Run (26 page)

All yours, I say to QP Green. I hunker back down into the flowers and take a deep breath.

Hotpoint is taping together two banana clips, end to end. Jinx is doing diddly, but he’s eyeballing me like he’s got something to say.

Smell anything? I ask him.

Yeah, he says. All these pretty flowers. Smells like death.

Maybe, I tell him. Maybe not. Maybe this is going to work.

The van stops.

The driver’s window rolls down.

Hi, says QP Green, but I don’t recognize his voice, it’s suddenly this Bryant Gumbel School of Broadcasting voice, midwest white-bread English, and I don’t need to see to know he’s talking to somebody big and bad.

What you got? the big and bad guy says.

Hi, QP Green says again. I’m from Flowers Etcetera.

QP Green pauses and I hear papers unfolding and being handed out the window. Then QP Green says:

The, the—um, Berenger-Blaine nuptials?

I look over at Hotpoint and he’s laughing into his hand and shaking his head.

The big and bad guy says: You’re late.

Yes, sir, says QP Green. But these flowers are for the assembly hall downstairs. After the wedding, they’re having a reception there.

The big and bad guy says: Okay. But I want this van out of here in twenty minutes. Think you can handle that?

Yes, sir, says QP Green. The paper gets handed back, the window gets rolled up, and QP Green starts driving us in, all the while saying to the windshield, the rearview mirror, the air all around him:

Yassuh, yassuh, sho nuff, suh. You can suck my mothafuckin dick, suh.

The van slows again. Stops. Through the rear window I can see the cathedral, its spires stabbing into the sky. Then:

Aw’ight, says QP Green.

It’s showtime.

Well, I say to Jinx. You know what Gary Gilmore said when they walked him out in front of that firing squad, don’t you?

Naw, Jinx says. But I got me a feelin it was somethin real stupid, like: Let’s do it.

Yeah, I tell him. Yeah. So what do you say?

He looks at me.

I look at him.

Yeah, he says. Let’s do it.

QP Green dismounts and takes his time coming around to the back of the van. He opens the rear doors and leans in to embrace a huge spray of flowers. Hotpoint fits his AK and about a dozen magazines into a long white ornamental vase that holds another arrangement, and then he’s out the back, delivering that vase, and me, to the lobby.

U or Die, he says.

It’s now or never, and I’m out of the van and between them, hoping for enough cover from the flowers to stroll on up the curved steps to the wide wooden double door of the cathedral. Jinx should be somewhere behind me carrying another arrangement, and stroll is what I do, I do, I do, and we’re onto the steps and then we’re up the steps and I move away from the flowers, I stroll toward the door, nice and natural, and before I reach the door someone is opening it for me and I look at the someone and the someone is Tully Malone, and Tully Malone looks at me, looks through me, sees just another someone, just another guest, and by the
time it all registers on him I’m walking right past him and the best he can do is say:

Hiya, Burdon. I wondered what happened to ya.

There’s a smaller double doorway ahead, inset with glass viewing panels, and I can hear an organ piping away and I see a lot of well-dressed people standing, and it’s as good a time as any, so I’m through the double door and into the sanctuary while Tully Malone is still doing whatever he’s doing out in the lobby and the flowers are being delivered, and Jinx and the rest of his crew get busy. Inside, some kid in a tuxedo and too many pimples gapes at me, nobody told him what to do with really late arrivals, and I just nod and whisper to him, I’m with the bride’s family, and he blinks a couple times and waves his hand to the left side of the sanctuary and I take a few steps down the aisle, there must be a hundred rows of heavy wooden pews, and I find an empty pew on the left about ten, twelve rows along, and I ease my way in.

The sanctuary is weighted with a solemn smell, flowers and candles and wood and age, and there’s quite a crowd filling out the pews, and all of them are intent on what’s happening in front of this wide marble altar—what do they call it? the dais, the something—because that’s where we’ve got the happy couple with the bridesmaids and the groomsmen and the priest, and they’re listening to whatever it is the priest is saying into the microphone and whatever it is he’s saying ends with the word amen, and that’s when everybody says amen.

So I’m there just in time to sit down. The priest drones on in Latin for a while and then there’s this reading from the scriptures and this sort of pretty song but I’m not paying much attention to all these words because I’m checking out the big and bad guys standing in the back of the sanctuary and the few toward the front and, yes, the woman over there in the trouser suit, very nice but not quite the fashion for a society wedding, and these other dots and dashes throughout the congregation, the guy with the oversized raincoat, the one with the briefcase, those telltale signs and symbols that they’re packing weapons.

And I’m checking out the U.S. senator, all hail-fellow-well-met, like any good father of the groom, and it’s the same Senator Anthony Blaine I saw a couple hours ago doing a teary-eyed sound bite on CNN. Guess a dead civil rights leader didn’t ruin his day.

And I’m checking out Jules, that’s Mr. Berenger to you, and with him there’s the latest little trophy blonde and there’s the ex, the one that’s the mother, and there’s the politicians he’s got in his pocket, and there’s some good-looking suits on my old pals Quillen and Dawkins and Rudy Martinez, and there’s another crew chief, McCarty, and then there’s a lot of folks I don’t know and don’t care about, there must be three hundred or so people all gathered here in St. Anne’s Cathedral for what the priest just called this joyous occasion.

And finally there’s this voice in my ear and it says:

You lose.

Took you long enough, I say to CK, and of course it’s CK, it has to be CK, he was going to be here as sure as I was going to be here. He wouldn’t have missed it for the world. Because this isn’t just a wedding, it’s a celebration, isn’t it?

Some wrinkled old lady a few rows up turns around to shush me, and when she looks at me, then looks behind me, she thinks better of it and gets back to watching the joyous occasion, and that’s when I feel the barrel of CK’s Magnum at the back of my neck. But hey, the guy’s not going to shoot and ruin everybody’s happy day now, is he? So I look at my watch and I ease my head back a little toward him and say:

You got ten minutes.

There’s a satisfying silence, and then he bites.

Ten minutes for what?

Ten minutes until it happens.

The barrel of his gun jams into my neck. Shut the fuck up, Lane.

The wrinkled old lady turns around again, no way she can’t see that big pistol, and she puts a wrinkled little finger to her wrinkled little lips.

Up in front, at the altar, the priest is saying something about love, but back here in the cheap seats I’m talking about something more practical.

Doesn’t matter what you do, CK. You spray my brains across the guest list, it’s still gonna happen. Only right about now you got nine minutes.

Shut up, Lane.

The groom is taking the bride’s hand in his own and they’re stepping forward, closer to the priest, closer to the microphone, and they’re
right off the top of the cake, he’s this strapping handsome Joe College boy and Meredith Berenger, she’s what they always say about brides, only this time it’s true, she’s radiant, she’s gorgeous, and it’s nice, it really is nice, and I think I should do like the man says and shut up for a while so that’s what I do, I listen to them make their vows, and it takes a couple minutes but it gets to him, you know it gets to him, he wants to know, he has to know, and it doesn’t take long till he makes his move.

Here’s what we’re gonna do, CK tells me. Pretty soon we’re all gonna be hauling our asses up to say some more mumbo jumbo or sing some bullshit song, okay? And as soon as we all stand up, you’re gonna make like you need to take a piss. You’re gonna stand up and you’re gonna walk back up that aisle, and I’m gonna be right behind you and so is Elvis.

Cue another jab of the barrel into my neck. Then he says:

And you’re gonna walk out into the alcove and when you get there, you’re gonna see this little hall off to the lee side, and you’re gonna walk down that hall and there’s a little room at the end of that hall, and you’re gonna walk into that room and there’s some chairs in that room and you’re gonna sit down in one of those chairs and then I’m gonna decide whether or not you get to live. What do you say?

I say nothing. I decide to take in those famous stained-glass windows, there are five of them on each side, and the windows are these pretty pictures, they tell the story of the Commandments or the Beatitudes or something else that Jesus guy said or did, and after I look at the windows awhile the priest raises his arms as if he’s embracing the bride, the groom, the attendants, the congregation, everybody, and the priest says:

Let us pray with confidence to the Father in the words our Savior gave us.

So we’re all standing up and the priest is saying this prayer and I know this prayer and all the people are saying it with him, they’re saying:

Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name

And I’m easing my way over to the aisle.

Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven

And I’m walking into the aisle.

Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses

And that’s when I trespass, and I need forgiveness.

As we forgive those who trespass against us

Because I just can’t seem to forgive.

And lead us not into temptation

So I’m not walking away.

But deliver us from evil

I’m walking the other way, the only way that’s left to me. I’m walking down the aisle, I’m walking toward the priest, I’m walking toward the altar, and everything seems to go silent but the voice in my head, the voice keeps going, and I think, I really think, it’s my mother’s voice and I’m almost to the altar, I’m between the groomsmen and the bridesmaids, and that’s when I pull the Glock from my belt; I pull the Glock and I turn on CK and I point the Glock at him and he’s about twenty feet behind me and he raises the Magnum in his fist and he points the Magnum at me and there’s this strange silence, the priest has stopped talking and there’s silence, just silence, just silence until I say, along with my mother, I say:

Amen
.

Movement, there’s movement at the periphery of my vision, the shuffle of feet on heavy carpet, a choked kind of scream or sob or something in the congregation, and the sad sounds of people not knowing what to do, but I know exactly what to do and I’m not losing focus, I’m looking down that Glock at a sight picture I don’t ever want to forget and CK knows what I know, that if we shoot we’re probably both dead, but that if he misses he might shoot himself a newly married bride or groom.

So it’s time to say what I came to say.

I say:

Mr. Berenger.

The shock is passing and the silence is giving way to the white noise of surprise and anger, and there’s movement again and it’s movement in my direction and I say:

Let’s all stay calm. And let’s all stay right where we are.

Then I say: Please.

I hear the sounds of hands on grips, some pistols going clickety-clack, and I have a feeling I’ve got more than CK looking down a barrel at me.

I clear my throat, it’s getting dry in here, and I say again, a bit louder:

Mr. Berenger.

To which at long last I hear Mr. Berenger, my employer, my mentor, my friend, dear Jules, say:

Do I know you?

To which I start to say yes, when CK says to me:

Shut the fuck up.

He rocks the trigger back on that hand cannon and he calls out, he calls out loud and clear:

Dawkins.

Then: Quillen.

Then: Kill him.

But Jules says:

Belay that.

To which CK says:

Kill him.

And Jules says:

Clarence!

There are furious noises, and I can’t help it, my eyes dart right and I barely make out the wide load of tuxedoed Jules Berenger, an irate penguin, face pinched with rage, shoving his way past a wife and an ex-wife and a bridesmaid and into the aisle next to me and then I’m staring back dead on and down the sight of my pistol at CK. At … Clarence?

The guy is named Clarence?

Apparently so, because damn if Jules doesn’t yell that word again:

Clarence! He’s getting control back into his voice. Stop this, Jules is saying. Clarence, you will stop this
now
.

That’s what you call a direct order, but CK doesn’t seem to hear him. In his face there’s this perverse thing that’s pulsing. It’s pride. It’s arrogance. Or maybe it’s just insanity.

CK makes himself grin.

I know where I’m going to shoot him: K-5. Center of mass. Doesn’t matter whether they’re wearing body armor or not, you always go for the center of mass.

Dawkins, he says.

You kill them or you knock them down, same difference. If you’re firing the right piece at the right place with the right ammo, the shock is what you want and the shock is what you get. So it’s center of mass: K-5. For as long as my finger keeps twitching.

Quillen, CK says.

I go loose.

Kill him, CK says.

Loose.

CK breathes one in and takes a step closer and I get ready to blow him right out of his shoes and that’s when the fun begins. This thing didn’t go down according to plan, but right about now the ten minutes are up, at least the right guy’s watch says five past eight, and that’s when there’s a shriek of feedback, the clunk of somebody tapping a microphone, and a voice comes echoing down off the altar but it’s not the priest’s voice, no it’s not, and it’s not the bride and it’s not the groom, no no no, not at all.