way anyway. He was entitled to pick the ways and the means of his death and he did not like their plans at all.
So Daley City. A TWA carrier out and no one had looked at him. The valise stashed in the luggage compartment and no one had looked at that either. Fuck their x-ray devices, fuck their sky-marshals, fuck their hijacking and suicide teams. Havana had been a freak; no one had expected him to get out of New York in the way he had and as quickly. The only precaution he had taken was to have ditched his guns in a locker before boarding. Small loss. He could stock up anywhere in Chicago, if he wanted. It was an open country.
Daley City. It looked pretty much as he had seen it years ago, passing through, attending a national police seminar on riot control and the techniques of infiltration. That had been during the summer of the year when everyone had seen an international Communist conspiracy to subvert the country through longhaired, bomb-building radicals who took drugs and also fornicated with one another in the basements of abandoned buildings. The siminar had focussed on the best way to control this menace and a sequence of speakers and discussion leaders had agreed that killing was the answer. But unfortunately, since there were grand juries and communist attorneys who got stuffy about this, you might as well settle for the most sophisticated and forceful means of riot control. Spray guns. Mace. Infiltration at the highest level of their filthy organizations. Clubbing and preventative detention. Well, Wulff thought, that had been a difficult summer. The war had been near its height and the nadir of its public support, and presidential candidates, right and left, were falling into the practice of stepping out of cars or into kitchens and getting themselves shot or shot at. You could explain this kind of hysteria simply by saying that it was inevitable and that it would begin at the bottom levels of the populace, slowly filtering its way up until some group of clerks, somewhere, began to write memos for high-grade clerks on what had to be done. The cops were really close to the situation, closer than the clerks; they could hardly be condemned for getting edgy. Everybody was pretty edgy. Wulff had still been a narco that summer and the informants themselves had clammed up saying that the atmosphere was so mean and tight that there was no spare information lying around. They had run out of information and the free market in drugs simultaneously.
“Like it?” the driver said, pointing to the Loop skyline, then gesturing off in the direction of the lake. The driver had been delivering a nonstop soliliquy on the advantages of Chicago throughout the clogged, rush-hour drive, probably on the assumption that Wulff was a businessman on company time who would appreciate this kind of backgrounder instead of having to think about the convention upcoming. Either that or the driver was under constant threat by the city administration to plug Chicago nonstop or face expulsion. The taxi union like everything else in town was almost a branch of civil service. “It’s some godamned city,” the driver said. “There’s never been a godamned city like this, not ever. Your first time here?”
“Not quite,” Wulff said, adjusting himself on the seat. He did not want conversation but the effort of avoiding it meant other dangers. He looked out the window into the gathering traffic, the air—for all the density of the highway and the industry of the city—surprisingly clear at this time of the morning.
“Federal offices, right?”
“That’s right.”
“What brings you into the federal offices? Marshal or an attorney? Something like that?”
Wulff leaned forward, elbows on the seat and stared at the driver. He was a short man with enormous, ill-proportioned wrists which lay crosswise across the steering wheel, otherwise he was completely unremarkable. “What’s the difference?” he said.
“Just asking.”
“Don’t
So Daley City. A TWA carrier out and no one had looked at him. The valise stashed in the luggage compartment and no one had looked at that either. Fuck their x-ray devices, fuck their sky-marshals, fuck their hijacking and suicide teams. Havana had been a freak; no one had expected him to get out of New York in the way he had and as quickly. The only precaution he had taken was to have ditched his guns in a locker before boarding. Small loss. He could stock up anywhere in Chicago, if he wanted. It was an open country.
Daley City. It looked pretty much as he had seen it years ago, passing through, attending a national police seminar on riot control and the techniques of infiltration. That had been during the summer of the year when everyone had seen an international Communist conspiracy to subvert the country through longhaired, bomb-building radicals who took drugs and also fornicated with one another in the basements of abandoned buildings. The siminar had focussed on the best way to control this menace and a sequence of speakers and discussion leaders had agreed that killing was the answer. But unfortunately, since there were grand juries and communist attorneys who got stuffy about this, you might as well settle for the most sophisticated and forceful means of riot control. Spray guns. Mace. Infiltration at the highest level of their filthy organizations. Clubbing and preventative detention. Well, Wulff thought, that had been a difficult summer. The war had been near its height and the nadir of its public support, and presidential candidates, right and left, were falling into the practice of stepping out of cars or into kitchens and getting themselves shot or shot at. You could explain this kind of hysteria simply by saying that it was inevitable and that it would begin at the bottom levels of the populace, slowly filtering its way up until some group of clerks, somewhere, began to write memos for high-grade clerks on what had to be done. The cops were really close to the situation, closer than the clerks; they could hardly be condemned for getting edgy. Everybody was pretty edgy. Wulff had still been a narco that summer and the informants themselves had clammed up saying that the atmosphere was so mean and tight that there was no spare information lying around. They had run out of information and the free market in drugs simultaneously.
“Like it?” the driver said, pointing to the Loop skyline, then gesturing off in the direction of the lake. The driver had been delivering a nonstop soliliquy on the advantages of Chicago throughout the clogged, rush-hour drive, probably on the assumption that Wulff was a businessman on company time who would appreciate this kind of backgrounder instead of having to think about the convention upcoming. Either that or the driver was under constant threat by the city administration to plug Chicago nonstop or face expulsion. The taxi union like everything else in town was almost a branch of civil service. “It’s some godamned city,” the driver said. “There’s never been a godamned city like this, not ever. Your first time here?”
“Not quite,” Wulff said, adjusting himself on the seat. He did not want conversation but the effort of avoiding it meant other dangers. He looked out the window into the gathering traffic, the air—for all the density of the highway and the industry of the city—surprisingly clear at this time of the morning.
“Federal offices, right?”
“That’s right.”
“What brings you into the federal offices? Marshal or an attorney? Something like that?”
Wulff leaned forward, elbows on the seat and stared at the driver. He was a short man with enormous, ill-proportioned wrists which lay crosswise across the steering wheel, otherwise he was completely unremarkable. “What’s the difference?” he said.
“Just asking.”
“Don’t
Similar Books
