Heart of the Assassin

CHAPTER 26

Lester Gravenholtz stared straight ahead as Malcolm Crews strutted across the stage of the grand amphitheater in Atlanta, posturing for the TV cameras. Crews was sermonizing his balls off, but Gravenholtz barely noticed, concentrating instead on not looking around for Karla Jean again. He about had a crick in his neck as it was. Enough was enough. You'd think no pretty girl had ever looked at him twice without being paid…which was pretty much the case, except for Baby, which was a whole nother story.

Gravenholtz shifted in the pew. Up until Baby gave him the look, he had been loyal to the Colonel, his strong right arm, and even if the Colonel held him back sometimes, gave him a talking to when Gravenholtz wanted to lay waste to the countryside, well, that was just the Colonel's gentility, his sense of Southern honor. No harm in that. The Colonel was fair and square, when most men in his position would have taken what they wanted with both hands. Besides, there were always plenty of badasses even the Colonel thought deserved killing, so Gravenholtz had plenty of room to work out his aggressions. Yeah, it had been some good times before Gravenholtz took up with Baby.

Gravenholtz glanced around…no Karla Jean. Fuck her. Fuck her.

Not that Baby hadn't been worth ruining his life over. He groaned thinking of her, and the old lady next to him scooted away from him. Seeing Baby in the morning light, those creamy curves…the sweetness of every inch of her…and that dirty mind…that had been what really sold him. He balled up the tract the ushers handed out, threw it on the floor. Over and done with. He might as well have been a tissue she blew her nose in, then tossed away. Oh, she acted like things were temporary, like any day now she'd show up in his bed and put him through his paces, but he knew better. He wasn't a fucking moron.

"I've been asked to tone down my rhetoric," said Crews, voice low, as though imparting a secret to the crowd and the millions watching him on television. "I've been advised, 'Pastor Crews, you best tone down your condemnation of Aztlan. Leave such things to the politicians, Pastor Crews, and tend to matters of God.'" The lights flashed off his pure white suit as he strode across the stage. "I've been told to tone down my defense of the Colonel, told to leave this good man to the tender mercies of those who know more than I do about, he spat the word, geopolitics." He stood under the hot lights, arms outstretched, martyred, slowly shaking his head. "And brothers and sisters to that I say…"

The crowd leaned forward.

"I say, God damn the politicians."

People in the crowd jumped to their feet, applauding.

"God damn the appeasers."

More people stood, raised their hands over their heads.

"God damn those who attempt to silence your pastor."

The crowd thundered their approval.

Crews was talking dangerous stuff. Last night Jinx Raynaud, the president's wife, had Crews perform a private healing on her son, warning him afterward that her husband wanted Crews to quit stirring the people up against Aztlan, give him time to work things out with the Mexicans. Crews told her he answered to God Almighty, not man.

You ask Gravenholtz, Crews didn't answer to God or man, but his approval ratings were over 70 percent and rising, which was a lot more than the president could say. It was just like Baby had predicted. The Old One was probably ready to buy her a solid gold island in the South Seas. Lot of good it did Gravenholtz. His job was to keep an eye on Crews, make sure he didn't go off track, and wait for the Old One to give him something important to do. Anything was better than this…sitting here night after night while the whole country went nuts for Malcolm Crews. The man in white. What a fucking joke.

The crowd finally sat down, let out a collective sigh. Crews wiped the sweat from his face with a white silk handkerchief, bent down and gave it to a little girl at the edge of the stage. You'd have thought he'd cured her cancer the way the crowd reacted.

Gravenholtz had to force himself not to look around again for Karla Jean. Man had to hang on to his pride. She said she'd be here tonight, but that was just a lie. Some excuse to get away from him. He felt his face blister up thinking about her. There had been some moments there when he actually thought she was interested in him. Not 'cause she wanted something from him, or because she was scared of him, but because she saw something in him…something nobody else did. Shit, something even he didn't really believe was there. Instead, she was just like the others. His hands twitched. Somebody was going to get hurt tonight. Somebody who had no idea what was coming his way.

A light touch on his shoulder. "Is this seat taken?"

Gravenholtz looked up into Karla Jean's eyes. "You're late."

"I…I was afraid."

"Afraid of what?"

"Are you going to scoot over, Lester? Or you want me to stand out here forever?"

Gravenholtz made room for her. Inhaled her perfume as she sat down, her long hair brushing against him. "Afraid of what? You got a problem with somebody, you let me-"

"You're the problem, Lester."

"Me?"

Karla Jean rested her hands in her lap, nestled among the folds of her pale yellow dress like a pair of white doves. She kept her eyes down. "I have feelings for you. First time…first time since my husband died. It's a little overwhelming."

Gravenholtz placed one of his hands over hers, covering it completely.

"I don't want to be hurt," said Karla Jean.

"I'd never hurt you," said Gravenholtz.

"Men always say that."

"I'm saying that. I won't ever hurt you, and I won't let anyone else hurt you either."

Karla Jean looked deep into his eyes. Leaned over, rested her cheek on his shoulder.

Gravenholtz felt a sense of peace that he had never felt before. There had never been a moment like that with Baby, not a moment that he wasn't boiling over. Karla Jean squeezed his hand and he could hardly breathe.

"If I agreed to stay silent, who would talk about the church burned to the ground in Corpus Christi?" asked Crews. "Would the president or the opposition leaders do more than pay lip service to this atrocity in the city named the body of Christ?"

"No!" shouted the crowd, as Crews's image loomed eighty feet high on the Jumbotron.

"Two hundred and forty-seven good Christians incinerated on a Sunday morning and yet the Aztlan ambassador is still invited to the White House for coffee and biscuits."

The United Nations had sent a peace envoy to Atlanta to try to work things out between the president and the Aztlan ambassador.

"Two hundred and forty-seven men, women and children roasted alive while they prayed to God, and now…now Aztlan says, hey, it's not our fault. It wasn't a sanctioned military action, even though a team of Aztlan commandos carried it out." Crews stalked the boards, hands flying. "Not our fault, says Aztlan, it was a single rogue officer. One bad apple."

People wept, shouted for vengeance, stamping their feet.

"Anyone here believe that? Anyone here believe Aztlan? Anyone?"

Karla Jean leaned close to Gravenholtz. "Lester…let's get out of here." She had a shy smile, like she hadn't shown it to anyone in a long time. "I want you to take me home."

Gravenholtz stood up, his ears burning.

John Moseby slipped back into the truck, shut the door. Sweat ran down his forehead, the faceplate of his radiation suit fogged over. He could see the Washington Monument through the windshield, the white limestone gleaming in the sunshine, but dangerously canted. Still standing, though. They built things strong back then.

He had tried talking with the zombies living on the outskirts of D.C. when he first arrived, tried to bribe them for maps that charted the hot spots, but they were wary, seeing him for what he was, an outsider looking for treasure they viewed as their own. Being black didn't help either; those who talked with him didn't shake his hand or invite him into their homes. Instead, they took his money and gave him bad information and bad maps. After only three days of stumbling into unmarked hot spots, he had exceeded his recommended roentgen count, was well into the danger zone. Every minute he stayed here now risked further radiation poisoning.

He wished he could talk to Annabelle. Just hear her voice…her laugh.

Moseby cleared his throat, tasted metal. He plugged his suit into the truck's electrical system, turned up the air-conditioning. The suit was fine, but the truck he had borrowed from the Colonel wasn't up to the job, its shielding stopgap and the air-filtration system inadequate. His own fault for cutting corners out of haste. Sarah had pleaded with him to wait to begin his search, but Moseby had been fired up when she told him what he would be looking for.

The cross…a piece of the cross where Jesus had been crucified, a piece of the cross upon which he had shed his blood. Moseby had been a devout Muslim once…he had become an even more devout Christian since falling in love with Annabelle. The chance to actually find a piece of the true cross in the dead city, to bring it forth into the sunlight…Sarah didn't have to convince him.

Moseby leaned back in his seat as the truck's electrical system boosted his suit's air-conditioning. A breeze blew scraps of paper down the street, tumbling end over end like ghosts. He was never going to get this place out of his mind.

Exploring the sunken city of New Orleans should have prepared him for anything. He had dived among the dead in the French Quarter and the surrounding districts for years, sometimes pushing them aside to gain entrance to a hotel or storefront, dead fingers waving…but this place…D.C. spooked him. The waters that had covered New Orleans on one dark night provided a screen for the emotions somehow; the soft green light, the brightly colored fish and sprouting sea grass gave a certain continuity. The dead of New Orleans rested among living things. Here…the grand buildings lay unchanged, frozen at the moment of destruction. There was no life in D.C. The dead were alone.

Last night Moseby had sat in his truck, exhausted, breathing in the stink of his self-contained suit. He had dozed off for a few minutes, awoke disoriented, the monuments gleaming in the moonlight, perfect as a tourist snapshot, and Moseby had wanted to tear off his suit and wander the empty boulevard, go wading in the Tidal Basin and wash himself clean. He had actually reached for the toggle switches on his suit before he caught himself, and the recognition of what he had almost done shook him, made him put the truck in gear and peel off down the street. He raced along for a dozen blocks, knocking smaller vehicles aside, before he regained control of himself.

Moseby sat up. Checked his gauges. Started the engine, the noise and vibration reassuring somehow. He needed to get out of here now. Get out of this suit. He'd have to contact Sarah, risky or not, and tell her he had rushed things. Maybe she could find some way to get him a better vehicle, fully shielded, maybe get him some better maps too. Knowing her, she was probably already working on it. The cross was worth dying for, definitely, but Moseby had to stay alive long enough to find it first.

"Thanks for parking down the street," whispered Karla Jean as they stood on the doorstep of her small house. "I've got nosy neighbors."

Gravenholtz glanced around. Hardly any lights on in the surrounding houses. No one on the street. The grass in the yards was overgrown, bikes rusting in the weeds.

Karla Jean unlocked the door, hand trembling. "I…I feel like such a whore."

Gravenholtz stepped inside after her, closed the door. It smelled clean…like she did. Just a single light on in the tiny kitchen. One room, a cast-iron bed in the corner. Wildflowers stuck in a cut-down Coke bottle on the nightstand. Photo-holo display facing the bed, switched off now.

"Do you think this is wrong, Lester? I don't want to ruin things between us."

"No…what we're doing is right. We don't gain nothing by waiting."

"That's…that's what I told myself." She stood on her tiptoes to kiss him.

Her lips were soft against him, and Gravenholtz felt like he was twelve years old again, inexperienced, uncertain and scared at the wonder of it all. He put his arms around her, surprised at how slender she was, her body taut against him.

"We…we don't have to hurry," he gasped. "Been a while for me."

"I can't believe that. A man like you…"

"No, been a long while since I was with anyone like you. Maybe even never."

"You're just flattering me, Lester Gravenholtz, and you don't have to-"

"I mean it."

Karla Jean stared at him in the dim light. "I believe you." She touched his face with her small, slender hands, felt him flinch. "What is it?"

"I don't like you eyeballing me…I'm ugly."

She slapped his chest. "You most certainly are not."

Gravenholtz shook his head. "I got a face like a pig's ass."

"You're strong-looking. Determined. Not like the weaklings and pretty boys I see every day. You're a man who knows what he wants and is not about to let anyone stop him. What woman wouldn't be attracted to that?"

Gravenholtz nodded, not trusting himself to speak.

"You want a drink?" said Karla Jean. "I got beer…bourbon-"

"Do you need a drink?"

"No." Her eyes were certain. "No, Lester, I don't."

"Me neither."

She kissed him again, lightly brushed her lips against his, and there was nothing else in the world but her at this moment, no one but the two of them in this little house on the edge of town, no past, no future…just now.

Karla Jean stepped away from him, trailing a hand across him as she moved away, as though she couldn't bear to part. "Take off your clothes," she said softly.

Gravenholtz blinked.

She unbuttoned the top button of her dress. "Please?"

Gravenholtz tried to speak. It was easier with a hooker. You paid them and did what you wanted and then you left. Even easier when you raped a random woman…not because you didn't have to pay-Gravenholtz didn't care about money-but the passion of the act…their rage and disgust made it better. This, though…when you cared about the woman, when she cared about you…there was so much to lose.

"Please, Lester." Her fingers toyed with the next button. "I have to see you. Really see you." Her lower lip trembled. "My parts…my female parts are tiny as the rest of me. I got to make sure you don't hurt me."

"I told you…I'd die before I hurt you."

Karla Jean sat on the bed. "I won't ask you again."

Gravenholtz kicked off his boots. Peeled off his pants and underwear, left them in a heap. He pulled off his shirt without unbuttoning it, stood there before her naked. He was breathing so hard you would have thought he had run a race.

Karla Jean stared at him from the bed.

"What? You look surprised."

"I am a little." Karla Jean pulled a pistol out from under her pillow. Centered it on his chest. "I thought you'd have on some bulletproof vest or something. I heard you been shot a hundred times and never died. Everyone said you had some kind of…special protection." She pulled back the hammer of the gun. "I guess you left it at home tonight."

Gravenholtz covered his penis with both hands.

"I couldn't believe it when I saw you in church. I thought, Just maybe there is a God."

She switched on the photo display with a remote. An image appeared of Karla Jean in a white wedding dress, a skinny young man in a badly fitting suit beside her. The young man was looking at her with the same expression Gravenholtz had got when he'd thought about Karla Jean these last few days-like how did he get so lucky? And maybe…maybe everything that had gone before could change now. Karla Jean and the young man were dancing inside a small church now, round and round, dizzy with a secret joy.

"You recognize him now?" said Karla Jean.

"Should I?"

"I guess you killed too many men to remember them all. Well, I remember him. His name was Bryce Lee Johnson and you killed him three years ago outside of Harrisburg. He was a gunsmith, traveling the back roads to save money so we could start a family. Way I heard it, you wanted his personal weapon, the one he used to show off the quality of his work, and he didn't want to sell it. So you snapped his neck like a chicken bone and tossed him aside."

Gravenholtz still didn't remember him, but he remembered the gun, a beautiful.41-caliber Colt with an etched barrel, silver inlays and a soft trigger pull.

The pistol never wavered. "It's coming back to you now, isn't it?"

"Karla Jean…I'm sorry about your husband."

"I bet you are."

"Shooting me won't bring him back. If you can forgive me, maybe the two of us-"

"The two of us?" She stepped closer, snarling. "The two of us?" She fired the pistol and he staggered backward, feeling like he had been punched in the heart. She advanced, fired again and again and again, each shot knocking the breath out of him, the house echoing with the sound.

She fired again, just inches from him, and Gravenholtz saw her gasp, put her hand to her neck. In the dimness, something black was leaking through her fingers.

"Karla Jean?"

She wobbled, sat down heavily.

Gravenholtz bent down beside her, moved her hand and clamped his own over the wound. A bullet fragment had ricocheted off his subdural body armor and nicked her carotid artery.

She clutched at his bloody shirt. "Why…why didn't you die?"

"Don't talk." Gravenholtz tried to apply pressure on the artery, but his hand was slippery.

"I shot you. You should…you should be dead."

"You didn't know what you were doing. You were just angry, that's all."

Her eyes looked sleepy.

"Please…please don't go," said Gravenholtz, losing his grip on her neck. Her body jerked, blood spurting. "I…I forgive you, Karla Jean."

She turned her head away.

Gravenholtz thought she was trying to avoid looking at him, then realized she didn't even know he was there anymore. She was trying to get one last glimpse of her husband.