Internecine by David J. Schow Read Free Book Online Page B

because he really, truly didn’t know a damned thing. Buying the ticket was itself pretty smart. Pursuers, enemies, would waste more time trying to figure out why, connecting all the wrong dots.
    Real operatives in real crises don’t stand around waiting for ordinary citizens to appreciate how cool they are.
    “I trashed the guns, swept the phone—it’s bug-free—and kept the envelopes. No tracking shit on the paper. So the leash is slipped and now it’s your turn to make yourself useful.”
    “I really don’t know any more about these political guys than—
    “Yeah, yeah.” He seemed annoyed, aware of my obvious smoke screen. “Consider yourself my fucking captive if you want. You could have ended this evening strewn all over your living room. Or you could shut the hell up and let me ask my questions, and maybe you might learn something.”
    I had to remind myself that this man was armed all the time.
    His personality seemed to speed-shift again, so it was a surprise when he asked, “You hungry?”
    He was batting my brain around like a paddleball. The bus station lockers brought memories that made my gut lunge. The tape on the Nam guy’s shoes reminded me of the duct tape with which Celeste had trapped me. The newspaper made me think of the big lie, the stage role we were both performing. Ordinary objects, unnerving new associations.
    “Don’t glaze out on me, Conrad,” he said. “I need to ask you some questions about those politician buddies of yours, strictly for my own intel. If I’m going to quiz you, such good pals that we are, I should also offer you some disposable information in return that might make you see things differently. You know—value received. It’s an ad concept.”
    The way I was looking around, any cop would ask to scrutinize my pupils.
    “Conrad, look,” he said. “I’m not going to hurt you. I am going to
use
you. Now, once again: Are you hungry?”

    He next conducted me to Café 101, a glorified coffee shop near the Franklin onramp to the Hollywood Freeway. We commandeered a dark booth. The joint was fairly packed with people shouting over medium-loud music. The noise made me feel safer; we were hiding in plain sight. A caffeinated waitress with hair dyed a virulent magenta brought her cheery manner to our table. Her pants were low-slung and her starched white blouse, tied high, exposing a bare midriff of pale skin. I bet a lot of customers tipped her abdomen.
    “What happened to your head?” she asked me.
    “Birthmark,” I said.
    Her face narrowed into a sidelong glance. She had brightly indicated cursory interest in her customers, then I had set off her bullshit alarm. Fine, then—just serve ’em and forget ’em. When she bounded away I saw she had some sort of elaborate tattoo on the small of her back.
Tramp stamp,
Katy would have said.
    “Now what?” I said to Dandine.
    “Now we make like real Americans and do the burger and fries thing,” he said. “And if you’ll shut up a minute, I’ll try to answer your question.”
    I ordered a milkshake to calm my stomach. Better than eating a pound of antacids and washing them down with Alka-Seltzer, and maybe some strychnine.
    Dandine doodled on a napkin. “Ever hear of these organizations?”
    He spun the napkin so I could read it. He had written: CRASH. I/KON. MORG.
    “Nope.”
    “Most of them were deep cover phalanxes. The usual freak show—sociopaths supervising psychopaths. They’ll always have a high burn-out rate. The whole protocol of espionage changed after the 1960s and Kennedy. It hasn’t been James Bond land for decades, but most people don’t know, or give a shit. At one point in the early seventies there were a hundred and thirty-seven subgroups in the basement of America’s power structure, and like rats infesting a tenement, they spent more time devouring each other than they did accomplishing anything useful. Mostly they headed off assorted scandals while causingothers, and purged the odd