Run (29 page)

Hey, Jules, I say, and try on a smile. What’s the matter? You afraid of nothing?

Just put your hands in your fucking pockets, he says.

So I do what he says, as if I’ve got some kind of choice. And with a fist in each pocket of my suit coat, I follow Jules Berenger, and we leave Prince Charming and the rest of his buddy boys and we take a walk back down that aisle toward the altar. If this keeps up, I might get religion.

There’s a new sound, the sound of spinning wings, and a rush of churning wind that rattles the ceiling. It’s a helicopter and it’s incoming and right about now I wish it was one of those eye-in-the-sky news guys, but I know better. It’s the ticket to ride for the Berengers and the Blaines.

I could have let CK kill you, Jules says. His lips seem swollen with anger. I could have ordered him to kill you.

Even if I felt like talking, there’s nothing to say. Nothing that would matter. He is going to talk his talk, and I am going to have to stand here and listen. Sooner or later he’ll get to the point, and the point is the bearer bonds. After everything else that’s happened, the guy still wants the same thing he always wants: The money.

What in God’s name were you thinking? Jules says to me. Letting those … those
animals
in here?

Losing half your armpit and getting your skull rung goes a long way to helping you look bewildered, and I’m wondering just what it is that Jules Berenger needs to hear from me, and the best I can do is to give him the straightest face I can and say:

It wasn’t me who let those guys in here. It was you, remember? This was your deal, your run, not mine. You wanted me along for the ride. So hell, Jules, you got me. You could of left me out of it. You could of killed Gideon Parks without me.

No, he says. His eyes go off, following his mind somewhere I don’t want to go. This is bullshit. I start to tell him this is bullshit when he says:

I couldn’t, Burdon. I didn’t have a choice.

Choice? I say.

No choice, he says. Then:

They wanted you, he says.

They? I tell him.
They
, Jules? Who the fuck are
they?

The helicopter hovers outside the shattered east wall of the church, its landing lights strobing over the ruins, the haunted faces, the lines of departing automobiles, as it drifts down to the lawn. I see the helicopter and I see another helicopter, the one on television, the one grazing the roof of the Hotel Excelsior. The Feds who weren’t Feds. Or maybe they were Feds. Or maybe—

How far does this thing go, Jules? How far up the fucking chain does it go?

Burdon, he says, it doesn’t go up. It doesn’t go down. It goes around. It goes around and around.

Jules—

Listen, he says. This is business, okay? I do what I’m asked to do. And I do what I’m told. How else do you think I could have stayed in business for all these years? Do you think it was dumb luck? Do you think the law never noticed? I was just doing … business.

Well, I say. Try telling that to Gideon Parks. Or that kid over there. What is this all about, Jules? It can’t be just about guns.

Damn it, Lane. Use what’s left of your head. Of course it’s about
guns. Maybe not for them. But for me? It’s always about guns. You ever listen to that Gideon Parks? Getting nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize wasn’t enough for him. The Reverend Parks, he actually wanted peace. He wanted to disarm the gangs, put those punks to work, put them in school. And the people, the kids even, they were listening to him. My God, the Mayor of New York was giving him money. Bills were being introduced in Congress, and these days real patriots like Senator Blaine, the ones who can stop that sort of nonsense, are in short supply. Disarming America? Disarming
us?
Imagine that, Lane, can you? What kind of world would that be?

So you killed him, I say. For his words, you killed him. For wanting peace, you killed him.

Blessed are the peacemakers, Jules tells me. Isn’t that what the Good Book says? Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall see God?

Well, Jules tells me, we just speeded up his appointment.

And if there’s something else to be said, it’s not happening, because there’s a shadow sweeping down on us and there’s a voice to go with that shadow, and the voice says:

Boss.

It’s CK, and CK says: Chopper’s here. Let’s get you and yours out of here.

Okay, Jules says, and he doesn’t look at me again. He says to CK: You coming?

No, sir, CK says, and there’s that blank face and he says: We got some unfinished business.

Jules sighs and says: Yes. Well, do what you have to do. But for Christ’s sake, Clarence, do it right this time. And get those goddamn bearer bonds.

Then he’s straightening his tuxedo and he’s marching down the aisle and he’s gathering in his latest blonde and Meredith and her beau, and there’s Senator and Mrs. Blaine and a couple cronies, and that’s Agent Smithee with them, and Agent Smithee ushers them into the narthex and down the yellow brick road to the waiting helicopter. Next stop, somewhere far, far away.

So now it’s CK’s show.

I stand there for a while with my hands in my pockets and
CK stands next to me, and we watch the lights flickering through the broken cathedral windows, and soon enough the wings of that helicopter stir, speeding up, and together we watch that black dragonfly lift off the lawn and right about now I look at CK and CK is watching that helicopter like he’s hypnotized, he can’t take his eyes away from it, and I wonder and then I think and then I know why, and that’s when I say to CK, I say:

No.

CK doesn’t blink. He just says: Yes.

The helicopter hovers ten or so feet off the ground and its nose rotates slowly toward the ruined church. Toward us.

I say to CK: Who’s flying the bird?

CK says: Hoyt Lindgren. Then: You know him?

Oh, yeah, I say. Flown with him. Steady guy.

The helicopter rises, completing the semicircle, angling toward the northwest and its flight path, probably to National Airport.

CK says: What a shame. What a crying shame.

The helicopter leans into a steeper angle and begins to climb: Fifty feet, a hundred feet.

CK says: I really hate to lose a good pilot.

Which is when the helicopter explodes, erupting into a frantic flaming junkyard that rains charred metal and vaporized lives back onto the lawn.

CK turns and shows me his teeth. Connect the dots, he says. Connect the fucking dots.

This is—

I start to say it’s insane, but I think better about using that word, so instead I say:

This doesn’t make sense. You can’t sweep all this under the rug.

CK talks to me like he’s passing the time of day. Come on, Burdon, he says. It makes perfect sense. Jules was everything the nigger said he was: old and in the way. So now he’s neither of those things. And now, if push comes to shove, he’s the fall guy. It’s gonna make my friends real happy. And unlike you, I got friends. Lots of friends. And my friends, they’re the best in the business. They’re in those high
places you might have heard about. They been doing this sort of thing for years.

CK sniffs that cordite air. Breathes it greedily, like a guy who’s decided to start smoking again, taking his first new drag.

Lots and lots of friends, he says. And you know what? My friends, they got some mighty big rugs.

He leans into me. His hand grips my wounded shoulder and he squeezes. I try to shut the pain inside. No way he’s going to hear me scream.

But you, Lane, you got nothing. He squeezes my shoulder again and my eyes wince shut; I wonder if it is possible to faint.

Old Jules was right about that one, CK says. You got nothing.

You’re wrong, I manage to say through the pain. My voice is ancient, but the words find their way out: I got something.

I do, I tell him. I really do.

He eases up on my shoulder. I try to stand steady. I get a deep breath, then another.

Look, I tell him.

I keep the movement slow, simple and slow, and what I do is bring my right fist out of my coat pocket to show him what I’ve got. Simple and slow and he’s with me; he wants to see and I want to show him.

I raise that fist between us and I roll the curled fingers over and then, simple and slow, I open my fist and I show him.

There in the palm of my hand is what I’ve got, and it’s all I’ve got: A nine-millimeter bullet. The one that was in Renny Two Hand’s fist when I found his body in the ravine. I didn’t know then why he was holding that bullet in his hand, but now I know.

Now I know.

I tilt my palm toward CK. The bullet rolls onto my fingers. I pinch the bullet between my thumb and forefinger. I bring the bullet close to CK’s face, right to his eyes, and I say again:

Look.

He looks. He looks hard. He squints at that shiny hard-nosed cylinder and he sees but he doesn’t see, because what I show him is there but it isn’t there.

Because what I have is a bullet, just a bullet, and a bullet needs a gun, right?

Wrong.

I shove the bullet into his eye.

The sound isn’t a scream, the sound from his mouth is a choked exhalation of air and astonishment, and my finger and thumb worry the bullet into the remains of his right eye, this goo, this jelly, this sticky mess, until he falls away from me, falls to the floor, and I’m past him and right smack into Prince Charming.

Whatever Prince Charming’s trying to say, it’s too late for talking, and he’s good, he’s fast, his right shoulder dips and he comes up with his pistol, but my fist slams down on his forearm, and the pistol spins away, clattering into the pews. I try to step back but my balance is gone. Prince Charming uppercuts me and I manage to duck my head, take the knuckles glancing on my cheek and above the ear, into the hard part of the skull. Still it hurts, Jesus it hurts, but Prince Charming yells too and now he’s shaking his hand like maybe he broke a finger or two in the bargain. I can’t back away, so I step in, punching into his gut and then raising up and butting my head into his face. I hear a nice crack, feel the bite of teeth against my hair and scalp, and he’s dancing away from me. But not for long.

His arms take me into a bear hug and now I can smell copper, blood, it’s my blood, it’s his blood, I don’t fucking care, I grab at my Glock in the front of his pants. Prince Charming’s arms pull up to my neck and I’ve got the butt of the pistol but it won’t come free, I can’t get it free, so I just start pulling the trigger. The blowback kicks the Glock out of his belt and Prince Charming screams and screams and then he shuts up and falls down.

I dig into his pockets and repossess another one of my Glocks, scoop some magazines from the floor. Then I step over the body and start shooting.

People say that violence solves nothing, but they’re wrong, they’re so very wrong. I loose my Glocks on these killers and it solves them, oh, yes, it solves them.

I K-5 the first guy, single shot, center of mass, end of story.

The next guy’s caught in the open too, and he spins like a dervish when I fire twice and put him facedown into the carpet.

Number three jerks a sawed-off from beneath his trenchcoat and starts down the aisle. I dive left, firing as I go, take him twice in the chest, and he’s history. The fourth guy jack-in-the-boxes out of the last row and almost gets his weapon up when I spray him with death. Behind him the fifth guy, it’s Martinez, he scrambles for cover behind a pew. He reaches his pistol around the wood and snaps a couple wild shots my way. Not even close. I steady my grip and blow his hand off. He tumbles back and I finish him.

I empty the magazine into the next two guys and then I’m across the aisle, diving and sliding on the wood floor, my ruined shoulder taking the impact.

I crawl beneath the pews, feeling nothing but pain, getting my breath and my brain together. I lose the empty magazine, snap in a full one, and take inventory. Somewhere behind me is CK, still curled on the floor, no doubt, hand to his ruined eye. He won’t have let go of that Magnum. But there’s no one back there with him, which leaves five or six or seven guys between me and the door to the narthex.

Footsteps, coming from the left. I hug the carpet, watch high-powered rounds punch a ragged line of quarter-sized holes through the back of the pew. Count down the number of shots as the fool runs his magazine.

Then I stand, raising the first Glock and then the second, I stand and I offer them death with both hands, blasting my way into the aisle, blasting him and him and him and him and finally McCarty, who shouts something incomprehensible, his body undone, as he collapses into death. Then:

Silence.

Nothing.

But it’s not over. No way it’s over. I roll out of the aisle and it’s back to go: collect two hundred dollars and start reloading. But I need more than these pistols.

I look for what this is going to take: A shotgun. It doesn’t take long. There are always more guns—always—because it’s our right, our
goddamn right to own them. And there, across the aisle, is the gun I need: An Ithaca police pump in the grip of a dead guy.

But where is CK? Where the fuck is CK?

I can’t feature the voice. It’s out in the narthex and it’s barking names, probably putting the troops into position, somewhere beyond the door, getting ready for their version of the bounding overwatch, a little SWAT dance that goes something like this: Teams of two make the entry, alternating between point and cover positions. The point man boogies through the door in a low crouch or a dive. He flattens and starts rocking full auto while his partner scoots in to a better firing position and opens up while the point man advances, takes cover, and starts firing again while his partner moves. Like playing leapfrog. It’s a tough act to pull the curtain on, and outside that door are lots of guys, but inside there’s just me. They’re going to come in pairs and more pairs, and there’s … how many of them? Twenty, thirty, maybe more, with backup on the way. Oh, yeah, they’re going to come, and they’re going to keep coming.

And me, I’m laughing.

I’m laughing because I’m here and I’m alone and I am so very, very fucked.