Show of Evil

Fog swirled around powerful spotlights in the darkest hours before dawn. Perched atop tall steel poles, they cast harsh beams out across a rancid, steaming wasteland, etching in shadow and light the buttes, knolls, and slopes of trash and refuse, of abandoned plastic bottles, Styro-foam dishes, cardboard fast-food wrappers, old newspapers, abandoned clothing, and maggot-ridden mounds of uneaten food. Like fetid foothills pointing towards the glittering skyscrapers miles away, the city's garbage formed a stunted mountain range of waste. Stinking vapours swirled up from the bacteria-generated heat of the vast landfill, while small, grey scavengers zigzagged frantically ahead of a growling bulldozer that pushed and shoved the heaps of filth into a manageably level plain.

The dozer operator, huddled deep inside layers of clothing, looked like an interplanetary alien: long Johns, a flannel shirt, a thick wool sweater, a bulky jacket that might have challenged the Arctic wastelands, a wool cap pulled down over his ears, fur-lined leather and canvas gloves, a surgical mask protecting his mouth from the freezing cold and his nose from the choking odours, skier's goggles covering his eyes. Gloria Estefan's Mi Tierra thundered through the earphones of the Walkman in his pocket, drowning out the grinding din of the big machine.

Another hour, Jesus Suarino, who was known as Gaucho on his block, was thinking. One more hour and I'm outa here.

He worked the controls. Twisting the dozer in place, he lowered the blade and attacked a fresh mound of waste. The dozer tracks ground under him, spewing refuse behind the tractor as they gripped the soggy base and lurched forward. Through his misted goggles, Suarino watched the blade slice into the top of the mound, showering it into a shallow chasm just beyond. Suarino backed the machine up, dropped the blade a little lower, took off another layer of rubble. As it chopped into the pile, Suarino saw something through his smeared goggles.

He snatched the throttle back, heard the lumbering giant of a machine choke back as it slowed down and its exhaust gasp in the cold wind that swept across the range of rubble. He squinted his eyes and leaned forward, then wiped one lens with the palm of his glove.

What he saw jarred him upright. A figure rose up out of the clutter as the blade cut under it. Suarino stared at a skeletal head with eyeless sockets and strings of blonde hair streaked with grease and dirt hanging from an almost skinless skull. The head of the corpse wobbled back and forth, then toppled forward until its jaw rested on an exposed rib cage.

'Yeeeeoowww! he shrieked, his scream of terror trapped by the mask. He tore the goggles off and leaned forward, looking out over the engine. The corpse fell sideways, exposing an arm that swung out and then fell across the torso, the fleshless fingers of the hand pointing at him.

Suarino cut off the engine and swung out of the driver's seat, dropping into the sludge and sinking almost to his knees. Ripping off the mask, he was still screaming as he struggled towards the office at the edge of the dump.

Martin Vail hated telephones. Telephones represented intrusions. Invasions of his privacy. Interruptions. But duty dictated that the city's chief prosecutor and assistant DA never be without one.

They were everywhere: three different lines in his apartment - one a hotline, the number known only to his top aide, Abel Stenner, and his executive secretary, Naomi Chance - all with portable handsets and answering machines attached; a cellular phone in his briefcase; two more lines in his car. The only place he could escape from the dreaded devices was in the shower. He particularly hated the phone in the dead of night, and although he had all the ringers set so they rang softly and with a pleasant melodic tone, they were persistent and ultimately would drag him from the deepest sleep.

When the hotline rang, it was never good news, and the hotline had been ringing for a full minute when Vail finally rolled over onto his back and groped in the dark until he located the right instrument.

'What time is it,' he growled into the mouthpiece.

'Almost five,' Stenner's calm voice answered.

'What's that mean?'

'I'm parked outside.'

'You're a sadist, Major Stenner. I'll bet you put toothpicks under the fingernails of small children and light them. I bet you laugh at them when they scream.'

'Better wear old clothes.'

'Where are we going?'

'Twenty minutes?'

'What's going on, Abel?'

'I'll ring you from the car.'

And he hung up.

Vail verbally assaulted the phone for half a minute, then turned on the night light so he would not fall back to sleep. He stretched,