Armageddon Crazy

"Why don't you come to my place for a nightcap? I don't live too far away."

He had nodded with an expression that suggested that one part of him had surrendered to another. "Thanks. I'd like that."

She mashed out the cigarette. Harry Carlisle was still asleep. His light-brown hair fell over his forehead. He looked so peaceful and vulnerable. Almost like a little boy. As she watched him, he stirred in his sleep but did not wake. When they had first started to make love, he had seemed almost reluctant. It was not as though he didn't find her attractive or he had any doubts about himself. He certainly was not one of those simultaneously horny and guilt-ridden individuals that she had started to think were the norm in these soul-sick times. It was more as if some serious pain in his immediate past had frozen his capacity to be freely and openly sensual. This Harry Carlisle was a complex one. It had taken him awhile to thaw, but once he had put his thoughts on hold and wa

She put out a hand and stroked his hair. His eyes opened. He slowly raised his head. For a few seconds, he looked as if he did not know where he was. Then a kind of recognition dawned. His face broke into a lopsided smile.

"Hi."

"You know who I am?"

"Sure, Cynthia, I know who you are."

He was gri

She was gri

His arms slid around her body and he pulled her to him. She did not resist.

Thirty-five minutes later, she wrapped a sheet around herself, kissed him on the cheek, and padded barefoot to the shower. He watched her go. Hot water actually came out of the shower head on the first try, and Cynthia suddenly felt so irrationally pleased with life that she sang to herself as she lathered. Maybe, despite the odds, it was going to be a good day. When she emerged from the tiny bathroom, he was sitting on the edge of the bed, smoking one of her cigarettes. His face was serious.

"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 fu

"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 ru