Run (25 page)

Then I’m back to the den. The Mount Rushmore guy’s buried in the closet. Looks like Jinx has done the handcuff thing up right.

And since there’s nothing left to say, I say it. Of course I say it.

Hey, Fiona, I say.

She looks up at me, and I want to think that’s a tear in her eye but it’s the light. It’s got to be the light. But I say it anyway:

I love you, I say. Did you know that?

As I say those words, I wonder: What
did
she know? Did she know they were planning to kill Gideon Parks?

There’s only one way to find out, which is why I say:

And I wish, I really wish, I could of seen you in that dress.

I show her the wedding invitation and whatever she wants of my eyes.

You did buy that new dress, didn’t you? For tonight? For the wedding?

And then we’re gone, except for:

Oh, yeah. One other thing. I don’t think you’re gonna be using the car for a while.

That’s when I walk outside, right out the front door. Look at my lawn for probably the last time. It needs to be mowed. Look at the tree I climbed to pull down some neighbor’s cat. Look at the mailbox, the flower bed where the Geary kid tosses the newspaper every morning. Look at the sidewalk, look at the street, my street, the place where I live.

Strike that.

The place I used to live.

You know what? I say to Jinx.

I look at the car in the driveway, the silver CRX with the
JAZZERCISE
bumper sticker, the one I followed that time and then gave up on and felt ashamed. Felt guilty.

I’m pissed, I say to Jinx.

No shit, he says.

No, I say to Jinx. You don’t understand.

I heft the Remington.

Stand over there a second, okay? What I’m trying to tell you, see, is that I … am … 
pissed
.

I rack that Remington and I start sending fat whammies of double-ought buckshot into that CRX at about five-second intervals. One after ever-loving one. Blam. Glass and metal sing, fly, rain in pieces across the concrete, the grass, into the bushes, the ones I used to trim every Sunday in the summer. Blam and blam. The front tires blow and the chassis hits concrete with a dance of sparks. Blam and blam and blam.

While I’m pumping away, this Thomas O’Toole guy, the guy who lives next door, he comes outside, this Thomas O’Toole guy, and then his little blond wife. They watch me take the car apart with this kind of wait-a-minute expression: Hey, wait, hold on a sec there, would you please? Is this in the bylaws of the homeowners’ association?

Jinx says, Let’s book. But I don’t think so. I turn and spray a round into the car at the curb, flatten its front tires, and the O’Tooles, that happy couple with their happy kid, dance back, wide-eyed, behind their screen door, as if that’s some kind of protection, and by then the lights are coming on across the street, and over at the Turner place, and that’s when I have to tell them, I have to tell the O’Tooles and the Turners and the Johnsons and everybody else who will listen:

That’s right, I tell them. That’s absolutely right.

I yell, so everyone, all of them, can hear me:

It’s me. The guy with the gun. Your neighbor.

Jinx is insistent. We’ve got to go. Still, there’s time to squeeze off the last round, and I turn and I blow the street number right off the house.

Don’t you get it? I tell them. I’m your neighbor.

I am your fucking neighbor.

Night’s coming, and it’s coming down hard.

There’s a way the sky tells you it’s tired, that the real light is going out and the pretenders are coming on, and as I look through the window of the Saturn at the houses and the condos and the mini-marts and the strip malls, I decide I’m tired too. I wonder why I used to care, what made me care about Dunkin Donuts or Video City, that Chinese restaurant around the corner, the Texaco station where Tommy Coogan tinkered with my cars, why any of that mattered, why any of it should matter, why I was the guy who could walk into the hardware store every other weekend and buy a couple pieces of brick to work on my little patio and somehow feel good about it.

Especially when it felt so much better to turn that silver CRX into a pile of scrap metal.

After I dropped the empty shotgun and waved goodbye to my neighbors, I let Jinx lead the way back to the Saturn and I knew that if we cleared the first block without a cop car we were golden. And golden we were. All the way through the maze of suburban streets to the turn onto Duke Street. Which is when I say:

Stop the car.

Jinx drives to the next intersection and takes a right, pulls the car into a McDonald’s, and it’s humming inside, life does go on, whether it’s
a dead civil rights leader or riots or war, you got to keep chewing those Big Macs, and Jinx finds the Saturn a parking space between two other cars.

Come on, I tell him.

I get out of the Saturn.

Come on, I tell him again.

He shrugs and gets out.

We walk into Mickey D’s and I step up to the counter and I say to the guy at the cash register, some Pakistani or whatever, one of those turban guys, I say:

Hey, Sabu. Gimme a vanilla shake.

And Jinx says to me: What the fuck you doin?

I’m buying a vanilla shake, I tell him. You want something? McNuggets, maybe? When he tells me no, I tell him:

Well, I want something. I want an answer.

Aw, shit, he says, but I keep talking:

Am I wrong, or was walking in and out of there a little too easy?

Jinx wants to be annoyed, but he knows, he knows what I’m saying is right.

I mean, two Alexandria cops and one Fed? The Reverend Gideon Parks is dead, a lot of other folks are dead, and we’re suspects, right? They been inside my house, my fucking life, for four months, and we get one man with a plan? That’s it? Not the 82nd Airborne? Not even lights and sirens when I take apart that car? Are we supposed to believe there wasn’t any backup? Or did they think for some reason it was gonna be easy?

The turban guy gives me my vanilla shake and I give him two bucks.

Have a nice day, I tell him. Then I tell Jinx: Come on.

I don’t see what I need in the restaurant, so I take the far exit. Jinx stays with me.

I lamp the parking spaces on that side and I see just the ticket, this guy’s sitting with his wife in their little midsized something with one of those metal plates on the back, the fish that says
JESUS
inside, and I stroll up to these folks slowly, slowly, and I put on a sincere but happy face and I take a little sip of that vanilla shake and I say:

Evening, sir. Ma’am. Sorry to trouble you, but Brother James and I
seem to be having a problem with our car. We’re ministering tonight over at Good Shepherd? Off of Quaker Lane? The gentleman inside tells me it’s up the road. About a mile? I wondered if you’d be so kind—

God bless you, I tell them when they say yes, and again when they drop us at Good Shepherd without giving one thought to the fact that the building is dark or that we could have killed them. And I mean it: God bless them both. There are still some people in the world who have trust. Who have faith in other people, even if it’s as desperate and hopeless as their faith in a fish that says
JESUS
inside.

We wait until they’re long gone and we cross the street and stroll through one of those town-house condo projects and we duck through a hedgerow and down an embankment and we’re looking at Dumpsters and loading docks in back of this strip mall called Hechinger Commons, and it’s the right place and the right time, and there’s an Aerostar van, and the Aerostar van is faded white and painted with red letters that spell out
FLOWERS ETC
and the Aerostar van is filled with flowers, not to mention a lot of et cetera, because inside the Aerostar van are two of the U Street Crew—no, make that three because there’s a driver, and he’s not just any driver but that grinning son of a bitch QP Green. Next to the Aerostar van is a pickup truck with more U Streeters in the seats, and next to the pickup truck is what looks like a genuine Virginia Power truck, with that beret guy, Kareem, whoever, at the wheel and that weird Yoda guy peeking out of the cab, and next to the Virginia Power truck is a limousine, a white stretch Lincoln that shines and shines for what seems like half a city block, and I have a fine idea who’s riding in the back of that Lincoln.

I walk over to the Lincoln and the driver’s window glides down to show me a pair of shades in the driver’s seat, and it’s not any old pair of shades, it’s fucking Ray-Ban, and I take the wedding invitation out of my pocket and I hold that rectangle of gilt-edged parchment in front of those shades and I say to Ray-Ban, I say:

Here’s your ticket. You got something for me?

Ray-Ban says: Man, I got nine homeys in the place already. Been there since seven. Delivery boys. Maintenance crew. Even a couple cocktail waiters. Just like you said, man. No problem.

I hand him the invitation. It’s a private affair, this wedding. Industry and politics, tying the knot as usual for the closest of friends and family. So this piece of paper, waved out of that fine limo, is going to get the Doctor past security.

Five past eight, I tell him, and then I tell the darkness in the back of that limo: Remember. We do this my way. If I can’t end this thing by five past eight, you make your move. And whatever happens, you take out the UniArms warehouse. But you give me the time, the old man, and CK.

Ray-Ban says: U or Die, mothafucka.

The window glides up and that limo cruises away, places to go, people to see.

Now for the rest of the business. Out of the Virginia Power truck pops Kareem, and Kareem sort of does his thing on me and I give him the rest of what I promised: My security card key and the four-digit pass code that works the entrance locks at the UniArms warehouse in Old Town. Just what Kareem needs to get Yoda inside so he can do his little thing.

Kareem looks at me.

Kareem winks at me.

Then he’s back in the Virginia Power truck and they’re gone.

Then the pickup truck is gone.

Then it’s Jinx and me and
FLOWERS ETC
, and I believe it’s about time to make our delivery.

Inside the van, with the doors pulled shut and locked up tight, I say hey to the Doctor’s guys, we got Tiny and Hotpoint and a lot of flowers, and I drop my get-out bag behind the flowers and I start running the usual check. I slip the magazines from the Glocks, check the loads, snap them back in. One Glock goes in the Bianchi holster at the flat of my back and the second in my belt, just over the left kidney. I strap a holster on my right ankle and that’s for number three. I put two full magazines in the right inside pocket of my suit coat, two more in each outside pocket, and, what the hell, I put a couple in my pants pockets. I don’t like the extra weight, but who knows how many rounds you need when you’re going to a wedding?

Now I check the troops. Tiny and Hotpoint are stroking their
AKs like kittens. They’re nice pieces, and they’re from offshore, combat models, ready to fire full auto. Probably bought them from UniArms.

Let me see that, I say to Hotpoint. He passes his AK to me and it’s North Korean, clean and oiled and as ready as a 9th Street whore.

He knows what’s on my mind. I don’t even need to ask him.

Uncle taught us good, Hotpoint says. Taught us in the Storm. Me an Jeff, Tiny an Malik an Lil Ace.

I pass the rifle back to Hotpoint and I want to ask Jinx what Uncle taught him, and when. The guy’s too old for Iraq, unless he was senior NCO, and I don’t think so. Just like I don’t think I really want to know the answer.

Soon enough the van slows, takes a speed bump. We’re late, which is the way it happens, but also the way it needs to be. To make the hard part easier, and to make this thing work.

The hard part is getting inside, at least I hope that’s the hard part, and when the van slows to a roll and makes the turn onto the long drive that curves up the hill to St. Anne’s Cathedral, I feel the kind of calm that tells me it’s going to work; we’re going to make it just fine.

I raise up, peering through a spray of flowers, and over QP Green’s shoulder I take in the spires of the cathedral and what’s left of sunset. It’s like a picture postcard. And it’s better than I remembered. St. Anne’s is history: Built in the old days, burned in the Revolutionary War, built again and burned in the Civil War, and built again, third time’s the charm, on the long low hill overlooking Old Town Alexandria, where, years later, the Masonic Memorial joined it. The bell tower faces south, toward Richmond, while the doors to the sanctuary open toward D.C. and the heathen north. The east and west walls of the cathedral are a tour guide’s wet dream, with glorious stained-glass windows that ascend—and there’s no other word for it—they ascend fifty feet into the sky. On this side, the east side, is an expanse of lawn, a gentle slope; to the west, on the shoulder of the hill, is the parking lot and then trees, shrubs, fences, and another one of those cozy Virginia neighborhoods.

There’s a rent-a-cop cruiser at the mouth of the driveway and sitting inside with their coffee and doughnuts are two of the finest no-can-dos that Jules Berenger can rent. Up the hill is the trouble. The quarter mile
of winding driveway is lined with town cars and limos, each with tinted glass and a guy at the wheel with an earplug receiver who’s standard equipment. More luxury liners, including a certain white Lincoln, form a freeze-frame motorcade in the parking lot. More guys with dark glasses and earplugs huddle in the foreground, near a pond with a statue of some lady in robes, St. Anne or the Virgin Mary or maybe even Gloria Estefan, who the fuck knows. Some other guys with dark glasses are walking a lazy perimeter on grass that’s so well kept they ought to be playing golf out there. I see a couple CAR-15s, but mostly it’s your typical security: handguns, maybe some machine pistols, but nothing too attention-getting. There could be sniper teams in the distant trees, the backyards of that neighborhood, but that’s doubtful. Inside that church is a U.S. senator, but it’s a wedding, for Christ’s sake. Still, so many fingers, so many triggers.