar turned the heavy torch in his hand.
    ‘You see, history doesn’t always repeat itself!’ Quincey said with a wry smile. ‘Sometimes the fascists win. And as for you, nigger, time’s up.’
    Finally Lamar’s fingertips found what they’d been searching for. The on/off switch on his torch. Quincey was taking aim, his finger poised to pull the trigger.
    Lamar flicked the switch. They were suddenly in total darkness. Lamar leapt down from the platform just as a shot whistled by a few inches from his head.
    He rolled on the track and tried to scramble back to his feet to avoid losing his bearings completely. He steadied himself on his knees and took out his Walther P99.
    Quincey was pacing around, searching, breathing heavily. He stumbled into something, probably Christian DeRoy’s body, and fired. Again and again.
    Some of the bullets left no trace as they were fired; others left a flaming trail in their wake. Lamar aimed at the flashes of light and fired all his remaining bullets.
     
    When Lamar turned his torch back on after ten minutes of uneasy silence, he saw Frank Quincey’s body slumped over the corpse of his seventeen-year-old disciple. Their blood mingled together deep beneath the city.
    Quincey twitched. He wasn’t dead.
    Lamar bolted towards him, loading another round of bullets. He held the hot barrel against the fascist’s head. Did he deserve to live after everything he had done?
    The rumble of a far-off subway train travelled through the bowels of the earth. Down here, away from civilised society, away from judgement and conscience, Lamar had a choice.
    He breathed in deeply, to gather his courage. Hate was flowing the other way now.

Epilogue
    Lamar Gallineo was suspended for three weeks.
    During that time, Internal Affairs conducted an investigation to corroborate Lieutenant Gallineo’s statements. The report found he had acted on legitimate grounds of self defence when he had opened fire on Christian DeRoy and Frank Quincey.
    He had played no part in the death of the school principal and had done nothing to put Allistair McLogan’s life in danger. Frank Quincey and Christian DeRoy alone were responsible.
    After Lamar had left the Harlem high school that day, Quincey had called his protégé to warn him that the police were looking for him. Chris DeRoy had fled to their hideout. Later that evening, the young man had called the principal at home to lure him into a trap and eliminate him. They all deserved to die in his eyes, by whatever means.
    After his suspension Gallineo went back to work, where his colleagues showered him with messages of support. He returned to his desk opposite Doris, who had visited himat home while he was off. Everything was getting back to normal.
    But it was a long time before he could look at a high school again without thinking of all the vulnerable teenagers inside and how easily they could be led. Some were hard as rock, but others could be moulded like balls of clay.
    The streets of New York were no less safe than the other big cities of the world. But you could never rely on reason to stand firm. Every day, men and women threatened to tip the fragile balance holding up civil society.
    Lamar had no sympathy for them. They may have been hurt, may have had troubled childhoods, but the fact remained that at every step of the way they had, and still had, a choice. Just as he’d had.
     
    The trial of Frank Quincey took place in Manhattan, in a state which administered the death penalty. He was sentenced to death. When the verdict was announced, he stood up and made a fascist salute.
    As the prison guards led him to Execution Chamber Five years