Razor Burnby O. J. Anderson |
Table of Contents Chapter 15, Chapter 16, Chapter 18, Chapter 19 appear in this issue. |
| Chapter 17 |
Chief Conrad whips the invitation across the desk like a frisbee. “I hear you got a big date tonight, Doctor Jenkins. That’s some fancy invite.” Reaches for his coffee mug. “How about you, you big friggin’ galoot? You got a hot date too?”
“I’m chaperoning,” Razor says.
Kate opens the envelope and reads: “Seven thirty. 125 Westchester Avenue.”
Razor asks, “Should I bring something?”
“How about your famous meatloaf and a bottle a sugar-free fruit punch?” the Chief says.
Razor shakes his head. “A six-foot turkey sub and baked potato chips.”
“Vegetarian lasagna.”
“Hot wings and ’tato skins.”
“Sausage calzone and a 2-liter bottle of raspberry seltzer.”
Kate makes a semi-disgusted face like the boys are shooting milk from their noses in the cafeteria. “I’m going to get ready.”
From somewhere in the SCU office cluster comes a familiar voice to Kate. She turns and walks out to investigate. There, traipsing through the cluster like they own the place, come Special Agents Cheeseman and Grimes. Suits. Sunglasses. Cell phones.
“Roger that. Make it happen,” Cheeseman says, then snaps the cell shut.
“What’s going on here?” Kate demands.
“We’re taking over the Op. That’s what.”
“The hell you are.”
Agent Cheeseman passes Kate and says to Chief Conrad, “You must be the Chief. Nice to meet you. We’re going to need full access to your tactical operations room and full support from your staff.” His cell rings. He plugs one ear and turns away.
A small team of technicians bursts into the SCU office carrying black shock-proof cases and begin setting up the command post.
Agent Grimes shouts, “Zulu team, I need that satellite uplink in three mikes. I want reconnaissance on the ground and ready to roll no later than one-five mikes. Roger that? Let’s go, everyone! I want video, thermal imaging, bio detection teams on site.”
“What the hell do you think you’re doing, Grimes?”
“Nothing personal, sweetheart. Just following protocol. I’m going to find this bug. Then I’m going to destroy it.” He shrugs.
“We’re already working the case. You have no idea what’s going on down here. You can’t just...” Kate tenses. She can’t stand Cheeseman, or Grimes, not many can, but they’ve both got time in grade over her. She blurts out, “This isn’t Walldalla, you know!”
“Right, right. Here he is.” Agent Cheeseman hands the cell to one of the techs and puts on a sat-com headset. He shouts across the room, “You did your job, Agent Jenkins. Now let us do ours. Take the night off. Get some beauty sleep.” One of the techs stifles a laugh.
“And don’t even think about testing us on this, Chief,” Agent Grimes says. “We’ve got full jurisdiction here and you know it.”
The Chief squints. “What are you, practicing for an idiot competition?”
* * *
Razor struts down the hallway wearing jeans, boots, and a tuxedo T-shirt with the sleeves cut off. Knocks on Kate’s door. She opens it wearing a hot little black number showing off lots of neck and shoulder. Hair is done up nicely in a style whose vernacular exists beyond the realm of Razor’s expertise. All he knows is bun and beehive. Hers is neither.
Taking one look at Razor’s tux-T, she says, “You must be kidding me.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Are you kidding me with this? Is this a joke? This is what you’re wearing? This?”
“Problem?”
“You’re not kidding, are you? You’re actually wearing this. This is what you are wearing tonight. This.”
After a long pause in which Kate examines closely the large printed bow tie stretched across Razor’s chest, he says, “They don’t make tuxedos this big. Let’s go. I’m driving.”
* * *
Several expensive vehicles are parked along the curved driveway in front of Thaddeus Bikharmer’s opulent home. Classical music drifts through the night air. Razor parks on the grass. Kate covers her eyes with her hand. She waits to make sure no one is looking. They get out and head for the front door where there awaits a doorman in a proper tuxedo.
“Do not embarrass me tonight. Do not. Not tonight. No choking, no punching, no kicking, no slapping, no fingers up the nose, and no throwing anyone. Just stand there. Have a few drinks. Ask the bartender to make you a smoothie or whatever. Let me do all the talking.”
“Yeah yeah.”
“Don’t yeah yeah me.”
The doorman dips his head slightly and says, “Good evening.”
“Hello there,” Kate says.
The doorman holds his condescending gaze a second or two longer than necessary on Razor’s tux-T before asking, “May I see you invitation please?”
“Certainly.” She hands it to him.
“Thank you.” The doorman opens the invitation and looks it over. Closes it. Hands it back to her. “And will the gentleman be accompanying you this evening?”
“Yes,” she tells him. “I’m afraid so.”
“Very good.” Stepping aside, he directs them through the door.
The decor inside the Bikharmer mansion is a gaudy shrine to banal excess. Stuffed wild game and competing motifs of Asian vs. Victorian in the over-furnished and over-styled great room. Most of the guests are the gray-haired, genteel elite of Garden City. They regard Razor as though livestock were roaming through the house.
Razor says, “I see a buffet line. Catch you later.”
“Uh-huh. Behave, and save some proteins for the rest of us.”
Razor nods to a few of the people staring at him and picks up a plate. This has got to be the world’s longest hors d’oeuvre table. He has never seen anything like it, neither has he ever seen these types of snacks before. Very ornate little things. Colorful. Razor fills his plate with something carved into flowers. Tries one. Tastes all right. He moves along down the line, scooping up some dip, listening to the chatter of the guests.
At the end of the buffet line, Razor sees a few paintings in the corner of the room; not part of the wall display, but set up on easels. They’re a confusion of colors and odd shapes. Hard to make out. Childish almost. Probably cost a few grand. Never been much of an art lover, except for his own body. Someone should paint him. Take up the whole wall.
To his right Razor notices a woman sidle up to him. Mid-fifties. Too much make-up. Never worked a day in her life. Very sophisticated. Razor gives her a half smile and a low, “Hello.”
“Are you a fan?” the woman asks him.
“Of?”
“Why Santor, of course.” The woman points to the paintings. “Have you been following his work?”
Razor knows where this is headed. Elaborate setup for a slew of thinly veiled insults. Derisive sneers. Making sport of the big man in the tux-T. She’ll supplement her litany with words like “barbarian” and “brigand”; she’ll have a laugh assuming he doesn’t know the meaning of the latter. Then she’ll complain about the police not doing their job. Maybe someone stole the hood emblem off her Rolls, or passed out on her lawn. Never mind what else is going on.
“No,” he tells the woman, wondering how anyone could be a fan of this crap, “I think he’s just a fad. And not an altogether interesting one.”
The woman covers her mouth, holding back a laugh, as though calling Santor an uninteresting fad were a white-collar crime. She puts her hand on Razor’s forearm, the arm holding the mound of hors d’oeuvres that she doesn’t seem to notice, and whispers, “I don’t care for him either.”
The woman’s hand remains on Razor’s forearm. Breath revealing that she’s had a few drinks already.
He may have read this one wrong. Probably a widow of some corrupt executive. Bored. Lonely. Nothing better to do than to come to Bikharmer’s for the evening. And since she enjoyed his candor so much the first time he says, “I find his brush strokes almost juvenile. His sense of place is far too eccentric for his own good.”
“Oh,” she says with a deep inhalation of awe. “Eccentric did you say?”
Pushed it too far. This woman is becoming turned on. Her grip tightens on his forearm. She notices how solid it is. The hand slides off slowly. She offers it to him. “I’m Claire Davenport.”
“Ma’am.” Razor shakes her hand. “Berney Razor. Garden City Police Department. Special Crimes Unit.”
“Well Berney Razor. Garden City Police Department. Special Crimes Unit. Call me Claire.”
“Okay.” He wonders if she even notices the tux-T.
“So, whom do you like?”
He’s got nothing. Absolute blank. There was some art work stolen a couple years back but he can’t remember any names. If he doesn’t produce a recognizable name within a few seconds she’s going to think that he’s mocking her; just like he expected of her only a moment ago. He says, “Anyone who approaches their work from a place of integrity. Truthfulness. Unity of vision...”
A wry smile slips across her lips. Claire is not fooled. Not for a second. As Razor goes on about creative justice, she cuts him off and says:
“Tell me, are you here with anyone?” What Razor knows or doesn’t know about art seems to be the last thing on her mind. Talk about cutting to the chase. This one’s used to getting what she wants, and right now all she wants is a big hunk of Razor.
“Yes, ma’am.”
Looking around the room, Claire asks him, “And where might she be?”
“I’m not exactly sure.”
“Ah.” Whether she believes him or not is hard to tell. But the woman has her dignity and bows out gracefully. Over her shoulder she says, “Pity.”
Back at the buffet, as Razor constructs a neat pyramid of what he guesses is sushi, Mayor Manila steps in front of him and says through his teeth, “What are you doing here?”
Hard to suppress the instinct to slap this clown. “Eating.”
“I am going to have your badge before breakfast tomorrow, big fella. You think you can threaten one of our city’s favorite benefactors and then eat his food in his own home. I don’t care who you are.”
Razor says, “You mean one of your favorite benefactors.”
This catches the Mayor off guard, which isn’t all that hard to do. “What? What are you talking about?”
“You know what I’m talking about. Without big daddy Bikharmer there’d be no Mayor Manila. You’re up for re-election soon. And where there’s a tit, there’s a tat.”
“What exactly are you accusing me of, officer?”
“Have you tried the sushi?”
“Oh, I see. I get it. You want a piece of old Sal. Is that right? You want to take me on? Well guess what, giganto. To take on Sal Manila is to piss in the wind, my friend. Piss in the wind!” Manila continues, his metaphor losing its succinctness, “So go ahead, piss all over yourself then. Piss away! But you just remember one thing before you take that piss: when you play with the donkey, you get the ass!”
Thaddeus Bikharmer appears. “Sal, Mary Fitzgerald would like to speak with you about doing some volunteer work on your campaign. Why don’t you go have a talk with her.”
The Mayor, like a trained pet, slinks away.
“So, Mr. Razor, I understand you would like to speak with me about something. Shall we go some place more quiet?”
* * *
Razor enters the Bikharmer library, followed by Thaddeus. Inside are Erskine and two chimps in suits, both have pistols drawn. They point them at Razor as Thaddeus closes the door behind them.
“Where’s Kate?” Razor asks.
Thaddeus puts a finger to his mouth. “She had to leave unexpectedly.”
“Of course.”
Moving around to stand in front of Razor, Thaddeus looks up at him. “You’re really not that bright, Mr. Razor. Coming here tonight. I think all that muscle might be keeping the blood from flowing to your brain.”
“I do all right.”
“Do you really?” Thaddeus asks with a curious glint in the eye. “And yet you and that little tart still walked into my trap.”
“Had to,” Razor says. “We had nothing to go on but a bunch of drug addicts, dealers, and one paranoid schizophrenic that you conveniently had disposed of this morning. We had to force you to play your hand. Otherwise, we had nothing.”
“I knew it!” Erskine yells. “They had nothing.”
“Sut up, you stupid stupid boy. This is all your doing. If you weren’t such an incompetent buffoon we wouldn’t be here right now.”
Erskine cowers. Thaddeus turns his attention back to Razor. “Nicely played, Mr. Razor. Perhaps I underestimated you after all. I suppose one is truly never too old to learn. However, you’re going to have to pay for my mistake, I’m afraid.”
“Okay,” Razor says. “But do me one favor and tell me this isn’t about money. Tell me that you’re about to release a virus into the city for revenge, or hate, or just plain evil. Just tell me it isn’t all about money.”
Thaddeus laughs. “Does it look like I need money, Mr. Razor? Hm? Well, I don’t.” Thaddeus clasps his hand behind his back and paces the room. “Let me ask you something. Do you know what it’s like to build something with your own two hands, to work hard for it, put your whole soul into it, and then watch as some idiot throws it all away?”
“Not really,” Razor says, “but go ahead anyway.”
“I built this company from the ground up, Mr. Razor. From the ground up! I built it with these two hands. And now this moron...” He points to his son.
Erskine: “Hey!”
“...is doing everything her can to destroy it. This is my legacy! This company is supposed to carry the Bikharmer name long after I’m gone. That is, unless my stupid son has anything to do with it. Thore is threatening to break up my company because this stupid boy’s brain doesn’t even know what an original idea looks like.”
“But, Father, what about-”
“So, no, Mr. Razor, this isn’t about money. It’s about longevity! Immortality. We need a hit! Something to keep the Bikharmer name alive. And if a few people have to get sick along the way, well, so be it.”
“How are you going to deliver the virus?”
“I’m sorry,” Thaddeus says. “But you’ll understand if I have to dash off now. Thanks to you we’ve had to bump up the schedule a bit.” He turns to the chimp who answers to the name Lok. “Don’t fire any shots in here. Take him someplace quiet, and make it look like those voodoo witchdoctors did it. Call me when it’s done.”
Thaddeus and Erskine exit the mansion and head for an awaiting limousine.
“I want the product moved ASAP, boy. Do you hear me? ASAP!”
“Yes, Father.”
“No more delays. No more delays!”
“Is the antidote ready, Father?”
“You let me worry about that. Just do what I tell you.”
* * *
For added emphasis, Lok and Chino now have four pistols aimed at Razor.
“You’re both under arrest,” he tells them.
Lok says, “Let’s go, heavy cream. I don’t want to get you all over these books.”
“I’ll do him right here,” Chino says. “The only thing I hate more than cops is books.”
Razor doesn’t move. “Turn around and put your hands against the wall.”
“I said let’s go, big mac. I ain’t gonna tell you again.”
“I say we do this fool right here like Moby Dick on crack!”
“What?” Lok looks at his partner. “That doesn’t even make sense.”
“Oh yeah, well check this out!” Chino rushes Razor, two guns leveled.
Razor turns swiftly to the right just as Chino fires. He grabs Chino’s hands and bends them back toward Chino’s head, like he’s hugging himself. The wrist bones snap. Sticks his fingers in the trigger wells. Chino is now Razor’s bullet proof-vest.
Lok fires. The rounds impact Chino’s back, his body jerking and twitching.
Razor quickly returns fire, pumping ten rounds into Lok’s chest. Sends him into a wall of books.
The sound of women screaming fills the mansion. Men and women from the party come pouring out the front door in a hail of formal attire and jewelry. Razor appears in the doorframe last. Jogs down the steps and to the truck. Pulling open the driver’s side door, he reaches for the handset.
“I need two body bags and a meat wagon at 125 Westchester Avenue.” Dropping the handset onto the seat, he wonders where Kate is.
Copyright © 2006 by O. J. Anderson
