Down And Dirty

XIII

That night over fifty people died at the Edge. A hundred more were seriously injured. The carnage, however, wasn't the lead-in story on the news that night, nor was it the biggest headline on most of the front pages across the country. After all, the gang war had been going on for some time, and the fact that scores of i

There's a big place between New York and Los Angeles. It's known as the American Heartland, and for the people who live there, the story of the hour was the one about the Reverend Leo Barnett proclaiming his candidacy for president of the United States. He had laid his hands on the outline of some poor joker and had brought him back from an involuntary trip to parts unknown. He had done something no one had ever done before-using only the power of his faith, he had healed a joker. He had proved that the grandest power on earth was the love of the Lord and of Jesus Christ, and he had put some of that love in the body of a creature whose body had been polluted by that obscene alien virus. Even the liberal news media, which had captured that event for all the world to see on videotape, had to admit that the Reverend Leo Barnett had done an amazing thing. Maybe it didn't qualify him to be president, but it certainly set him apart from the pack as someone to watch.

It also helped that immediately after healing the joker and watching the paramedics carry him off on a stretcher, the Reverend Leo Barnett didn't consult with his advisers or wait to see how the incident played on the news or how it sat with the public, he simply walked up to the array of cameras and microphones and a

Reverend Leo Barnett's standing in the polls became very high, very respectable, almost immediately. Of course a few of the voters were a little concerned about what he was doing in the Edge in the first place, especially with regard to that hotel room he and the young mission worker had checked into, but it wasn't as if either one was married or anything. And there had been talk, which neither would confirm or deny, of an impending engagement a

If God doesn't judge America, he'll have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah.

– REVEREND LEO BARNETT presidential candidate

All the King's Horses

III

The junkyard sat hard by the oily green waters of New York Bay, way at the end of Hook Road. Tom got there early, undid the padlock, and swung open the gates in the high chain-link fence. He parked his Honda beside the sagging tin-roofed shack where Joey DiAngelis had once lived with his father, Dom, back in the days when the junkyard had been a going concern, and sat for a moment with his arms folded across the top of the steering wheel, remembering.

He'd spent endless Saturday afternoons inside that shack, back when it had still been habitable, reading old issues of Jetboy to Joey after they'd heisted their comic book collections back from a PTA bonfire.

Over there, back behind the shed, was where Joey used to work on his cars, long before he turned into Junkyard Joey DiAngelis, king of the demolition derby circuit.

And way in back where no one ever went, behind that mountain of rusted junkers, that was where he and Joey had welded armor plate over the frame of a VW Beetle to make the first shell. Later, much later, after Dom had died and Tom had bought the junkyard from Joey and shut it down, they'd dug the bunker under the junkyard, but they hadn't been that sophisticated at the start. A greasy tarp was about all the concealment they had.

Tom climbed out of the car and stood with his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his shapeless old brown suede jacket, breathing the salt air off the bay. It was a chilly day. Out across the water a garbage barge passed slowly, flocks of seagulls circling around it like feathered flies. You could see the vague outline of the Statue of Liberty, but Manhattan had vanished in the morning haze.

Vanished or not, it was out there, and on a clear night you could see the lights shining off the towers. A hell of a view. In Hoboken and Jersey City run-down houses and cramped condos that offered views like this went for six figures. Constable Hook was zoned for industrial use, and Tom's land was surrounded by an import-export warehouse, a railroad siding, a sewage treatment plant, and an abandoned oil refinery, but Steve Bruder said that none of that mattered.

That big a chunk of land, right on the waterfront, it was just prime for development, Bruder had said when Tom told him he was thinking of selling the old junkyard. He should know; he'd already made himself a millionaire with real estate speculation in Hoboken and Weehawken, rehabilitating old tenements into expansive condos for yuppies from Manhattan. Bayo

Tom had known Steve Bruder since childhood and cordially loathed him most of that time, but for once Bruder's words were music to his ears. When Bruder offered to buy the junkyard outright, the price made Tom's head spin, but he resisted the temptation. He'd thought this all out beforehand. "No," he said. "I'm not selling. I want to be a full partner in the development. I provide the land, you provide the money and know-how, we split the profits fifty-fifty."

Bruder had given him a shark's slow smile. "You're not as dumb as you look, Tudbury. Someone been coaching you, or is this all your own idea?"

"Maybe I've finally gotten smart," Tom said. "Now what is it, yes or no? Shit or get off the pot, asshole."

"It's not nice to call your partner an asshole, wimp," Bruder said, extending his hand. He had a very firm handshake, but Tom was careful not to wince.

Tom looked at his watch. Steve would be bringing the bankers by in about an hour. Just a formality, he said. The loan would be candy; the property screamed with potential. Once they had the line of credit, they could get the zoning changed. By spring they'd have the junk cleared out and the land subdivided into building lots.

Tom wasn't sure why he'd come so early… unless it was just to remember.

It was fu

But all of that was about to change. Forever. Thomas Tudbury was about to become a rich man.

Tom walked slowly around the shack, kicked at a threadbare tire in his path, then lifted it with his mind. He held it five feet off the ground, gave it a brisk telekinetic shove that set it spi

"Sell the junkyard?"Joey had said when Tom told him the plan. "You're serious about this, aren't you? That's one hell of a bridge to burn. What if they find the bunker?"

"They'll find a fucking hole in the ground. Maybe they'll worry about it for five, ten minutes. Then they'll push some dirt into it and it'll be over."