Luthecker (8 page)

He eyed a young man shrouded in a thick coat, sitting on a bus stop bench, the concrete seat on the sidewalk noticeably decorated with seemingly indecipherable yet artistically crafted swirls of grey spray paint. The elaborate pattern tagged the bench as a property marker, and the man seated on it was a scout at his post. Face hidden by a hood, all Alex could see was the lit ember of a cigarette. That ember nodded slightly at Alex, and Alex returned the nod as he passed by, never breaking stride. The exchange informed him that he had just been cleared, and his route would be safe. The final destination, however, would potentially be a different story.

A half hour walk later, he turned left at a street corner, and stood at the entrance to the Imperial Courts cul de sac.

Alex hesitated before entering the neighborhood. If there were a time that he would be most vulnerable, it would be within the next fifteen minutes.

Security tightened as he started down the street, to the building at the apex of the cul de sac. He noted the men watching him from doorways and rooftops, saw the small cluster of pigeons flying overhead, the trained flock of birds darting in the moonlight signaling his arrival.

He tucked his chin and kept walking, careful to keep his pace brisk but controlled, and not to make eye contact with his many observers. He approached the long since broken security door of a crumbling five-story stucco building that lay just left of center of the street’s end.

“Apartment 501” was where he had been told the package was to be delivered. He silently entered the structure, and made his way through the plaster-peeled hallway, silently bounded up stairs two at a time, until he reached the fifth floor. He entered the hallway and slowed.

For the first time this evening, Alex was nervous.

Standing in front of unit 501 were two large black men, both with AR-15 semi-automatic rifles slung over their shoulders. Alex nodded to the men and held up his free hand to show it was empty, the one hand holding the duffle bag. One of the men took the rifle from his shoulder and pointed it straight at Alex as the other nodded, signaling him to approach.

Alex did as he was instructed, holding the bag out at arms length. He slowly set it down at their feet and stood perfectly still as one man frisked him and the other kept the barrel of the AR-15 trained on his mid-section. The man with the rifle locked eyes on Alex, a hard, intense stare meant to intimidate. It worked. Alex’ heart raced. He tried his best to hold the gaze, to hide the fact that his body wanted to just turn and run. Reading these men at this point was simple but moot. Although he knew these were violent men who would die violent deaths, and much sooner than they thought, they could still opt to kill him at any moment, on instinct, with little or no perceptible impact on their fate, such was the consistent and vicious nature of their choices.

And there was no way Alex could know for sure if this would or would not happen.

There were two reasons for this, why, even with his abilities, he could not predict their next action. The first was that whenever the macro-patterns of someone’s life were strong, short, and simple, the end results clear, it often meant that the micro-patterns of any given moment were extremely hard to predict. Killing Alex meant nothing to these men, the act not a particularly impactful choice on their fate. In this environment, there would be no liability. It would be as if it never happened.

But the far larger reason why the next few moments were out of Alex’ perceptive range is because they directly involved him.

This was the one hole in Alex’s abilities. Despite his uncanny ability to read the countless patterns of a person’s behavior, physicality, environment, and despite how these details would form derivations and images in his mind of their fate that were near certain, there was one person whose life he could never see clearly, never predict the outcome of: his own.

“He’s clean.” One of the guards said to the other, as he examined Alex’s backpack, and one of his Kali sticks.

“And definitely Winn’s guy.”

The other guard kept his eyes locked on Alex but took his left hand briefly off the barrel of his AR-15 and gave a quick knock on the door to unit 501.

The door opened a crack.

A single visible eye looked Alex up and down a second before a deep voice from behind the door spoke.

“Let him in.”

Alex entered the unit as the door closed behind him. He handed over the duffle bag to the host as he did a quick scan of the apartment: he noted the large black leather couch, the sixty-inch flat screen bolted to the wall, the array of briefcases and duffle bags on the floor beside the couch. His eyes settled on a Mac 10 automatic pistol with three clips all laid out on the glass coffee table.

This was not a home, he thought to himself. This was a business office.

“Winn’s one crazy fucker.”

Alex looked at the well dressed, large framed black man who sifted through the cash in the bag handed to him by Alex. Satisfied, the man tossed the bag on the floor, next to the others.

“Rooker,” he announced as his name while he held out his hand.

Alex shook it, and noticed the diamond-laced, platinum Bentley watch on Rooker’s left wrist.

“Crazy I’m tellin’ ya. Shit that fool used to do. And now thinkin’ his brand a’ nonsense is gonna change things. But he is a man of his word. And so am I. So tell him he’s in the clear. No shit’s gonna go down on that turf. And he can bring people in and out if he wants. But…”

Rooker pointed a finger at Alex.

“If shit
starts
in that neighborhood, all bets are off. And I’m gonna shut it down. So you tell him that too. Understood?”

“Understood.”

Rooker sized Alex up a moment.

“You’re pretty brave for a white boy.”

He gave Alex an ominous smile.

“You have safe passage out. But you best get a move on, hear?”

Alex nodded.

As he looked at Rooker one last time he knew that in three months, a shotgun blast in the back of the head from a rival awaited him, and then the chaos would begin.

Rooker knocked once on the door, and it opened.

Alex exited the apartment, walking between the two guards, and never once looked back.

• • •

Once he was clear of Watts, Alex knew the walk home would be a little over eleven miles, and would more than likely take him until dawn. He would stay off the main thruways and stick to the side streets, in hopes that it would save him a little bit of time. He pulled his hood on tightly to protect himself from the cold night air when he heard the distinct rumble of a muscle car approach.

He stopped and watched as a 1971 gun metal grey Oldsmobile 442 coupe pulled up to the sidewalk just a few short yards in front of him.

The driver, a Vietnamese teenager, his head wrapped in a blue bandana, immediately opened the door and stood up just outside his car, looking back at Alex.

“Need a ride, courier?”

Alex didn’t have to read the young man to recognize him as a fellow messenger, albeit a junior one. He nodded in the affirmative, approached the well-preserved vehicle and climbed inside. With the guttural roar of a large engine and modified exhaust system, the 442 pulled from the curb.

“Where to?” The driver asked as he pulled up to a streetlight.

“3
^rd
and Western.” Alex answered.

That was still nearly half a mile away from where he lived, but that would be close enough.

The men sat in silence a moment. Alex took note of the small plastic St. Jude statue glued to the center of the black vinyl dash, the Rosary hanging from the rear view mirror.

“Joey Nguyen”, the driver finally spoke. “I know who you are.” He continued.

Alex remained silent.

“And I got a message for you.” Nguyen said, keeping his eyes on the road.

Alex looked at him.

“Two Black Hats were spotted downtown yesterday, asking questions.”

“Black Hats” was code for Government Operatives.

Alex sighed. He knew it was only a matter of time before they began to search for him in Los Angeles again.

Nguyen glanced over at Alex.

“Another thing. Tell Master Winn we gotta package we need to move from New York to L.A. Maybe it should be you.” Nguyen added.

“Thank you.” Alex finally replied.

He reached in his coat pocket for cash. There was a standing order among all couriers to inform Alex about Black Hat movement. It was intel Alex was happy to pay for.

Nguyen stopped him with a quick wave of his hand.

“We’re square.” He said.

Alex looked at him.

“That was my people’s money you just delivered.”

Alex nodded in response, and put away the C-note out of respect.

They drove in silence until they reached the corner of 3
^rd
and Western.

The 442 pulled to the curb and stopped. Alex opened the passenger door. Nguyen reached for his arm. Alex stopped and looked at him.

“Tell Master Winn I think I’m ready to start.” Nguyen told Alex.

Like all young couriers, Nguyen was eager to train with Master Winn. It was made clear to them that they had to prove their loyalty and honor first.

Alex smiled at him. “I will.” He said before he stepped free of the car.

He shut the passenger door and knocked on the metal roof of the car twice to signify he was clear, and Nguyen roared away.

Alex stood on the sidewalk a moment to observe his surroundings. Something across the street from him caught his eye, a homeless man pushing a shopping cart along the sidewalk, cloak and daggering his way between boarded up buildings. He tried to ignore the images that came to mind regarding the man’s fate.

He turned to the angular horizon of the industrial park less than a mile away, where his home was, and began to walk in that direction. He was happy to get the ride from Nguyen, as it would allow for a few more hours of sleep, something his bone weary body desperately needed. He also knew, that with Black Hats on the prowl, he would be on the move again soon.

• • •

Alex entered the small storage shed he called home just before 1:30am. Originally a tool shed for the local gasoline refinery, it had been unused for several years before Alex had found it. At 10x8, it was just big enough to hold a small cot, a backpack, and an old Magnavox Micromatic portable turntable that Alex had mounted on a milk crate at the foot of the cot.

Alex threw his gear bag and Kali sticks on the cot, and dead bolted the entrance to the shed behind him. He knelt down beside the cot, reaching under its thin metal frame, and pulled free a set of headphones, large Panasonic stereo muffs that were as old as the Magnavox. He then pulled out a milk crate half filled with a stack of LP’s.

Alex had developed a passion for classical music during one of his brief stays in a foster home. At the age of eight, he, along with four other children roughly his age, were put in the care of a sixty-seven year old woman by the name of Evelyn Parker. “Mrs. Evelyn”, as she liked to be called, had an old phonograph, the Magnavox, and on it she used to play the likes of Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky and other composers to the kids in order to calm them whenever they became unruly. The other children hated it, but Alex responded immediately to the rhythm and harmonics, the music briefly sweeping away the clutter of images in his mind caused by the countless patterns of human existence his unique perception forced him to deal with. The old woman noticed his captivation with the music and took to him, and while the other children played, she would let him put on the old headphones and disappear in what he felt were the miraculous complexities of the compositions. This world of sound and symphony had been his first true coping mechanism, the sole psychological talisman that kept him sane until he started training with Master Winn many years later.

Alex had only been in Mrs. Evelyn’s care for six months when she died. He had known it was going to happen, had seen it in his mind, had read the glassy eyes, the distinct rhythm of hesitation with her words, the dropped glass in the kitchen, the change in sleeping patterns, the loss of appetite, the faltered step that led to the smell that led to the discovery of cancer that led to the end, but at only eight years of age, he had yet to develop either trust or understanding in what he saw. It was only after that incident he began to realize the formulation of all details he saw in his mind was in fact very real.

At that point forced on to yet another foster home, Alex was deeply moved when she had left him everything she owned, which consisted of only the old player, headphones, and records. He remembered her fondly when he listened to the old albums, back when it was just the two of them, disappearing in any of the great piano or violin sonatas. It was during these moments that she would often remind him, “There’s something special about you, Alex. I don’t know what it is, but you need to keep searching until
you
do.”

These items, the stereo, headphones, and scratched up records, were in turn the only possessions he owned, the only things that had any value to him other than his Kali sticks, so he took great care of them.

Now, he mostly listened to the records as the one comfortable nostalgia from his childhood that helped him chase down what had become more and more elusive to him as he got older, which was sleep. Every night, he would select an album and listen to the music as a form of meditation, a way into a calm slumber.

He flipped through the anachronistic black discs, their cover art long faded from time and wear. For tonight he selected one of his favorites, Max Bruch’s violin concerto number one, played in G minor, one of the composer’s most popular concertos. An intense, all-consuming musical arrangement, the full and powerful melody of the third movement never failed to stir Alex’s soul.

He smiled in anticipation as he plugged the portable Magnavox into the shed’s single electrical outlet, and opened the plastic suitcase-shaped player. With great care he laid down the old vinyl onto the turntable, clicked the large faded white knob that controlled the speed to 78rpm, and gingerly set down the needle on the edge of the first track. He slid the oversized headphone jack into the designated porthole on the Magnavox, and put the large muffs over his ears before lying down on the cot.