"It'd be a very bad idea if we fell in love with each other. We could wind up in a whole lot of trouble."
Her good mood diminished considerably. She sat down in front of the dressing-table mirror and started to brush out her hair. There was a controlled anger in the strokes.
"What makes you think we're going to fall in love with each other? Aren't you taking a hell of a lot for granted? I mean, you're cute and all and good in the sack but- – "
"People often do when they feel comfortable around each other."
"And you're comfortable around me?"
"More comfortable than I've been in a long time."
"How come you don't have a girlfriend or something?"
"It's more like or something."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"I had a girlfriend. She's in a camp out in the Midwest. I haven't heard from her in more than eight months."
Cynthia looked at the image of his back in the mirror. So that was what had caused his first reluctance. "I'm sorry."
"So am I."
The outside world, with its peeling paint, poverty, and paranoia, was starting to close in on them. Harry Carlisle must have sensed it, too. He covered the moment by searching on the floor for his shorts. Cynthia could see no way but to go along with it. The day had started.
"You want some coffee?"
"Sure."
The diskette was in her bag, and the games of deceit were waiting to be played. There was no more time to hide under the bedclothes and pretend. For the first time, she noticed that he had old white scar tissue over his left shoulder blade. She picked up the coffeepot and went to the sink. This time, the tap only coughed out a cupful of rust-colored liquid and men quit altogether. Suddenly angry, she slammed down the coffeepot.
"There's no goddamn water."
"It's probably a result of last night's unpleasantness."
"It's off half the time these days. The West Side's been falling apart ever since the Javits Center burned down. I've got some of that generic Coke that tastes funny, or there's half a bottle of vodka in the freezer."
"You're kind of a free spirit for a deacon."
"I'm not a deacon, goddamn it. I'm nothing more than a glorified secretary."
"You look better out of that uniform."
First the water and now this. Cynthia's face froze. "You take a job where you can get it."
"I'm not too proud of what I do, either."
She did not believe him. "Oh, yeah? I thought you cops regarded yourselves as the blue knights."
"That was when we used to chase the bad guys. Now all I do is kiss the asses of psychotic bigots. No disrespect intended."
"Aren't you worried that I might pass the word of this conversation along to my bosses?"
Harry laughed. "You're not wearing any clothes. How would you explain that?"
"Seriously. Don't you worry about what they could do to you for talking like that?"
"I think I'm actually past caring. There could be a warrant out for me now, after what went down last night. Aggravated assault on a holy officer should be worth dismissal from the force and three to five years."
"Winters?"
"The very same. He'd love to hand me my head. If not him, it'll be another one. They're going to get me sooner or later."
"Aren't you frightened?"
"Sure I'm frightened, but what the hell can I do about it? Fear eventually becomes something that you live with."
Cynthia was discovering that she had a lot of sympathy for Harry Carlisle and his attitudes. She could not tell him, however, without coming clear out of her character. She had let it slip quite far enough already.
"You could run. Go to Canada or Brazil. You've got to have the contacts."
Harry Carlisle was struggling into his T-shirt. "I don't know. I may be crazy but I still feel like sticking around. I have this feeling that something's going to go down very soon. I don't know what it is, but I can feel it. Something big's about to happen. That shit last night was only an opener."
Cynthia sat down. His instincts were almost certainly correct, but she did not want to think about the future right there and then.
"Could you do something for me, Harry Carlisle?"
"Sure, anything."
"Bring that bottle of vodka and come and fuck me some more. There's too many people walking on our graves."
Winters
Rogers pulled the car over to the curb in disgust. He slapped the wheel hard with the heels of his hands. "This can't be right."
Winters slowly twisted his Academy ring. He felt the shock just as strongly as his companion. Only moments earlier they had been informed that the warrants for Alien Proverb had been revoked on the authority of no less than the president himself. To make matters worse, a number of the lesser warrants had also been canceled, including the one for Carlisle that he had sworn out himself.
"What are they trying to do to us, make us look like complete idiots?"
For the last three hours, they had been chasing their tails all over the city following fruitless leads on Proverb and his people. Neither man could ever remember when a day had gone so disastrously wrong. As Monday dawned, the deacons had been on top of the world. The first shift at Astor Place had strutted like roosters. The riot outside the Garden had been crushed and, although the civilian casualty figures were running just under two hundred, the general feeling was that those numbers were acceptable. There had also been two deacons, one STG, and three regular cops slain. It was the arithmetic of eyes and teeth. Proverb was still at large, but it was only a matter of time. A figure as public as he was could not hide for long. Even if he went to Canada, they would get him in the end. The opposition that he represented appeared to have been effectively crushed. It was starting to look as if they were on the threshold of a glorious new era. Proverb was down for the count. The PD would be quickly brought to heel. Soon they would have a free hand to deal with the Lefthand Path and all the other terrorist groups. The officers in the corridors of CCC had a light in their eye and a spring in their step.
By noon, the light had faded and the spring was a great deal more tentative. Things were starting to come apart like an old pair of overalls and nobody could quite understand why. Someone appeared to have caught the ear of the president, and whoever it was had been no friend of the New York deacons. At ten-thirty, a video-conference was netted between New York and Washington. Those wired in included the vice president, Attorney General Harrison, the mayor, the police commissioner, the local military commandant, and Senior Deacon Booth.
The deacons were effectively isolated by a threat from Washington to place the city under martial law. The other city agencies were quick to point the finger. Words like 'excessive force' and 'incompetence' were being bandied about. At twelve-thirty, Dreisler had been summoned and Booth had been placed under arrest. The senior deacon was to be the scapegoat of the moment. The shock spread through deacon posts all over the city. The final blow had come with this most recent bulletin. Proverb was going to get away with it, at least for the time being.
The city itself had a strange feel to it. The streets were unnaturally empty for a Monday afternoon. Large numbers had stayed home from work, and even the lines outside the supermarkets were noticeably shorter. The usual schizophrenia of the censored media had almost reached its breaking strain. Everyone in the city knew about the bloodshed of the night before, but the media in no way acknowledged that it had even happened. There were reports coming in via Virginia Beach of how rumors were spreading through other cities that a vision of the Four Horsemen had appeared right in the heart of Manhattan. It was being treated as a harbinger of The End.