Two Songs This Archangel Sings

'I'll tell you where we'll meet.' I glanced out the booth's glass at the street signs on the corner. 'You know the little park at the corner of First and Grange?'

'Yes.'

'How long will it take you to get there?'

'Fifteen minutes, perhaps less.'

'Well, I've got a few things to do, so I can't get there for half an hour or so. What kind of car do you drive?'

'A 1982 Chevrolet. Green.'

'Park it under the streetlight on Grange, by the drugstore. I drive a blue van. I'll pull up in front of you, and you come to me. I'm alone; make sure you're alone.'

'Understood.'

'I'll see you at the park in half an hour,' I said, and hung up.

After replacing the bulbs in the booths and removing the out of order signs, I climbed up to the top of a small wooded knoll where I had a clear view of the part of Grange Street that bordered the park. Then I waited. Ten minutes later a green Chevrolet pulled up to the curb beneath the streetlight in the middle of the block. Three men, Asians, got out. One looked to be middle-aged, and wore an expensive-looking gray overcoat with a matching hat. The other two men were younger, burlier, dressed in jeans, leather boots, and jackets. Both of the younger men carried nunchaku, and the weapons' mahogany and steel chains glinted in the light cast by the overhead lamp. The man in the overcoat said something to the two younger men who fanned out, then crossed the street and entered the darkness of the park. One of the men took up a position behind a tree at the foot of the knoll where I was hiding. The other disappeared behind some bushes twenty yards down the street. The man in the overcoat looked around him, then got back into his car and shut off the engine.

I waited ten minutes. When it looked like I had all the company I was likely to get, I moved down the side of the knoll using a 'silent walking' technique Veil had taught me, a way of moving without noise which had made me feel foolish and awkward when I was practicing it, but which now seemed downright utilitarian. I came up behind the first of the two muscle-bound young men and cold-cocked him with the butt of my Beretta. Draping his nunchaku by the weapon's connecting steel chain around my neck, I backed up into the trees, then moved silently through the night to my left. When I had gone about twenty-five yards, I moved toward the street and, after a few minutes of stalking, found the second young man crouched behind a row of bushes near the sidewalk, staring intently down the street toward where the car was parked. I bounced a nunchaku stick off the top of his skull, and he collapsed into the bushes.

Once again I backed into the trees, then turned and sprinted back the way I had come, running all the way to the opposite end of the park. Keeping low, I ran across First Street, just below the intersection, darted into the shadows of a recessed storefront. I waited a minute to catch my breath, then, keeping to the shadows of the buildings, crossed at the intersection and made my way quickly down Grange toward where the green Chevrolet was parked.

Both the car's right rear and passenger doors were unlocked, and I could have simply opened a door and jumped into the car. But the events of the past few days had made me slightly irritable, and so I opted for another way of getting his attention. I gripped one end of the nunchaku I was holding, let the other stick hang down behind my back, then, as I leaped out from the shadows toward the car, I swung the free stick five or six times around my head to gain velocity, then brought it smashing down onto the windshield, shattering the glass. Again I spun the stick by its connecting chain, turned counterclockwise and stove in the window on the passenger's side. The safety glass first spider-webbed, then disintegrated into powder as it exploded in and over the man in the overcoat, who was already covered with debris from the windshield. When the thoroughly shocked, ashen-faced man finally took his hands away from his face and looked in my direction, he found himself staring down the barrel of my Beretta.

The man's mouth opened and closed as, wide-eyed, he glanced back and forth between me and the park across the street from where, obviously, he expected the young men to come rushing to his rescue. 'Wh- who-?'

'Never mind who I am,' I said curtly as I quickly opened the door, got into the car, and slid across a carpet of powdered glass until I was right next to him. I pressed the Beretta up under his jaw. 'It's enough for you to know that I'm going to blow a hole right up through your skull if you make a move I don't like, or if you don't do exactly as I say. Now turn on the engine and get us out of here. Now!'

The middle-aged man didn't do anything except keep turning his head back and forth between me and the park across the street. The force of the exploding glass had knocked off his hat, but he had not even bothered to wipe the powdered glass from his hair and face. What I saw in the man's eyes and the lines around his mouth was not anger, but fear and self-reproach. There was dignity in the man's face, and he looked like he might be a minister, or a college professor, or some other pillar of the community; his expression was that of a member of the church board caught by the local police soliciting a hooker.

If he was surprised to find a dwarf busting up his car and shoving a gun into his face, he didn't show it. It surely meant he'd known at least a few things about me before he'd set off for our rendezvous.

'Listen,' I continued, trying to sound threatening but without much enthusiasm. 'This is a loaded gun I've got pressed up against your neck. The rules of the game say that puts me in charge. I told you to get this car moving.'

'My sons,' the man said, staring at me with large, haunted, gold-colored eyes. 'Are they …? Did you…?'

'Your sons are in a lot better shape than I'd be in if one of them had hauled off and seriously whacked me with nunchaku, pal. They're just napping.'

'Thank God,' the man said with a sigh as he leaned his head forward on the steering wheel. Powdered glass rained off the shoulders of his overcoat. I kept my gun pressed tightly against his carotid artery. 'They were only here to protect me in case…'

'In case of what?'

'Just… in case. I didn't know what you wanted, or who might be with you.'

'Do you know who I am?'

'I don't know your name. I had a physical description. I received dozens of calls.'

I'd been worried that no one would know, or remember, Veil; obviously, a great many people did. 'Why should you suspect that I meant to harm you?'

'I was not concerned about myself. Our fear was that you might intend to harm … him.'

'Archangel?'

'Yes.'

'You say 'our' fear. Why did the people call you?'

'I am the president of our community association.' The man bowed his head slightly after he raised it from the wheel. 'My people honor me by considering me a leader. My name is Loan Ka. The American was my personal friend. The Hmong owe him more than can ever be repaid.'

One of Loan Ka's sons, the one I'd dropped into the bushes, came staggering out into the street, holding his head with both hands.

'Tell him to stay put,' I said quietly, pushing the gun hard up into the father's neck. 'We have some more talking to do.'

The man shouted something in what I assumed was Hmong out through the broken windshield. The young man looked up, started forward threateningly. Another command, this one sharper, and the young man stopped, turned back, and sat down dejectedly on the curb.

'Archangel was my friend, too,' I continued to the Hmong. 'His name is Veil Kendry, and he's still my friend.'

'He is… in trouble?'

'Yes,' I answered after some hesitation. I found that I instinctively trusted and liked the Hmong; there was no harm in his face, only concern for his sons. 'He's disappeared, and some very nasty people want him dead. For that matter, they also want me dead.'

The second son came out of the park, and Loan Ka shouted a warning to him without being told. He, too, sat down on the curb, although he continued to stare intently at the car.

'How can I help?' Loan Ka asked quietly as he turned back to me.