That Old Black Magic
Linda was nervous.
No, scratch that. She was way past nervous and headed towards terrified. She was wound up tighter than a bluegrass banjo player on speed.
During the whole trip down to Miami she’d second-guessed her decision. Not only was she extremely uncomfortable with the extra load she carried inside herself, she knew that whatever she was delivering – either nearly pure heroin or nearly pure cocaine – would be used to steal money from people victimized by the mob and ruin their lives in the bargain. There was no way for her to rationalize this, no way to justify her actions on any legal or moral basis.
But if she didn’t follow through – if she quit now – she’d die. She was already in too deep. The people she was supposed to meet in Miami might find her and kill her, or they might send her back to Metropolis so Johnny could kill her, but either way she’d be dead. Johnny had confiscated all the cash she’d been carrying save for two twenties and a few coins, and he’d put her credit cards in the same envelope with her money – including the thousand he’d promised her – and locked it in his safe, so running wasn’t an option. Calling Perry or Clark collect from Miami wouldn’t help, either. There was nothing either of them could do for her now.
Could she contact the police? Sure, but she had no idea who was and who wasn’t honest in Miami. Her impression was that things had gotten much better lately, but there were still some dirty cops down there, and the honest ones were still figuring out where all the bodies were buried by their former dishonest brethren. Dialing 9-1-1 in Miami was as dangerous for her as jumping into rush hour traffic in Metropolis.
It appeared that Lucky Linda had finally used up all of her luck.
Her luck was holding in only one way, in that when Johnny had taken her wallet, her Linda Wannamaker driver’s license was in the provided clear slot. Had her real license been visible, she would already be feeding the worms in some vacant lot in Suicide Slum.
Before she realized it, the plane began its descent. The pilot thanked them for flying Inter-Coastal Airlines and hoped they all enjoyed their time in Florida. She made her way out the door and into the concourse where she saw an unbelievably tall and immensely broad-shouldered Hispanic man standing beside a short Hispanic man holding a sign which read “Linda W. from Johnny.” The shorter man had an expectant smile on his face. The taller man’s face might as well have been carved from granite.
She cautiously approached them and asked, “Is one of you Carlito?”
The smaller man smiled. “I am Carlos, senorita. Carlito is the name by which I am called by my friends from Metropolis. I assume that you are the lovely Linda whom my good friend Johnny Taylor said was coming to visit us?”
Her gaze flicked to the imposing big man standing impassively behind Carlos, then back. “Yes, I’m Linda.”
Carlos’ face erupted into a buoyant grin. “Excellent! This is my personal assistant, Juan. Juan, would you please take to the car the luggage of the senorita?”
Juan silently reached out and lifted Linda’s overnight bag from her shoulder. She’d almost expected him to make a creaking, grinding noise, like a stone statue coming to life, but of course he didn’t. In fact, he said nothing, made no sound at all. He did, however, continually sweep the area with his eyes as he led them away from the gate.
Carlos, on the other hand, wouldn’t shut up. “May I have the honor to address you by your beautiful first name, Linda? Gracias! You honor me, Linda. I understand that it is late in the evening and that you are surely wearied by your journey, but we have a simple dinner prepared for you in my humble limousine. I apologize in advance that it will not be sufficient to honor such an important woman as yourself, but regrettably we have not the advantages to which you are accustomed in Metropolis.”
Linda halfway tuned him out as he went on in that same vein while they approached the exit door of the terminal. The officer standing to one side locked eyes with Juan but didn’t move towards them or say anything. After the trio passed him, the officer reached with purpose into his jacket. Linda was certain he was either writing down her description or calling it in to headquarters as Carlos took her arm with surprising gentleness and guided her to a long dark blue limo waiting beside the curb.
Carlos helped Linda into the back seat and sat beside her. Juan folded himself into the seat facing hers with his eyes focused on the rear window. Linda gave a sigh of relief, both for making it to the car without getting arrested and for getting off her feet. The condom inside her was solid and unyielding and made every move a trial.
Carlos smiled and said, “Linda, we may begin our meal as soon as you have delivered the package sent to us by your Johnny Taylor.” He extended his hand. “If you please?”
She blinked. “But – I – I’ll need to visit the ladies’ room to – “
“You will give it to me now.” His smile widened microscopically. “Please.”
Linda glanced at Juan, who was now glaring at her impassively. His sculpted features held no human warmth or compassion. If she didn’t surrender the package, he might take it from her right there in the car. And he didn’t look like he cared what her condition might be after retrieving it.
She shuddered and hunched forward to hike up her skirt. She heard a snapping sound and looked at Carlos, who was pulling on a pair of latex gloves. As she pulled down her underwear, Juan slid a large clear plastic bag from inside his shirt and opened it.
Getting the package out was less painful than it was humiliating. She finally handed it to Carlos, who weighed it with his hands and examined it for damage before nodding to Juan and sliding it into the bag. Juan made the bag disappear into a hidden compartment in the limo as Carlos pulled off his gloves and handed Linda a package of sanitary hand wipes.
“I regret the necessity of this ordeal, Senorita,” Carlos smiled, “but because this was your first opportunity to assist us, we had to be certain that the package was delivered immediately and in the proper condition. Now that you have established that you may be trusted, such unfortunate things will not be necessary from now on.”
She readjusted her clothes, then wiped her hands as clean as she could and stared out the window as suburban Miami whizzed past. Carlos touched her on the arm and asked, “Do you wish to eat now, Linda?”
Without turning from the window, she shook her head ‘no.’ “Very well,” said Carlos. “We will take you to your motel. Please feel free to go to the restaurant attached to the motel or call out for a delivery if you wish. We will take care of the cost. It is the least we can do for you.”
She slowly turned to face him and asked, “Just how much is that – package – worth to you?”
Carlos’ teeth gleamed as the streetlights cast their shifting shadows through the failing daylight and across the car’s interior. “I think that you must ask that question of your friend Johnny.”
She nodded. “I think I will.”
His eyebrows danced in the dusky half-light. “You are indeed a brave woman. I salute your courage.”
Just then the car slowed and pulled into a parking lot. Carlos reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a card key. “Juan will take you to your room, senorita. He will call for you tomorrow morning at five o’clock for your return flight. Please be ready, as he has other duties to which he must attend following your departure.”
She breathed a soft sigh of relief. If they had planned to kill her, it was highly unlikely that they would have put her up for the night. Of course, they probably hadn’t planned to do so in any case, but she was still scared of these guys. Just like Johnny Taylor, they played for keeps, but unlike dealing with Johnny she didn’t have the leverage of her body to use against them.
Juan guided her to her room with nods and gestures. He opened the door and ushered her in, put her bag on the bed, then checked the room quickly. As he left, he nodded so low that he almost bowed to her.
She locked the door and threw the deadbolt, then she leaned against the door and started to cry. She turned her back to the door and slid to the floor with her hands over her mouth as she tried to muffle her sobs.
It was partly relief that she was still alive, partly fear that she was still at the questionable mercy of the Miami gangsters, and partly disgust at herself for allowing herself to be degraded so. She sat on the floor and wept for her career, her safety, her relationship with Clark, her reputation, and all that she’d thrown away for the sake of a story.
Carlos was wrong. She wasn’t brave at all. She was a coward, and she was about to pay the price for her audacity and her idiocy. If Carlos let her live, Johnny might kill her, and if he didn’t, she’d still have to face legal penalties for her actions today. She’d maneuvered herself into a certain dead end.
Not only was she a coward, she was terminally stupid.
She lurched to her feet and yanked her clothes off as she turned on the shower to the hottest temperature she could stand. Her skin reddened and her eyes ached under the pounding of the water and she used up all the tiny bars of soap she could find.
But like Lady Macbeth, there was no washing her actions away, no cleansing available to her now. All she could do was to play out the string until she returned to Metropolis. Maybe – just maybe – Perry could help her straighten her life out.
If not – well, she’d cross that bridge when she came to it.
*****
Toni looked up from the computer screen on her desk as her office door opened to reveal her brother’s weary face. She thought he looked especially tired.
With the desk between them, she felt safe enough to bait him just a little. “Well, the wandering prince finally deigns to make himself available to his beloved subjects. Where have you been all day?”
“Takin’ care of some business,” he muttered. Then he flopped heavily onto one of the chairs in front of her desk.
She saved her work in progress and closed the spreadsheet. “I would have given you this message before, but this is the first time I’ve seen you since I got it, so here it is. Martin Snell wanted me to tell you that the little matter he was looking into for you has been taken care of.”
Johnny’s face scrunched up in thought for a moment, then it relaxed and he nodded. “Oh, yeah, that. Good.”
Hoping to keep the conversation civil, she casually asked, “What was that little matter, anyway?”
“What? Oh, it was one of the waitresses who got careless and got busted on a run to Miami last month. Some eager rookie cop grabbed her before she got on the plane here in Metropolis. Snell got her out on bail and she’s headed out west for safekeeping.”
Toni knew she had to tread carefully. “What was she carrying?”
Johnny sighed and looked at the floor. “She had about a kilo of horse on her. One of our pet cops got it out of the evidence locker, so we didn’t lose the merchandise. And without the evidence or the girl, they can’t tie her back to us. We’re in the clear.”
“Johnny?” she asked softly. “I thought we weren’t going to use the waitresses to transport heroin any more. I thought we agreed that it was too dangerous for them and for us.”
“Yeah, well, until we get your new pipeline set up, we gotta do what we gotta do.”
“The money isn’t worth the loss of our freedom. Using girls as drug mules just draws attention to us, and we can’t afford to be noticed.”
He finally turned his face to her. Once again she was struck by how tired he looked. “I know all that, Sis, but we gotta move that stuff. It don’t make us no money sittin’ in my office.”
Her eyes widened in alarm. “You have a shipment in your office? Here in the club? Are you – no, Johnny, no! I know we agreed that the stuff would never come into the club! You have to move it somewhere else right now!”
“Relax, Toni, it’s gone. I just sent the last batch to Carlos tonight.”
“You – how did you do that?”
He snorted in perverted amusement. “It was an internal transaction.”
Toni closed her eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. “You sent Linda, didn’t you? Do you have any idea what would happen if the Feds were to pick her up? She’d sing like a canary and take you down with her.”
“Relax. Carlos has instructions to take her out if she steps out of line. And if she gets whacked, he’ll take the rap for it.”
“And what if he decides to send her back anyway? Carlos isn’t your friend or my friend, Johnny. He’s on his own side and no one else’s. He’d turn on you in a heartbeat if he could make money on the deal. Or if he could get his own chestnuts out of the fire. If sending Linda back puts us in the bull’s-eye instead of him, he won’t hesitate at all.”
Johnny exhaled deeply and seemed to sink in on himself. “Yeah, I know. But this is Linda’s first and only time, so I think we’ll be okay with it.”
Toni shook her head. “I sure hope so.” She stood and picked up her purse. “Are you staying or going home?”
He glanced at his watch. “I’m leavin’. It’s after one. George can lock up.” He rose to his feet with less energy than usual. “I ain’t runnin’ you off, am I?”
She hid her surprise at his apparent solicitousness towards her. “No. I was about to leave anyway. With the Mountaintops not playing tonight, business was down a bit.”
Johnny frowned. “How far down?”
“About what it has been for the last few Thursday nights. Those ladies are a great draw. We should think about bringing in other bands for extended stays after they’re gone.”
“Nah. Without Christie, it don’t – “ he stopped almost in mid-syllable. Then he shook his head and shuffled towards the door.
He was taking Christie’s death hard, thought Toni. Maybe he didn’t kill her after all. Maybe he had really cared about her.
It would be something different, she pondered.
*****
Lucy lay awake in her bed and stared through the darkness at the patterns of light on the ceiling. It was a game she’d played with herself when she’d first started traveling overnight with musical groups. She’d watch the lights flicker and make up musical parts in her head to follow the shifting streaks of light. The fun part was that every ceiling was different from every other ceiling, and usually the patterns would change from night to night even if they stayed at the same motel for multiple nights.
Occasionally she’d end up in a room where the lights created something close to a fugue, with melody, counterpoint, and harmony, all rotating and spinning around in a symphony of light. The exercise had helped her figure out how to play odd timings and opposing parts, especially on the keyboard. And both the lights themselves and the exercises she put her mind through were oddly comforting to her.
She let out a long sigh and wasn’t surprised to hear Lois turn over in the next bed. “Punky, you need to get to sleep. You’ll need a clear head when you talk to the cops in the morning.”
“So will you.”
“All I have to do is corroborate when you left the hotel and when you came back. You’ve got the hard part.”
“I know.” Lucy rolled to face Lois’s bed. “I keep thinking about how lost and alone Christie looked when I left. And I wish that I’d never slapped her. Or said all those mean things to her.”
“I wish you wouldn’t beat yourself up about it. We were going to say a lot of those same things to her the next morning.”
“Yeah, but I was the one whose mouth they came out of.” She turned over and faced the far wall. “I’m the one who crushed her dreams just before someone crushed her head. And I’m going to remember that for the rest of my life.”
“Lucy – “
“Good night, Lois.”
Lois didn’t answer for several seconds, and Lucy expected her to get up and turn on the light and start yet another lecture on how they were sisters for life and how Lois would protect her and take care of her and that what happened to Christie was in no way Lucy’s fault, even the part about telling her she wasn’t good enough to make it as a pro singer.
But Lois fooled her. All she said was, “Sleep well, Punky.”
After a few minutes, Lois’ breathing evened out into her gentle, ladylike almost-snore, and Lucy knew she was asleep. Lois never made that sound when she was awake, and had always insisted that she never snored at all. The argument had enlivened a number of long days traveling from gig to gig.
Either Lois believed that Lucy would have no trouble with the police in the morning or she was resigned to visiting her in the big house every other Sunday. Lucy wondered sleepily if she’d have to wear those huge ugly horizontal black-and-white stripes like the cons in the old prison movies or if she’d be given an orange jumpsuit. She wondered if the prison would have a band or a vocal group she could join. Maybe they could sing spirituals in four-part harmony as they worked the fields year-round for “The Man” under the hot New Troy sun. Or would the warden be called “The Woman” in a women’s prison? Maybe Lois could bring the rest of the band to visit her every once in a while.
She drifted off to sleep as the lyrics to “Midnight Special” reverberated gently in her mind.
*****
Clark couldn’t sleep. The encounter with Lois had shaken him. If she could spot him, could others at the club do the same? He discounted the FBI; they had technology and manpower on their side that none of the other players had. And they weren’t about to blow his cover.
But the danger was still there. Clark especially didn’t want the Metros to learn about Linda’s role in the undercover operation. He wasn’t worried about himself, but she was vulnerable to the gang’s usual methods of dealing with spies and other irritants.
And even more so now, since she’d done something so utterly idiotic. There was little he could do to help her now, although he knew he’d try. The only good thing to come out of this part of the operation was that surely she wouldn’t be hitting on him constantly now.
Of course, it might be worse if she started crying at the drop of a hat. Reporters didn’t wear such things any more.
And “wearing a hat” made him think of a change of clothes, which reminded him of his part-time job as the Silent Vigilante. He lifted his ears to the night and listened, but apparently even the bad guys had an early curfew that night, denying him the distraction of wrapping up a few criminals caught in the act.
He thought about Lois and her nom de plume of Wanda Detroit. It was amazing to him that she’d managed to remain hidden in plain sight for so long, fighting the bad guys while maintaining another identity as a musician.
And she wasn’t just pretending, either. He knew quality music when he heard it, and the Mountaintops were better than just good. They could play country. They could wail with the best of them. They could slip the classic cool jazz in and make you smile before you realized what you were smiling at. They could melt your heart with a soft ballad and then hit the ‘frappe’ button and grind you down with some pretty hard rock. About the only styles they didn’t play were bluegrass – they lacked the requisite banjo, fiddle, and mandolin – disco, funk, or classic soul, and Clark was sure that they could play soul if they were backing one of the greats like Wilson Pickett or James Brown. Even the hardest-working man in show business would be impressed by their talent.
He mentally reviewed the things he’d read from Wanda’s byline. In just the past few months, she’d spurred a number of investigations which revealed wrongdoing in high places or turned over rocks to force the vermin to flee the light. A number of places were safer and healthier now that Wanda Detroit had revealed the truth about some very bad people. And all the while, she was really a highly talented musician who impersonated Edgar Allan Poe’s purloined letter –
And a seemingly brilliant idea forced its way into his mind. Maybe he was going about this helping business the wrong way. Maybe it would be better to go public somehow. After all, he hadn’t found anything that could hurt him, and helping people and saving lives in broad daylight was getting harder to avoid. The Silent Vigilante could stop criminals in the act at night when no bystanders were around to witness his actions, but he couldn’t help out in daylight or at big fires or traffic accidents or natural disasters. He’d have to look different, act differently, behave differently, but it was possible. After all, a number of the bad guys were doing it. Lex Luthor was doing it. He came across to everyone in the state as a rich entrepreneur with philanthropic tendencies, but he was obviously mixed up in some very dirty dealings. He had almost everyone fooled. If Luthor could do it, so could he. And Clark had a far more noble motive, to help people in trouble and save lives.
This idea was worth thinking about. It was also worth talking over with his parents.
Maybe Lois could give him some tips. After all, she’d been living a double life for the last two or three years.
Ha-ha, he thought. Sure, just tell her what you can do and show her how different you really are. “Look, Lois, I can fly and light fires with my eyes and hear stuff from way far away and freeze things with my breath and nothing can hurt me. Let’s be friends!”
Wouldn’t that be a relationship-killer? Wouldn’t that just send her screaming to the nearest exit, desperate to be as far away from the extra-terrestrial freak as she could get?
And he suddenly realized that he really, really didn’t want that to happen. Lois was the first girl – or woman – he’d ever known who attracted him equally on the physical, emotional, and intellectual levels. She was beautiful, she was smart, she was talented, she was both confident and modest about her abilities, and she was dedicated to justice. Was there anything about her that he didn’t like?
Except for the twin facts that she was dedicated to her music and the band, and that as Wanda Detroit she was walking around with a target painted on her chest, nothing.
He was crazy to even dream about a relationship with her. He knew it, and he was sure she knew it, too. There was no sane way for them to be together and be safe. None whatsoever. He had to forget about her, if only for his own peace of mind. Just put her out of his mind, remove her from his mental photo gallery, pretend they’d never met.
Easier to fly backwards around the world and make time run in reverse.
He finally drifted off to sleep with the lyrics to “Walk On The Wild Side” bouncing around between his ears.
