The Vaults (32 page)

“Some ginks keep making the dope runs and bringing the girls, but Whiskers runs the show the rest of the time. No one crosses him much. Things kind of settled down once he sorted out who was in charge.”

They were walking back. “Why did they decide you had to start making more money?”

“You know, they said it was getting more expensive to take care of Leto’s wife and kid. And Vampire got bumped, and Whiskers and his boys started running herd on us instead of tending their land, so we had to pitch in for their share.”

“That’s queer.”

“How’s that?”

“I’m pretty sure the wives are shut up in some run-down asylum and the kids are in an orphanage, though a bunch of them are running around the streets tossing bombs all over the place.” Frings saw the big man’s eyes narrow. He’d said too much.

“The Letos don’t have a house like regular fucking people?”

“I’m pretty sure they’re more or less locked up.”

Samuelson stopped walking. “That’s not the way it started. That’s not what they tell us. What the fuck happens to all that money?”

Frings shrugged.

Samuelson’s eyes went blank. “You know, there are some hombres out here. Some of these ginks, they should have put them in prison. That’s where these fucking lunatics belong. Like when I found out Whiskers was
part of the project. I couldn’t fucking believe it. He’s a goddamn psychopath. That guy should have been given the fucking chair or sent up for good. But he’s out here, like Johnny fucking Appleseed, and now he’s running the fucking place. But I tell you what, he’s not getting rich.

“He’s not going to be too happy to hear about this. Not at all.”

They weren’t far from the house when Samuelson came to an abrupt stop in the trail. Frings, lost in thought, continued on a couple of steps before realizing that Samuelson was no longer with him, bringing him back to the here and now. He turned first to Samuelson, then followed Samuelson’s gaze up ahead where the trail jogged to the left between two venerable oaks and then over a brook, across which Samuelson had laid two weathered railroad planks as a bridge. Three men were crossing that bridge. They were soaked in their wool coats and dungarees and carried shotguns that they held easily, with familiarity. Frings didn’t recognize the other two, but the one in the lead was Whiskers McAdam.

There was no point in running. He took a quick look over at Samuelson, who was showing Whiskers his palms. No weapons. Ignoring Samuelson, Whiskers, with his head cocked to the right and an expression of mild regret on his face, took in Frings.

“Who’s the gink?” Whiskers asked Samuelson without taking his eyes off Frings.

“Francis Frings.”

Whiskers’ eyebrows climbed. “No shit?” Whiskers took a step closer to Frings, making a show of looking him over, Frings smelling the foul alcohol coming off Whiskers like heat from embers. This close, Frings could see the strength in the man’s shoulders, the size of his hands, the instinctive fighter’s stance. His face, squeezed between the famous sideburns, was near handsome—a long, flattish nose, wide mouth, and neat teeth. But the hollow, greedy eyes rendered all the rest of it moot. He could inspire nothing but disgust and fear.

“I’ve been waiting for you,” Whiskers said, his face now inches from Frings’s. Frings leaned away reflexively and Whiskers smirked. “I’ve been waiting years for you to come.”

Frings began, “I’m not sure—”

“Of course you’re not fucking sure,” Whiskers yelled. Samuelson moved over to stand with the other two men. Whiskers took a couple of steps away from Frings, maybe getting his thoughts together, then turned. “We’ve
been out here years, Brother Frings. Years. Not once did one of you come poking round. Where d’you think we were? You think they killed us, dumped us in the river?”

Frings wasn’t sure if Whiskers wanted an answer to this, but there was a pause and Frings felt compelled to say something. “Everyone thought you were in prison. All of you.” He nodded toward Samuelson and the other two.

Whiskers spit off to the side. “The fuck you doing here now?” He had his chin raised slightly, accentuating the height difference between the two men.

Frings’s mind raced, trying to suss out the right answer. Whiskers glared at him, then grew impatient. “Well?” he roared, back in Frings’s face.

“Bernal sent me.”

Whiskers stared at him. Frings found the courage to meet his eyes.

“Bernal? Bernal sent you to do what?”

“Talk to Otto.”

Whiskers paused, chewing thoughtfully on his lower lip. He turned and walked toward Otto, who had gone white, getting right up to his chest. He was inches shorter and maybe fifty pounds lighter than Otto, but there was no mistaking that he terrified the bigger man.

“Why the fuck’d Bernal send this fucking gink to see you?”

Otto stared back at Whiskers. “I don’t fucking know. I don’t.”

Whiskers made a feint with his shoulders and Otto flinched.

“ ‘I don’t fucking know,’ ” Whiskers mocked. “But you took him to the field.”

Otto nodded. Whiskers nodded his head thoughtfully and stepped away from Otto. Frings saw Otto begin to tremble with panic.

“Jesus, Whiskers,” Otto said, then looked to Frings. “Tell him what you told me.”

Whiskers stopped and glared at Frings. “Say again, Brother Otto?”

“He told me something. Something you want to hear.”

Whiskers’ lip curled up in a sneer. He nodded and walked back to Frings, staring hard. He brought the shotgun barrel up to Frings’s face and began to trace his lips with its cold end.

“What’d you tell Brother Otto, friend?”

The barrel found the stitches on Frings’s mouth, and Whiskers applied pressure until Frings could feel the mineral taste of blood in his mouth. Whiskers pulled the barrel away.

Frings wanted to spit, but didn’t dare. “The families that are supposed to be getting your money; they aren’t getting it. It’s getting skimmed. Almost all.”

Whiskers pulled his head back, surprised. “You being straight?”

“You’ve been making money for the mayor. Maybe his friends, too.”

Whiskers closed his eyes, his mind elsewhere. Though the rain continued to fall, the sun had emerged high and to the east, and the drops that clung to the underside of the leaves looked to Frings like little hanging diamonds.

Whiskers reached into his coat pocket and came out with a tin flask. He unscrewed the top and took a long pull, put the flask back, and walked over to the three men.

“You heard that, I expect,” he said with chilling calm. “Fucking Red Henry, that fucking goatfucker.” He laughed and shook his head. Frings felt the fear ratchet up, his chest constricting.

Whiskers spoke louder now. “You know, I’m done with those little boys and their firecrackers. That was for fun. That . . . was for fucking fun. This is different. That fucking . . . You know, I am in the mood to do some killing. I think that’s about right.” He looked to the three men. “Does that sound right to you?”

They stared mutely back at him.

Whiskers took three quick steps and had Frings’s jaw tight in the grip of his left hand.

Frings winced. “Shit.”

Whiskers said, “Johnny, bring me your fucking blade.”

“Wait,” Frings gasped.

Whiskers dropped his shotgun and held his right hand out, waiting for the knife.

“I can help you,” Frings said.

An ugly smile crept over Whiskers’ face. “They all say that. Ain’t never true.” He had the knife in his hand now.

“You’re going to kill Henry.”

“I expect so.”

“You need my help.”

Whiskers snorted a quick laugh. “I need your help? How you figure that?” He let go of Frings’s jaw, but didn’t give him any space. “Go ahead, Brother Frings, save your life.”

Frings took a breath. “You’re going to need to get out of the City. You
know, after you kill him.” Frings struggled for a rationale, talking without a plan. “I can help you. You’ll need confusion. You’ll need the cops distracted.” Frings paused.

“That’s all? You think that’s going to save you?”

“I write the story about the fields. About you and the fields. They’ll come out here looking for you. Either here or in the City. It’s a distraction, you see? That’s how you walk away. Kill Henry and leave. Go anywhere but here. The City is going to be in turmoil. You can get away.”

Whiskers frowned thoughtfully, nodding. He turned from Frings and walked to the three men.

“You heard the reporter man. What do you think?”

None of them spoke, scared to give the wrong answer.

Whiskers turned back to Frings. “Okay. You’ll live today. You go back to your newspaper and you write your story. You write it real quick, like.”

Frings nodded.

Whiskers came up close again. “And let me tell you something, brother. You get back to the City, don’t be thinking that maybe you can go back on your word to Brother Whiskers. Don’t you do it. ’Cause I got something to tell you. Something might give you pause. I know you got that little singer woman. That story don’t run, I’m going to take a trip into town and find her, hear? She most likely provide some real entertainment for me. Real entertainment. That sound about right to you?”

Frings stared back at him.

Whiskers picked up his shotgun and shook his head. “I still got that killing feeling. Still do.”

The three men seemed to shrink at these words.

Whiskers walked over to a tree, holding his shotgun by the barrel, then assaulted the trunk with the stock, swinging again and again with savage force into the tree until the stock broke off and he was left holding the barrel. He turned to Frings, mouth open, chest heaving, eyes wide, steam rising from his head into the rain. He threw the shotgun barrel into the low bushes.

Whiskers walked over to Frings and stuck his index finger hard under Frings’s chin. He got his face so close that their noses nearly touched. He whispered, “You write that story, or I swear to God that I will find your girl and she will never be the same.”

The Vaults were different now, no longer Puskis’s sanctuary, but an active office. His two minders were present along with the typists and the police officers who showed up periodically to take the used files away. It was, Puskis thought, like returning home after a war and finding someone living in your house. He had always been comfortable in this place, but this was no longer possible.

He spent all of his time retrieving files as he was now responding to both Headquarters and the typists. One of his minders took responsibility for the logbooks. Puskis had taken great pains to explain how the logbooks worked, but the man did not give Puskis the impression that he understood in even the most rudimentary sense. Puskis would normally have agonized over this type of thing, though in the current context it seemed an almost insignificant detail. He shunted that bit of anxiety to a far corner of his mind.

Of greater concern was the fate of the files once the typists were done with them. Where did the officers take the files when they left the Vaults? Puskis had asked his minders about this and they had pleaded ignorance, but Puskis felt sure that they
did
know. One of the uniforms had been more forthcoming.

“We take them to the incinerator down in the Hollows.”

Puskis’s chest had contracted at the news that they were burning the old files. There would be no record except for what the typists were entering onto those odd sheets. The uniform, barely more than a boy, had sensed Puskis’s unease and tried to make friendly conversation.

“You must be excited about this new machine, Mr. Puskis. It will make your life much easier.”

Puskis had managed a neutral grunt, aware of the boy’s meaning even if he had been too distracted to catch the exact words. How could he explain the impact of this machine on him? Could this boy understand the plight of the newspaper artist who is replaced by the photographer?
That this loss takes one layer of humanity away from the information that people receive? That a photograph does not convey an essence that can be shown in illustrations? And even if the boy understood this, would he be able to make the leap from there to Puskis’s own case? Would he be able to understand that through a combination of logic and intuition Archivists had, purely through organization, transformed an impossibly large trove of facts into a system that was, in and of itself, information? How many people understood this? How many would understand if Puskis tried to explain it?

In these beginning stages of the process, the typists were busy with the files from the years 1926 to 1931, or from the first of the PN files through the brutal dismantling of the White Gang after the Birthday Party Massacre. This was particularly troubling because Puskis knew that the source material for at least some of the files, which was supposedly being typed in verbatim, was faked. Therefore, the fake information would now become the official file in that wretched machine, and the file with the faked papers would be burned, the evidence of the senses now gone. There was no longer any way to detect the subterfuge. Puskis could not call attention to the obvious freshness of paper supposedly nearly a decade old; could not point out that the handwriting on the papers did not match that of any of the transcribers during that period. The machine would have the “official” facts and there would be no way to refute them.