Kaleidoscope ~ Guards
Cynthia Hatch
Part 15
The man called Wayne approached Vincent warily, circling around him. She thought this must be some test of his machismo. Only some-one with a lot of courage or a hopelessly low IQ would attempt to come this close, considering the look in Vincent's eyes. It was unfortunate that Denton knew him as well as he did, knew he wouldn't go for the weapon or the man prancing around him, when it might result in the death of another person, even one who apparently found him abhorrent.
Denton was enjoying Wayne's trepidation and his show of bravado, as he dared to draw closer. "Check out those fangs, Wayne. You screw up, and your blood will be pumping out like a Harlem fireplug on a hot day in August. Personally, I'd rather look at this one," he said, turning to her. "Anybody ever tell you. you got nice, soft skin, Chandler?" He reached up to rub her cheek with a calloused hand. Had Vincent moved? She couldn't be sure, though her eyes hadn't left him. All she saw was Wayne's rifle, swinging with the full force of the lanky man's body. Vincent's total concentration had been on her and the man touching her. He never saw the heavy stock as it descended, striking with a horrible sound beside his left cheekbone. She screamed his name, as he staggered and fell.
For the first time in this ordeal true panic overwhelmed her, and she broke away from Denton, heedless of the knife he still brandished. He caught her halfway across the cavern, and she struggled, kicking at his legs, unable to use her arms to fight him. He turned her around, his weasel eyes boring into hers. Her own vision was half obscured by her tousled hair. "He's hurt," she hissed. "I have to go to him."
Denton regarded her with suspicion. Keeping a firm grip on her alms, he yelled. "Get away from him, Wayne, you stupid scum. You got no idea what you're dealing with."
She turned her head. Vincent had risen to one knee, shaking his head to clear it. He rose, swaying slightly, blood smeared across his cheek.
Wayne, the gun in his hand, skittered back off to the ledge. "It shoulda killed him, Mitch. I'm telling you, I hit him hard. It shoulda killed him."
"Shut up," Denton barked. There was fear in his eyes now, as he watched Vincent, fighting to recover. The blood was still flowing, and he reached up to wipe it from his face. He took a step backward, seeking the support of the wall, and a sob escaped her.
"Mitch, please," she gasped softly, "let me see if he's alright. I won't give you any trouble after that."
"Catherine, no." His voice was low, but steady. It carried easily across the expanse that separated them, as easily, she guessed, as her whispered request to Denton had reached his sensitive ears. "I am not hurt." She thought it was the closest thing to a lie he had ever told her. She could feel his pain, feel his struggle to rally his resources, but his strength was there as well, and she repressed her fear for him, trying to find an equal strength, letting him feel the love that motivated both.
"Would you mind telling me what the hell's going on here?" Denton yelled. "Something tells me you two know each other better than I thought. Come on, Vincent. What gives?"
Vincent was silent. "Leave him alone," Catherine said harshly. "You were friends once. He tried to help you. How can you do this to him?"
"What - a little rap on the head? That's nothing to him. Right, Vincent? l've seen him take worse than that, and I've seen him in action - a regular killing machine. Did you know that Miss DA? You know how he slashes guys to ribbons without benefit of your precious legal system? You should be ashamed of yourself, hanging out with a guy who makes his own laws."
"He could have killed you, and he didn't. Doesn't that mean any-thing to you?"
"Hey, I paid my debt. I did time in a straitjacket, thanks to him. I had to listen to mealy mouthed shrinks asking me why I was so anti-social. That's a laugh. You grow up down here, who is there to be social with - a bunch of outcasts, nobody with a penny to their name. I could have told them about the tunnels. I could have told them everything, but I didn't. See, Vincent, I'm a man of honor."
Vincent still stood against the wall. finding Denton with the hooded stare that made him twitch. "You don't know the meaning of the word. You never did."
"Oh, right. I forgot: that's your department, isn't it? The apple of Father's eye, everybody's favorite little freak - so smart, so strong, so good. You know, Chandler, my own father likes him better than me. How's that for loyalty?. That's assuming the old man's still alive. Is he, Vincent?"
"He's alive."
"So - maybe when I get to South America, I'll send him some money, set him up in a fancy place with his own nurse. We'll see how he feels about having a real son then, when he's scoffing down his pills with expensive champagne, instead of taking handouts from the riffraff." "
He is weak. He hasn't much time left."
"You're all weak - all of you who don't have the guts to get out in the world and fight for what you want." She could see that Denton's jumpiness had increased. He released his hold on her and strutted back and forth, but he seemed unable to turn away from Vincent. Was it simply that he feared his attack? It seemed like a groundless fear, even for a deranged person with the two high-powered weapons still leveled at him. She wondered if something in Denton, perhaps the remnant of a small unhappy boy, still responded to that look, that voice.
"Sam is weak, only because he is old and sick."
"He was always old and sick," Denton shot back. "You act like I ran out on him. I didn't. He threw me out. I was a little kid, and he sent me to live with strangers."
"Because he loved you - wanted you to have a better life?
"Yeah, you know what I think of your better life, Vincent. Even after I ran away, made something of myself, my pop didn't want anything to do with me. If I went to see him now, he'd probably tell me to go to hell."
She knew Vincent was stalling for time, waiting for something to break the stalemate that kept them pinned down, but she sensed he had some other purpose as well. His words, like his movements, were always purposeful; he never wasted them, and she sensed that he could never have been coaxed into conversation with Denton. unless he had some goal in mind, however subtle. The ropes had begun to chafe her wrists; her hands had gone numb.
"It's not like I haven't tried to make it up to him. I've offered him money, offered to move him to a better place. He wouldn't let me help him, and you know why? Cause he'd have to admit he was wrong about me all along. The old man's stubborn. He's the one; he never let me do one decent thing."
"Untie her," Vincent said quietly.
'What?"
"The ropes are hurting her. Untie them."
"And let her scratch my eyes out? Forget it, Vincent. " His tone was defiant, but he appeared more rattled than ever, shaken from his vision of past injustices by the very softness of the command. He shot a look at the two guards, confirming they still held the power of life and death over both of them, then wiped his nose and took the knife out of his pocket again, turning it in the flickering light. "Alright, I'm gonna cut you loose, but you make one move I don't like, and you're both history, you got it?"
She nodded. He cut the ropes, and her aching arms could barely obey the command to move to a more comfortable position. She shook them and rubbed her hands together, trying to restore the circulation, looking at Vincent with gratitude. Denton flung the ropes to the floor with an air of distaste. She sensed he felt his control of the situation had slipped, and when he walked around her again, it was with a display of his former sly cockiness.
"You never told me how you two happened to know each other. Let me guess. My buddy here rescues you when you're shot, and you decide to take him home with you, but your landlord doesn't allow pets, right?" He grinned, and she gave him a cool stare. "All this crap you were hand-ing me about being so scared of him - it was just a line, right? Well, I'm telling you lady, you better be scared of him, cause he can freak out worse than any of the psychos back at the ward. He'll turn on you. I was his friend for eight years, but do you think he'd help me when I needed it? No, he damn near killed me. Remember that." Another sub-way roared past, forcing Denton to suspend his harangue.
She stole a look at Vincent. He was still standing in the same spot. The blood on his face had dried, though she could see the gash even from here. His eyes were shadowed, never moving from Denton's agitated figure, but she sensed that his strength was intact, that it was coiled tight, waiting. But waiting for what? Apparently, Denton was anticipating a message, some signal that it was time to move, but was he expecting it in minutes, days? It might be possible, if someone else entered the cavern, that the balance of power would shift, giving them a chance to act, but there were at least a dozen crates to be carried out, and the danger of discovery increased each time Denton surfaced to the world above. There might be several people coming to transfer the boxes, none of them likely to be any help. It was doubtful that anyone who lived in the tunnels would become aware of their presence, and if they did, they were ill-equipped to deal with it.
The most likely source of help, she hated to consider. The police must have been aware of her abduction, almost from the time it happened. Joe would have seen that the investigation began immediately, when she didn't appear for work. No doubt her building had been thoroughly searched by now, but Denton had spent years in the tunnels; he would be well aware of the precautions needed to insure no one discovered the entrance, especially now, when he obviously regarded those crates as the key to his future. She suspected that was the real reason he hadn't divulged the secret of the underworld; he had still hoped to use the tunnels for his own ends. Rescue by the police would mean discovery, not necessarily of the tunnel world, which lay below them, but of Vincent, and that would be no rescue at all. No, their best hope lay in their own watchfulness, their own ability not to precipitate a violent confrontation until the odds changed. The very restriction that kept them from acting, their unwillingness to jeopardize each other, had to avert disaster. She would do anything to protect Vincent, and she knew he would guard her with his life. If they could keep that balance despite Denton's efforts to goad them, she was confident they could find a way out.
Denton was still walking aimlessly around her. She suspected these periods of silence disturbed him, that the anxieties he must have over what could go wrong with his grandiose plans ate at him. That was good; it left one less person concentrating on her and on Vincent. Perhaps. his fears would erode his confidence and lead him to make a mistake, but she knew how he liked to quiet those fears - by tormenting someone else; he must have been a bully as a child. On cue he turned to her with a cold glint in his eye.
"It really bothered you to see my old friend get hurt, didn't it? You one of those do-gooders who bleeds for humanity? Of course, strictly speaking, that leaves him out, doesn't it?"
"I don't enjoy seeing anyone hurt, no." she said levelly."Hey, Paolo, get down here a minute."
"No way, Mitch. I'm not messin' with that guy."
"I said - get down here and bring the gun. Keep it on Miss Law and Order here," The big man dropped heavily from his perch, and moved with reluctance towards them, "Come here. Come here." Denton stood with his hand in his pocket, till the man was directly behind him. He smiled at her then, and wheeled, catching Paolo across the cheek with the knife, The man screamed and would have dropped the rifle, but Denton already had it in his hand. Catherine jumped, and stared at the blood oozing through the fat fingers, as Paolo tried to staunch the flow. Denton was crazy.
"Jesus, Mitchi What was that for?"
"Just a demonstration. He's hurt, lady. Aren't you gonna shed some tears - maybe kiss it and make it better?"
"You're a sadist," she responded, hoping that Denton had made his mistake, that Paulo would round on him, giving them their chance, but Denton handed the gun back to him without a second look, and the big man issued no further protest.
"Now, that's not the reaction I saw when Vincent got it.'
"He's on my side. Paolo isn't."
"No, he isn't. Are you, Paolo?" Paulo shook his head. "Maybe I should give you a chance to meet my friend like Wayne did. Wayne did a pretty good job of introducing himself, but maybe you could do it even better.' He seemed to have forgotten reprimanding Wayne for his fool-hardy attack. His eyes never left hers, and she tried hard to stare him down, hoping that her pounding heartbeat wasn't audible. It was as if Denton had taken out his knife again and was prodding and twisting it to see where it would hurt most.
"You're a coward, aren't you, Mitch?" she challenged in a bid to keep his attention on her. She didn't know what to expect - that cold laugh, maybe the sharp blade of the knife, but he seemed to consider it a serious question.
"No," he said finally. "I'm just smart - smart enough to get out of the hellhole my father put me in, smart enough to make some real money, smart enough to get you away from the whole damned N.Y.P.D., and smart enough to see there's something going on between you and Vincent."
"And what would that be?" she asked. Keep him distracted. Keep him from making some fatal move. She saw that Paolo had not returned to the ledge, but where he was standing he still had a clear shot at both of them.
"I don't know. How about you tell me?" The knife appeared in his hand again, and he brought it close to her face. She was surprised to feel no fear and prayed that knowledge would keep Vincent from any doomed attempt to come to her aid.
"He's my friend," she said from between clenched teeth.
Denton backed off again, shaking his head with a mirthless smile. "Is that right, Vincent? You got a good-looking chick for a friend?"
The foreboding figure near the entrance made no sound. It amazed her that Denton couldn't feel the crosscurrents that flowed between them, the messages of love and courage. She could feel, as clearly as if Vincent had spoken, that he was asking her not to be afraid, telling her that they would survive, she had only to be strong and to trust him. She was sure Denton's deepest fear was an attack by Vincent. He might laugh recklessly in the face of some other death, but the specter of falling victim to the horror of that brute power was a well entrenched nightmare. At the same time, she sensed some buried emotion that had kept him from simply ordering his men to strike him down immediately. Was it some vestige of affection from long ago. respect, or perhaps the knowledge that in all the world only one person was capable of seeing whatever good had ever been in him? Perhaps in destroying that person he sensed he'd be snuffing out his own pitiful spark of humanity. She doubted that Denton could ever form those feelings into actual thoughts. She knew firsthand from the crimes of passion that came to the attention of her office that for some people love and hate became entwined. She had no illusion that Denton's convoluted mind could hold any hope of salvation. Another subway rumbled by, making conversation impossible. Vincent seemed to find some significance in the sound. For a moment he appeared thoughtful, but then returned to his unblinking concentration on Denton.
"It's such a waste," Denton said, when the train had gone, "being friends with a woman. That's not what they're for, Vincent. And you," he leered, "you should be keeping some man happy, not spending your time with a freak of nature that can't give you what you need. or are you one of those kinky types who likes the thrill of something different? Huh? Does my friend here turn you on? Is that it? Have we got another little Lisa on our hands?" His dark eyes sparked with his own sick humor, and she kept her face expressionless. "Are you on some self-destructive kick? Well, I'm the man to oblige, and I can make you feel real good in the process." He brought his fingers up to rub the line of her jaw and down her throat to the Iow neck of the blouse. His touch filled her with a fear that the knife hadn't held for her.
"Don't touch her."