Black Man (43 page)

“Think that was for real?” Rovayo asked him as they walked back to the landing pad. She was still fingering the tiny lawyer’s card Ren had handed her.

Carl shook his head. “She wanted us out of there, and she hooked the best opportunity there was to shut us down fast.”

“Yeah. What I thought.”

“If she’s a Daskeen Azul duty manager, then I’m a fucking bonobo. You see the moves on her?”

Rovayo nodded reluctantly.

“Still think I’m paranoid?”

“I think you—”

And out of nowhere, a corner in the mall, shoppers still around them, out of the fractured crowd, out of the sweet piped Muzak and murmur, suddenly a panicked bystander screamed, and then the figure leaped, tall and lean, distorted face around the gut-deep yell, eyes blown wide with hate, and gunmetal glint of the machete hacking down.

Scott Osborne had seen and heard enough.

Nearly five months of sitting on his hands, waiting because Carmen told him that was how it had to be.

Months while
Bulgakov’s Cat
churned up and down the coast of the Americas, coastline always out of sight, just below the horizon, like the harrowing that Carmen had promised was to come but hadn’t still.

Months adrift. Scott had never seen the ocean for real before he came to the Rim, and living afloat in the middle of it, week after landless week, didn’t seem natural, never would. He bore it because he must, and because when Carmen came to him, it all seemed worth it. Lying with her afterward, he seemed to feel the approaching storm, and to accept it with the same comfortable ache he’d felt that last summer before he left for Bozeman and the fence run. It was the sense of your time running out, and the sudden value in everything you’d ordinarily take for granted, everything that would soon be swept away.

But the storm never came.

Instead they waited, and life aboard the factory raft took on the same dismal proportions as life anywhere else you tried to survive that wasn’t home. He hung around Daskeen Azul, looking for things to do and taking on whatever work they’d give him. He kept out of the stranger’s way—even now that he’d learned to call him Merrin, now that his knees no longer trembled when he looked into the hollow eyes—and he didn’t ask when Merrin and Carmen disappeared together for long periods of time. But something was happening to the exhilaration he’d felt on the deserted airfield all those months ago, and it was something bad.

He didn’t want to believe it was lack of faith, not again. He prayed, more now than he ever had even back home, and what he prayed for mostly was guidance, because what had seemed so clear back at the airfield with his head still bandaged and the fear fresh in his heart was slowly but surely giving way to a mess of conflicting voices in that self-same head and heart. He
knew
the judgment was at hand, had at first derived an almost smug superiority among the other workers and shoppers aboard the
Cat
as he watched them living out what were probably the last months of their lives in ignorance. But that was fading fast. Now that same blissful ignorance rubbed at him like a badly fitting boot, irritated something deep inside that made him want to grab them by the throat as they browsed sheep-like through the glittery-lit glass storefronts of the mall, or sat on a break in the bowels of
Bulgakov’s Cat
guffawing and barking like subnormals about what they’d give that slinky bitch Asia Badawi if they ever got in an elevator with her. He wanted to choke them, slap them, smash down their idiot complacency, scream into their faces
Don’t you understand, it’s time! He is coming, don’t you see! You will be weighed in the balance and found wanting!

He forced it down, deeper inside him. Prayed for patience, talked to Carmen.

But these days, even Carmen was not the refuge she had once been. When they slept together now, he sometimes felt an impatience smoking off her in the act, as if he were some awkward tangle of weed around a marker buoy on the Ward estates. She’d snapped at him a couple of times postcoital, apologized immediately of course, told him she was sorry, she was tired, yes, she was tired of waiting, too, but that was the way it had to be, it was a hard path for the, uh, the righteous.

And there was Merrin.

Now the terror of precarious faith came sweeping in for real, up along his arms, lifting the hair with a ghost caress. It pricked out sweat on his palms and swathed him in a cool dread, like standing over a precipice.
What if he was wrong?
What if Carmen was wrong, what if they all were? Merrin was out of sight so much, Scott had no way of knowing what he did with his time. But when he was there, it didn’t feel like the presence of a Savior, of the King of Heaven come again in triumph. It was more like sharing v-time with a stripped-protocol ’face, one of the bare-bones chassis models you could buy off the rack and customize the way those kids he’d once shared a flop with in the Freeport were always doing.

Merrin spoke little, answered questions even less, sat mostly wrapped in his own silence and staring out at the sea from whatever vantage point there was. It was like he’d never seen the ocean before, either, and for a while that gave Scott a warm feeling of kinship with the other man. He thought it might mean he could be a more worthy disciple.

Of course he knew to leave Merrin alone; Carmen had been clear on that if on nothing else. But every now and then, in the tight corridors and storage spaces of Daskeen Azul, he caught the stranger’s eye and the returned gaze did nothing but chill him. And he never told Carmen, didn’t dare tell her, about the time he’d come up behind Merrin at one of his ocean vigils and said, in as steady and respectful voice as he could manage,
Yeah, it got me that way when I first saw it, too. Just didn’t seem possible, that much water in one place
. And Merrin whipped around on him like some bar tough whose drink he’d just spilled, only faster, so much inhumanly faster. And said nothing, nothing at all, just glared at him with the same blank unkindness in those eyes that Nocera had sometimes had, the same but not, because this time there was something in the eyes so deep, so cold, so distant that whatever else Scott believed about this man, he knew for certain that
what Carmen Ren had told him was true, that Merrin really had come here across a gulf that nothing human could cross unprotected. He looked back into those eyes for the scant seconds he could bear to, and he felt the cold of it blowing over him as if Merrin’s gaze were an open door into the void he’d crossed to get here.

Scott winced, he turned away, mumbling half-formed apologies.

He moved like a snake.

Walking away, he heard Merrin say something that sounded like
cunt lips,
knew it couldn’t be those words, tried to put the encounter out of his mind. But the way the stranger had turned on him, the whiplash-speed and venom of it, would not go away.
He moves like a snake
ran in his thoughts like dripping poison. He could not reconcile it with what he wanted to believe.

Judgment means what it says,
Pastor William had always warned them.
You think the Lord is gonna come like some bleeding-heart UN liberal and make us all love one another? No, sir, He will come in judgment and vengeance for those who defile His gifts. Like it says in the Good Book itself—
the big, black, limp-cover Bible brandished aloft—
Think not that I am come to send peace on earth; I come not to send peace but a sword. Yes, sir, when the Lord comes, He will be wrathful and those who have not walked in righteousness will know the terror of His justice
.

Terror, Scott could accept, could understand, but should the Savior of mankind really
move like a snake
?

Questions and doubts, coiling back and forth in his head, and Carmen withdrawing, cooler now with every time they lay together, drifting away from him. There’d been times recently when she simply didn’t want him, shrugged him off, made excuses that convinced him less and less. He could see the time coming when—

And then, instead, the black man came.

“You stay out of it,” Carmen snapped at him as she threw on clothes. “You don’t make a move unless I call it, right?”

At the door of the tiny lower-deck apartment, she turned back, softened her voice with an effort he saw on her face.

“Sorry, Scott. It’s just, you know how hard this is for all of us. Just let me handle it. It’ll be fine.”

So he watched on the monitors instead, and he saw the black man for himself. No doubt in his mind anymore; he felt the thud of certainty in his blood. The black man, betraying himself in his arrogance.
I’m not a policeman, Ren. Don’t make that mistake with me. I’m here for Merrin. If you don’t give him up, I’ll go through you to get him. Your choice, but one way or another, it’s going to get done
.

Scott felt his previous confusion shrivel away. Regained conviction was a solid joy in his throat, a pulsing in his limbs.

And Carmen, showing no fear—his heart swelled with love and pride for her—but he knew the terror she must feel, there alone, facing the darkness. Carmen, brave enough to keep silent in the face of the black man’s threats, to stand his presence, but not strong enough to do what needed to be done.

We have a part to play in this, Scott. You have a part.

And now he knew what it was.

The machete was cling-padded to a panel under the bed. He hadn’t told Carmen, but he’d seen how it might come down, the enemy smashing in the door like the faceless helmeted UN police in End Times Volume I Issue 56, dragging them naked and defenseless from the bed.

He wouldn’t go that way.

He dressed, pulled on a midlength deck coat with DASKEEN AZUL logos across back and sleeves. He freed the machete from its cling-pads, tucked it under the coat, under one arm. Checked himself in the mirror and saw that it worked—not enough to get past any kind of door with security on it, but in the incessant crowds of the shopping decks, more than enough to let him get close.

The rest was in God’s hands.

He looked into the mirror, saw the taut determination his face threw back, and for just a moment it was as if it were Him, Merrin, looking out from behind Scott’s eyes, lending him the force of will he’d need.

Scott murmured a swift prayer of thanks, and walked out to face the black man.

It was like the fucking Saudi opsdog all over again. Like Dudeck and the Aryans. Carl saw the eyes, locked with them on instinct, and it was the same blank, driven hatred that filled them. Who the fuck—No time—the machete swung down. His attacker was a big guy, tall and reachy, the response wrote itself.

Carl hurled himself forward, inside the chopping arc, blocked and stamped, took the fight to the ground.

Against all expectation, the other man flailed like an upturned beetle. Carl got in with an elbow, stunning blow to the face,
tanindo
grasp on the machete arm, twist and the weapon clattered free. A knee came up and caught him in the groin, not full force but enough to half kill his strength. The other man was screaming at him, weird invective and what sounded like religious invocation. Hands came clawing for his throat. It was no kind of fighting Carl knew. He fended, expecting a trick. Got feeble repetition instead.

He did the obvious thing, grabbed a finger and snapped it sideways. The invocation broke on a scream.

Another long leg lashed at him, but he smothered it, kept hold of the snapped finger, twisted some more.

His attacker screamed again, quivered like a gaffed fish. Carl had time to look down into the eyes again, saw no surrender there. He chopped down, into the side of the throat, pulled it a little at the last moment—he’d need to talk to this guy.

The fight died.

Rovayo circled in, gun drawn, leveled on the unmoving figure on the floor. Carl grunted around the ache in his balls, shot the pistol an ironic glance.

“Thanks. Little late for that.”

“Is he dead?”

“Not yet.” Carl levered himself to his feet, groaned again, glanced around. The gathered crowd gaped back. “Just him, huh?”

“Looks that way.” Rovayo hauled an arm aloft, showed the holo in her palm to the spectators.

“RimSec,” she stated it like a challenge. “Anyone work security around here?”

Hesitation, then a thickset uniform with blunt Samoan features shouldered his way through the others.

“I do.”

“Good, you’re deputized.” She read the name off his chest ID. “Suaniu. Call this in, get some backup.

The rest of you, give me some space.”

On the floor, Carl’s attacker coughed and flopped. They all looked. Carl saw suddenly that he was young, younger even than Dudeck had been. Barely out of his teens. He cast about and saw a cluster of carbon-fiber chairs and tables around a sushi counter that had closed for the night. He hauled the boy up by the lapels and dragged him toward the nearest chair. The crowd skittered back out of his path. The boy’s eyes fluttered. Carl dumped him into the chair, settled him there, and slapped him hard across the face.

“Name?”

The boy gagged, tried to rub at his neck where Carl’s stunning chop had gone home. The black man slapped him again.

“Name,” he said again.

“You can’t do that,” said a woman’s voice from the crowd. Australian twang to it. Carl turned his head, found her with a narrow look. Elegant olive-skinned shopper, early fifties, stick-thin. A couple of bags, ocher and green parcels, black cord handles, flicker ad for some franchise or other across the ocher in black Thai script.

His lip curled. “Haven’t you got some shoes to go buy?”

“Fuck you, buddy.” She wasn’t backing down. “This isn’t the Rim. You can’t walk all over us like this.”

“Thanks, I’ll bear that in mind.” Carl went back to the boy in the chair, backhanded him and got blood.

“Name.”

“Marsalis,” Rovayo was at his side. “That’s enough.”

“You think?”

Her voice dropped to a mutter. “She’s right, this isn’t the Rim. There’s only so far we can push this.”

Carl looked around. The Samoan security guard was talking into a phone, but his eyes were fixed on the boy and the black man standing over him. And the crowd had shuffled back when Rovayo ordered them to, but beyond that they were staying put. Carl guessed maybe one in ten had actually seen the fight, even less the machete attack that preceded it. The scenario was wide open for interpretation.

He shrugged. “You’ve got the gun.”

“Yeah, I do. And I’m not about to start shooting these people with it.”

“I don’t think it’d come to that.”

“Marsalis, forget it. I’m not—”

Spluttering cough. The boy in the chair floundered there, grasping the carbon-weave arms. His gaze was locked on Carl’s face.

“Black man,” he spat.

Carl glanced sideways at Rovayo. “Observant little fucker, isn’t he.”

The Rim cop grimaced and put herself between Carl and the chair. She showed the RimSec holo to the boy. “See that? Do you know how much trouble you’re in, son?”

The boy glared back at her. “I know you lie for him. Authority out of Babylon, and black lies that shield the servants of Satan. I know who your master is.”

“Oh great.”

“Marsalis, shut up a minute.” Rovayo closed her hand, stowed her gun, and scrutinized their prisoner with hands on hips. “You’re from Jesusland, right? You’re a fence hopper? You got any idea how quickly I can have you sent back there?”

“I do not answer to your laws. I do not bow down before Mammon and Belial. I have been chosen.” In the crystalline lighting of the mall, the boy’s face was pale and slick with sweat. “I have gone beyond.”

“You certainly have,” said Carl wearily.

“Marsalis!”

“Hey, he didn’t come at
you
with the fucking machete.”

The boy tried to stand. Rovayo stiff-armed him impatiently in the chest, sent the chair skidding back a little as he collapsed back into it.

“Sit down,” she advised him.

Rage detonated in his eyes. His voice scaled upward.

“You are
false judges. False lawgivers, money changers, sunk in stinking sins of flesh and corruption
.” It was as if he were vomiting up something long suppressed.
“You will not lead me astray, you will not pre—”

“You want me to shut him up?”

“—vail, I am beyond your traps. Judgment—”

“No, I fucking don’t. I want—”

“—is coming. He is
here!
He lives, in the flesh,
among
us! You know Him as Merrin but you know
nothing,
He is—”

The tirade ebbed a little, lost some of its shrill rage, as Carl and Rovayo both stared down at the boy with fresh interest.

“—
the Commander of the legions of Heaven,”
he finished uncertainly.

“Merrin’s
here
?” jerked out of Carl. “Aboard the
Cat
? Now?”

The boy’s lips tightened. Carl switched gazes to Rovayo. She reached for her phone.

“Can you lock this place down?”

“On it.” She was already dialing. She put the phone to her ear, looked at him as she listened. “Alcatraz can authorize a block on traffic in and out. Might have to get a couple of people out of bed to do it, but—”

The phone crickled audibly with scrambler protocols and then a voice. Rovayo cut across it.

“Alicia Rovayo, Special Cases. Print me, and then get me the Alcatraz duty officer.”

Pause. Very deliberately, Carl turned his back on the boy in the chair. Casually, he asked, “Is that going to be satellite-enforceable?”

Rovayo nodded. “There’s bound to be something overhead. One of ours, or something we can rent the time on. Special Cases can usually. Hello? Yeah, this is Rovayo, listen—”

“Hey! No!”

Carl didn’t really need the anonymous yell.
Tanindo,
as taught by Sutherland, worked up a high level of proximity sense, and the mesh tuned it tighter still. He felt the boy come out of the chair without needing to turn and see it. He turned anyway, at a leisurely rate, and caught the escape bid with a peripheral glimpse, the same peeled awareness that had saved him from the machete attack in the first place. The boy was already out of tackle range, heading for the refuge of a side access walkway. Pumping limbs, head thrown back, a spurt of desperate speed. Not bad, all things considered.

He saw Rovayo stiffen, stop speaking to Alcatraz. Reach for her stowed gun. He put out an arm to forestall her, shook his head.

“Let him go. I’m on it.”

“But you—”

“Relax. Running after idiots is what I do for a living.”

He turned away. Would have liked the gun, but it wasn’t like there was the time to talk it through—

“He’s getting away,” shouted the Australian woman.

Carl spared her a murderous look, then he was in motion. Slow run building to a sprint, gathering speed and purpose, the fine focal intensity of the hunt.

Time to find Merrin and shut him down.