Prayers for the assassin

CHAPTER 21

“Thanks again for dragging me into your crime scene, buddy.” Colarusso belted down his drink. “Man calls me away from a nice, clean burglary investigation to check out a couple of poor bastards with mix-and-match heads, I just feel a surge of gratitude. I didn’t even know you were still talking with Redbeard. Chief of detectives himself gave me the word. I never seen him so impressed with me.” He rapped his empty glass on the bar. “One more time, Padre.”

The Catholic priest sidled over from the other end of the bar, refilled Colarusso’s glass with fortified wine. He blessed the wine with two fingers, looked at Rakkim.

Rakkim shook his head. He waited until the priest had retreated down the bar, back to the argument over the greatest baseball team of all time with three retired cops who kept threatening each other with bodily harm. “I owe you, Anthony.”

“Yeah, but not enough to tell me what this is really all about.”

“I’ve told you as much as I can.”

“As much as you want.” Colarusso shook his head. “Forget it. I only met Sarah a couple times, but I liked her. You say she’s in trouble, that’s good enough for me.” He rubbed his bulbous nose. “Still, I see R U Having Fun Yet? written in blood on a crime scene wall, I got to think the killings were supposed to send you a sign. Am I wrong?”

“No, you’re not wrong.”

“Well, that’s good news. Thought I was losing my finely honed cop instincts, and where would law enforcement be without them?” Colarusso belched, dug a big hand into the bowl of stale peanuts on the bar, the overflow bouncing across the polished hickory.

“I thought you were supposed to eat Communion wafers with wine,” said Rakkim.

“Don’t fuck with my religion, okay?” Colarusso tossed the peanuts into his mouth one at a time, rapid-fire. “No pork chops, no Scotch whiskey, no dogs, no rock and roll, no titty bars,” he muttered, chewing noisily. “Ain’t there anything you people are in favor of?”

“Don’t blame me, I voted for all of the above.”

“You’re a lousy Muslim.”

“That I am.”

Colarusso nodded. “That’s okay. I’m a lousy Catholic.”

Rakkim took a swallow of wine. Terrible stuff. Colarusso had brought him to a Catholic church in Seattle whose basement doubled as an after-hours cop bar. Colarusso said after the crime scene he needed a drink, and he didn’t want to go to the Zone for it, he wanted to be around his own kind. Rakkim needed a drink himself, and even though this Communion juice was swill, he liked the quiet and the company. Rakkim might not be the first Muslim allowed into the basement, but from the looks he got, he might as well have been. Colarusso had introduced him to the dozen or so cops standing at the bar, said he vouched for him, and anyone who had a problem with it could say so. The cops went back to their wine and the priest set them up.

“You sure the surveillance team swept the whole house?” said Rakkim.

“Twice. Just like I told you. If there was a bug there, they would have found it. I called in pest control too, made sure the story don’t make the news, just like you wanted.”

“Good. Have them sweep it again tomorrow.”

Colarusso had been annoyed with Rakkim for disturbing the crime scene, but he knew Rakkim had his reasons. Seeing Marian laid out on her bed, discreetly dressed, the Qur’an in her hands…Colarusso had understood.

“This is one crazy case.” Colarusso gestured with his drink. “I say, you want to kill somebody, go ahead and do it. That’s your business and mine is catching your ass, but propping people up on the couch with their heads all jumbled? Who does something like that?” He shifted his bulk, his gray suit bagged out and stained with a week’s worth of handheld lunches. “I’m not lightweight, you know me. I’ve seen things that would make your eyes pop out like Wile E. Coyote.”

“Who’s Wile E. Coyote?”

Colarusso shook his head. “I feel old.” He grabbed some peanuts off the bar. “I put in a call to Major Crimes, asked if there was another thrill-kill gang in operation. You remember those huffers we had last year?”

“Glue sniffers, right?”

“Glue, gasoline, turpentine, you name it. They’d hit some nice neighborhood, kick in the back door, and butcher everyone inside. Fast and sloppy. We’d find ears in the refrigerator, bodies crammed up the chimney…but today seemed worse.”

“There was intelligence at work today.”

“There was something at work.” Colarusso drank half his glass of wine, his face going slack. “I just want to find the crew who did it.”

“It might not have been a crew. It might have been one man.”

Colarusso snorted. “The bodyguard was a hard-core vet with a chestful of ribbons. It would have taken more than one man to bring him down.”

Rakkim didn’t argue, exhausted, as much from the crime scene as from lack of sleep. He hoisted his drink. After the second glass, the wine tasted better. He remembered Marian in the bathtub, her hair floating around her. He remembered the stiffness of her flesh and the effort it took to get her dressed and the feel of her wet hair as he carried her. Wrestling with the dead. “I killed her, Anthony. I killed all three of them.”

“Well, that should make closing the case easier.”

“I thought I covered my tracks, but somebody must have followed me to Marian’s. I might as well have killed her myself.”

“Quit your blubbering. You want me to forgive you? I can do it. I used to be a priest.”

Rakkim stared at him.

“It’s true. I was ordained in Woodinville when I was twenty-one. Left the priesthood after the transition. I could see which way the wind was blowing…and the celibacy thing was getting to me. You think you can handle it when you start seminary, but you get out in the world and your pecker has a mind of its own. Anyway, I’m not a priest anymore, but I still got the instincts. Still go to mass every week. Father Joe there, he hears my confession…then afterwards we retire down here and he sets ’ em up. Can ’t ask for more than that from a man of God.” Colarusso leaned closer to Rakkim. “You want me to hear your confession.”

“Muslims only bare our souls to Allah.”

“You sure?”

“Well, mostly I keep my sins to myself. Allah has enough on his mind.” Rakkim was laughing…it sounded like laughter, but tears were rolling down his cheeks. “I must be drunk. I can’t keep up with you Catholics.”

“You’re doing okay.”

Rakkim finished his wine, rapped the glass on the bar for a refill. He nodded at the pool table off to one side, the green felt shiny, ripped in a couple of places, but still inviting. “I’m surprised nobody’s playing.”

“The table’s off-limits,” said Colarusso. “Last year a couple of knuckleheads got into it over a game of eight-ball, fists flying, just really tearing the place up. Father Joe had to break a cue stick over one of them.”

“Did it leave a scar?”

Colarusso grinned, rubbed the back of his head. “No, but I still get headaches.”

Rakkim watched the room in the mirror, took in the cops strung out along the bar, and was glad he had accepted Colarusso’s offer. It was a plain, dark, low-ceilinged room filled with hard cases, tough and bitter men who didn’t need the thrash and clatter of the Zone. The choirboys, that’s what Colarusso had called the regulars, although most of them weren’t practicing Catholics. Lutherans and Catholics, agnostics and atheists, it didn’t matter-sergeants and detectives and a few patrolmen, but no brass. The choirboys may not have been religious, but they were too proud to convert just for the career advantage. Dust was on the floor and photos of boxers were on the walls and a painting of Jesus with his heart pierced with thorns. The basement bar was a place to get peacefully hammered on quasi-legal wine, to sand off the raw edges of the day, one glass at a time.

“You want to tell me about those books you took from the house?” asked Colarusso.

“They belonged to Marian Warriq’s father. His private journals. There’s something in them. Some information that I need. I just don’t know what it is.”

A huge detective staggered over, draped an arm around Colarusso. The well-dressed behemoth had satiny black skin, a shaved head, and a gold stud in his nose. He glanced at Rakkim. “Didn’t you hear about the dress code, Anthony? No towel heads.” His booming laugh filled the immediate vicinity with the stink of fermenting grapes.

“Rakkim, this poor excuse for a lawman is Derrick Brummel,” said Colarusso. “Derrick, this is Rakkim Epps.”

They shook, Rakkim’s hand lost in the detective’s paw.

“I just wanted to say hello,” Brummel said to Colarusso. He shifted his eyes.

“You can say anything in front of Rakkim,” said Colarusso.

Brummel gazed at Rakkim. “Is that right?”

“Take a chance,” said Rakkim.

Brummel turned to Colarusso. “You hear about my grab-and-scram? Punk snatched a ruby ring off the finger of some businessman, grabbed it right off the street and disappeared into rush hour. I got the call, did my homework. Description matched a kid I busted a few times previous. Scooped him up the next day.” He leaned closer and seemed to bring a heat with him. “This afternoon I find out the imam of the businessman is going to try the kid under sharia law.” Brummel glanced at Rakkim. “Kid’s Catholic, Anthony.”

“That can’t be right,” said Colarusso.

“It’s true,” thundered Brummel. Heads turned along the bar. “You think I don’t know the disposition of my own case?”

“Watch your pressure, Derrick,” said Colarusso. “Sit down and have another drink.”

“Am I a law-and-order cop?” demanded Brummel.

“You’re a law-and-order cop.”

“Am I a deepwater Baptist?”

“Deep as they come,” said Colarusso.

“Then you know I’m not making excuses for this kid. He’s a thief and a loser, but no way he deserves to have his hand chopped off.”

“The Black Robes can’t do that to a Catholic,” insisted Colarusso. “No way.”

“If the businessman said he intended to donate the ring to his mosque, he might have a case,” Rakkim said quietly. “It’s a stretch, but that’s one interpretation of the statutes.”

“If the Black Robes can haul a Catholic into religious court, they can haul in anybody.” Brummel looked hard at Rakkim, the overheads reflecting off his skull. “Shit jobs, shit housing, shit treatment. Now shit law? Christians can take a lot of abuse, but at a certain point we’re going to get fed up, and then you best watch what happens.”

“I don’t like it any more than you do,” said Rakkim.

“He’s telling you the truth,” said Colarusso.

“If you say so, Anthony.”

“He doesn’t have to, I say so,” said Rakkim.

Brummel pounded Rakkim on the back. “Okay, tough guy, we’ll discuss it some other time.” A glance at Colarusso. “I’m not drunk, but I’m close enough. Time to go home and take out my troubles on the little woman.”

Colarusso and Rakkim watched Brummel leave, the bar silent, then suddenly louder as the door closed behind him.

“He’s a good cop, but he dearly hates Muslims. Probably wished he had migrated to the Bible Belt when he had a chance. Most black folks did, but he stayed behind, figured he’d give the new government a chance. I was the same way.” Colarusso sighed, exhaled the scent of overripe grapes. “You were too young to remember what the country was like before, but let me tell you, it was grim. Drugs and desperate people beating each other’s heads in for reasons they couldn’t even explain. Man against man, black against white, and God against all-that was the joke, but I sure never got a laugh out of it.” Colarusso shrugged. “Then the Jews took out New York and D.C., and it made our troubles before seem like one of those tea parties where they serve watercress sandwiches with the crusts cut off. Taught us what hard times really were. Muslims were the only people with a clear plan and a helping hand, and everyone was equal in the eyes of Allah. That’s what they said, anyway.” He was bleary-eyed. “Besides, your people are big on the punishment part of crime and punishment, and they don’t take to blasphemy. I like that. The old government actually paid a man to drop a crucifix into a jar of piss and take a picture of it. Don’t give me that look, I’m serious. He got paid money to take the picture, and people lined up around the block to look at it. So, I’m not exactly pining for the good old days, but now we got Black Robes walking into police stations like they own the place.” He shook his head. “That ain’t right.”

“No, it’s not right.”

“I got a look at Anthony Jr. yesterday when he got out of bed. Must have had twenty or thirty cuts on him. None of them deep. They were already scabbed over. Sprayed himself with Heal-Qwik. Amazing stuff. He wouldn’t tell me who cut him. Said it was private.” Colarusso rooted around in his mouth with a forefinger, dislodged a bit of peanut from his back teeth, and flicked it onto the floor. “You sure you don’t want to go to confession?”

“Just help me find Sarah.”

“Anything you want. You know-” Colarusso reached into his jacket for his cell. Listened, nodding. “You’re sure?” He slipped the cell back, squinted, bothered by something.

“What?”

“That was the ME.” Colarusso plucked at his lower lip. “There was hardly any blood spatter in the living room, just what soaked the couch, so I thought for sure those two folks were killed someplace else and then posed, but the ME said they were killed right where you found them. It was the arterial…something that threw me off.”

“Arterial spray.”

“You know about these things?” Colarusso gave up waiting for an answer. “Cause of death was a knife thrust to the base of the throat, but according to the ME, the reason there was so little spatter was because they weren’t excited when they died. Minimal arterial spray because their heart rate wasn’t elevated at all. It was as if they were just calmly sitting there waiting to die.” He shook his head. “Doesn’t make sense. There were strangers in the house…strangers forcing their way in, those two people had to be scared. They should have sprayed the walls when they were cut.”

“It was one man and they didn’t see it coming.”

“I told you, the chauffeur was hard-core,” said Colarusso, exasperated. “I checked his sheet-he was trained. Hard to imagine him being so surprised he didn’t even move. Even if he was killed first, don’t you think his wife would have time to react? She just kept sitting there. I mean…who kills that fast?”

“Fedayeen,” said Rakkim. “A Fedayeen assassin could kill you so fast that you’d be dead before you tasted the blood in your mouth.”

“Fedayeen? Like you?”

“No, not like me.”

Colarusso stared at him, suddenly sober. “You’re scaring me, troop.”

Rakkim could see Terry and his wife posed on the couch, sheeted with blood, their heads in their laps. “The assassins specialty is a small unit within the Fedayeen. A thousand recruits, the best of the best…you might find one selected for assassins, and he might not even make it through. I had the speed, but I wasn’t right psychologically. It takes a certain…disconnect.”

“You had a heart.”

“Don’t bother dusting the place for prints, this guy isn’t going to be in any of the data banks, but when the uniforms finish their canvass, I’d like to see the report. On the off chance that one of the neighbors noticed someone suspicious, it would be nice to get a description.”

“This assassin…you think you could take him?”

“No.”

“You said you had the speed.”

Rakkim didn’t answer.

“Okay, I’ll drop the subject.” Colarusso dug into the bowl of peanuts, shook them in his fist. “Let’s talk about Anthony Jr. At the Super Bowl you told me you wouldn’t recommend him for Fedayeen, now you’re signing off on it. What changed your mind?”

“He’s got an aptitude…and what he’s doing now is more likely to get him killed than being Fedayeen. Even if he washes out, he’ll still be better off.”

“I know he’s hanging out with some roughnecks-”

“He’s leading the roughnecks. He’s directing them.”

Colarusso kept shaking the peanuts.

“I did what I thought was best for him. You know that.”

Colarusso avoided eye contact. “You should have seen his face when he told us that you were going to recommend him. I haven’t seen him so happy in years.”

“He’s a little wild, but he’s a good kid.”

“You were a good kid once too.” Colarusso tossed the peanuts onto the bar, sent them tumbling. “Look what happened to you.”