Run (28 page)

I look for Dawkins and it takes awhile but I find him, over there,
twisted into a broken pew, his body curled and limp. Dawkins always preferred the long-range action. Somebody got him close in, and they got him good.

Him, I say.

Doctor D turns the four-five on Dawkins’s corpse. He says:

Can’t get him no deader than that. But what the fuck.

Blam. He shoots the body. Then:

Who else?

I take a nice long time letting my eyes pick over the remains of that sanctuary, looking anywhere and everywhere but not at CK. And after that nice long time is up, my eyes come to rest on CK and that’s when I say:

Nobody.

They’re dead, I tell Doctor D, and I don’t stop looking at CK. I tell the Doctor the same thing I told Renny Two Hand:

Every last one of them is dead.

Yeah, Doctor D says, and it’s a lazy kind of yeah and I don’t know if he believes me, but right about now I don’t care if he believes me and I’m not sure he cares either. His business is done, and the law’s looking for him and they’re going to be looking harder now.

Come on, he says to his set. Let’s get the fuck out of Dodge.

One by one, the U Street Crew moves out, AKs trained on the crowd as they back away across the altar and through the door to the sacristy. They carry the bodies of their wounded and QP Green, their dead. Soon only Doctor D and Ray-Ban are left, and Doctor D has one last thing to say to Jules Berenger, to the whole congregation:

Maybe y’all figured it out by now, he says. But I’m gonna tell you anyway. You folks made one hell of a mistake today. Because you went and killed the wrong nigga.

Then: U or Die, he says.

Doctor D vanishes into the shadows of the sacristy, and there’s this frail moment before Ray-Ban calls out to Jinx:

Yo, homes. Let’s get gone.

Jinx tucks his pistol into his belt. As he walks away, he doesn’t even look at me, he just says:

Peace.

Peace. It’s the last of my pal Jinx, but when I bend forward, trying not to puke, it’s only the first of the voices I hear. Words words words are pounding at my head and after a while I let them in.

Daddy? That’s Meredith Berenger. The blood-stained bride, with the U Street Crew for groomsmen. What a wedding. At least she got to say I do.

Let them go. That one’s Jules. The guy’s finding his way back to Main Street USA and doing what he does best: Giving orders. Just like that.

Get CK, he’s saying. Get CK down here now.

Footsteps, hard and heavy. Someone running. A radio squawk that’s answered with white noise, and from somewhere, I kid you not, the sound of a baby crying. That cuts things loose. Suddenly there’s a muddle of mouths and movement and I do think I’m going to puke.

I try to hold my breath and I stare for a while at the sluice in my left armpit, the place where coat and shirt and Kevlar and skin and muscle and fat have been torn away by a few millimeters of flying metal, and I feel nothing, nothing but the need to vomit, and it’s shock, sometimes it’s the shock, just the shock, that kills you. I keep staring at the mess in my armpit and I manage to holster my Glock and then there’s nothing else to do: I stick my index finger into the wound, and when I don’t feel
a goddamn thing, I push it farther, farther, up to the second knuckle and that’s when something starts to hurt. So I dig that finger in there, dig it hard, and by the time the tip of that finger pokes out the other side of my arm, Christ, it hurts, and that’s when I know I’m going to be okay, I’m going to be just fine.

Ah, Chopper Two Niner this is Top One, over. Chopper Two Niner this is—

Daddy?

Let them go, goddamn it. We need—I told you to get CK down here. And McCarty. I want McCarty too.

This way, Senator. Another voice, but it’s one I don’t know. Please. Senator? Mrs. Blaine?

And then it’s McCarty: Mr. Berenger, uh, sir, we’re gonna get these people out of here. But what about—

Daddy?

Ah, Top One this is Chopper Two Niner, we read you, over
.

Yo, Jules. That’s CK, good old Clarence, at last. I manage to lose focus on the hole in my armpit and check him out. The guy is cruising down the aisle like it’s an afternoon at the Safeway. The Magnum’s loose in his fist. His belt is knotted around his right thigh. He wears the wound like a fashion statement.

Talk to me, says Jules.

Wait one, CK says to Jules, and he bypasses the old man and saunters over, bending down, huddling with me, to look at my shoulder, look at me, before he leans in close and whispers:

Thanks.

That’s when he coldcocks me with the Magnum. There’s an instant of bright light, the strobe of a flashbulb, and then nothing but pain. The impact takes me down to one knee. I fight the urge to put my hand to my face. Everything there feels broken: my ear, my cheek, my nose, my left eye. I can’t see out of my left eye and then I can and it burns, there’s blood, and there’s something else, something blurring my vision, and slowly gently carefully I bring my hand to my face and I touch a thin rag of skin torn from my temple, a flap over my eye, and I tear that skin from my face and come away with more blood. The world looks like a television picture that’s lost half its color.

CK strolls back over to Jules in time to hear him say: Clarence, you are going to have to do something with these people.

CK tells him: It’s done. He pivots right and calls out to the chaos, the panicked press of bodies, pastel and white and black, at the exit, and in their midst, his soldiers:

All right, ladies, listen up. Teams of two. Get these fucking people out of here, then get your dead and wounded. Martinez, I want a perimeter, and the rules of engagement are simple: There are no fucking rules. You see somebody black, you shoot, and you shoot to kill.

Then CK’s back to Jules.

Tell him, CK says to McCarty, and McCarty gets his face out of a walkie-talkie and, since he doesn’t have anybody to pass off to, he tells him:

We got twelve dead, Mr. Berenger. Some of them civilians. And we got maybe twenty wounded. A couple souls ain’t gonna make it—

CK finishes for him: Unless we get somebody in here stat. Then his voice goes soft, to McCarty: Get our wounded out but forget the civilians. If they can’t walk, they’re dead. We got to bury this one so deep it’s in China.

Daddy?

Just a goddamn minute, Meredith. What do you mean, somebody?

Look, Jules, CK says. We got a window here. We got fifteen, maybe twenty minutes. Tell him, CK says to McCarty.

So McCarty tells him: The, uh … the blow in Old Town has Alexandria PD and Fire overextended, most of the duty units and backups are locked down tight. They’re calling in mutual aid, Arlington County and Fairfax County, Code 3, and our friends in dispatch are gonna try to keep the lid on things here.

Daddy, I—

Shut the fuck up, Meredith. Just shut the fuck up.

Chopper Two Niner, this is Top One, we have a situation, stand by. Change frequency to Code Bravo and stand by, over
.

CK’s right on top of Jules, and he says: So we got time, boss. Time to deal with things. So let’s get dealing. Look: Murders in Manhattan, bombs and burning buildings. Now part of Alexandria’s blown to never-never land. What does it take to connect the dots? Try this on for size:
Maybe the U Street Crew wasn’t satisfied taking down Gideon Parks so they go gunning for a U.S. senator and a respected businessman
and
their fucking families. At a wedding, for Jesus’ sake. The niggers want to start a civil war, so hey, we’re cool. I got a couple birds and a lot of friends incoming. We’ll get you and then us out of here.

Jules starts to say something, but McCarty jumps in: Heads up, he says. Then:

Jules.

A new voice, and this one’s unmistakable, courtesy of
Meet the Press
and
Larry King Live
, that mid-south baritone flavored with hickory and rehearsed sincerity. The junior senator from Kentucky. Everything the guy says is a sound bite.

My God, says Senator Anthony Blaine, and Jules gives him back full scripture:

Senator Blaine—Tony, my God. Let my men see you and your loved ones to safety. My God, sir, what has happened to this nation? No one is safe from these savages. I trust that you will help see that this act of terrorism does not go unpunished. But here, let my people take care of you—

I wonder, Jules, if we might not be safer on our own.

Cue a pair of earnest faces I’ve never seen before, preppie nightmares with Pepsodent smiles. The first one flashes the junior senator from Kentucky a leatherette wallet with an FBI badge before making a polite but insistent gesture toward the exit.

This way, Senator, Prince Charming says. Agent Smithee here will escort you and Mrs. Blaine outside. Ma’am? There is a helicopter inbound.

But Senator Blaine isn’t finished. Jules, he says. Who is that man?

I raise my head, show the politician my bloody face. That ought to be his answer, but Jules says to him:

I wish I knew, Senator. I wish I knew. Come now, let these gentlemen take care of you. And take care of this dreadful affair.

But—

Prince Charming’s partner sweeps in and steers the Senator and Mrs. Blaine off on their way back to Oz or wherever it is that Republican bluebloods go while CK picks up the pieces.

Chopper’s gonna be here in under ten minutes, CK says to Jules. But you need to know something else. Tell him, he says to McCarty.

McCarty has his face in the walkie-talkie again. He tells the walkie-talkie: Wait one. Then he tells Jules:

We got beaucoup radio traffic out there. Not just Alexandria PD. We got Feds.

All eyes spin toward Prince Charming, who gives back nothing, not even a shrug.

McCarty has some words caught in his throat. There’s this weird pause until finally CK says to Jules:

Not ours.

Then, to Jules, to Prince Charming, to McCarty, to the boys, maybe even to himself:

But listen, it’s not a problem. If they get here first, we got them covered.

CK’s eyes go over Jules’s shoulder and into slits. He stalks to the front of the altar, where the priest is bending over the kid in the flayed tuxedo. The poor kid’s dying and he’s not doing it well. CK grabs the priest by the collar, drags him to his feet, and says: Get the fuck out of here.

CK shoves the priest down the aisle, past us, shoving and shoving, and he’s off to do whatever it is he’s going to do.

Jules says: What happened to you?

My mouth tastes like pennies. I want to spit but my tongue can’t find anything wet. I don’t know, just yet, that Jules is talking to me. Then he’s saying my name and there’s no doubt about who he’s talking to, it’s me, and Jules is saying:

What happened to you, Lane? What in the world happened to you?

It takes me a while, but:

I got shot, I tell him.

I look at the blood streaming out of my shirt cuff, dripping down my left wrist and falling. Wicked ink on the floor.

Yes, he says. I can see that. But I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about what happened to you.

Jesus, my shoulder hurts. My face hurts. Talking hurts. Just thinking hurts:

What happened to me?

Yes, he says again. You were a good soldier, Lane. A very good soldier.

Yeah, I tell him. Like all the good soldiers buried out there in Arlington Cemetery. Headstones in rows and rows and rows. Little flags on Memorial Day.

Jules tugs a white silk handkerchief from his tuxedo jacket, hands it to me. I press the handkerchief into the wound, watch it stain.

You let them in here, didn’t you? Those … people. It was your idea. All your idea.

Oh, yeah, I tell him. My idea. You started this, Jules, remember? I was just trying to finish it.

The guy laughs. The guy fucking laughs at me. He says:

Sure. You want to know something, Lane? Maybe you’re right. Maybe it is my fault. And you know why? Because I misjudged you. I thought you were a good soldier. But instead of doing what you were supposed to be doing, you had to start thinking, didn’t you? You couldn’t just do what you were told. You had to go and get yourself a conscience.

His head snaps left.

Take his guns, Jules says, and here’s that new guy again, Prince Charming with the leatherette wallet and the FBI badge.

Prince Charming twists the Glock out of my belt and shoves it into the front of his pants. He swipes into my suit coat, takes the Glock from the Bianchi holster at my back and pockets it. Then he starts patting me down. He pulls the magazines from my pockets, tosses them onto the floor. He dances over the small stuff, the pen and the comb and the change, before he slaps into my book and gives me a sneer. The frisk is less than professional, but Prince Charming finds what he’s looking for, so the grand finale comes when he lifts the third Glock out of my ankle holster and shows it to Jules like it’s the prize in the Cracker Jack box. Then he backs off and Jules returns to center stage.

Not much without them, are you, son?

Jules turns on the high beams, and his words gather Prince Charming and the rest of his buddy boys closer. What he has to say is for them, not for me:

Give a man—any man—a gun, Jules says, and suddenly he’s something. He can do what he wants. He can take what he wants. He can kill a man if he wants. And not just any man. He can kill a prime minister, a president, a king. He can kill a messiah if he wants.

A man with a gun can do all that, Jules says. But take the gun away, and what have you got?

Jules hawks up a gob of spit and lets it go onto my shoes.

You got nothing. And you know what, Lane? That sort of sums you up. Used to be, you had something. And now—well, now you don’t. You got nothing. And you know what? When you got nothing, you are nothing. And that’s you, Lane. You’re nothing.

End of speech. So now maybe we get down to the short strokes. To business. The proposition. Because Jules is the kind of guy who always has one. And that’s the reason I’m still standing, the reason I’m alive.

He says something to Prince Charming. Then to me:

Put your hands in your pockets.