A Thousand Years of Darkness: a Thriller (7 page)

“Not
our
oil,” she clarified with another sniff. “That would be stupid.
Brazilian
oil. Joe said to sink everything we can in shares of Petrobras. It’ll make us billionaires.”

She left with Reggie. Trout rubbed his eyes wearily. He thought of Judy. Bugfuck, Oklahoma, might not be so bad after all. He got up and padded in his house slippers to the bathroom to take another shot of Maalox.

U.S. Provides Oil Aid

(New Orleans)—
Due to environmental damage caused by the American Petroleum oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the White House is expected to announce today that the U.S. moratorium on deep water oil drilling will continue indefinitely. However, Secretary of State Linda Johnston said yesterday that the U.S. will provide financial aid to Mexico and Brazil to drill in the Gulf to help offset any energy shortfalls...

In the meantime, hundreds of people are starting to congregate on oil-stained beaches around the Gulf coast to protest oil drilling. Protestors carry signs demanding President Anastos seize control of the oil industry...

Chapter Eleven

Tulsa

Sharon Lowenthal drove Nail in her rental Saturn to his apartment on South Lewis in order for him to change out of his hospital gown and purloined sheet into something more appropriate. Weak and dizzy, he sat at his dinette table to rest after exhausting himself changing into jeans and a yellow button-up shirt, over which he drew a light tan windbreaker to conceal the S&W .38 revolver stuck in his waistband. Homeland Security had seized his bloody clothing and police-issued Glock 22 as evidence.

“Do you want something cold to drink?” he asked Sharon.

She surveyed the one-bedroom efficiency as though considering the probability that the only thing in the frig if it was as Spartan as the rest of the place was a partial gallon of milk past its expiration date.

“Coke?” she requested.

He started to get up.

“I can find it,” she offered, rising. He dropped back down at the table.

She opened the frig door. A sour odor assailed the kitchen. Something in a bowl had mold growing on it. There was one bottle of Coca Cola, open and flat. She settled on the last Mountain Dew and slammed the frig shut before anything alive escaped.

“We can share a drink?” she asked.

He shook his head.

“I take it you aren’t married?”

“Divorced.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You?”

“Also divorced.”

“Sorry.”

“Why? You think I’m an old maid or something?”

“Don’t be so touchy.” He clambered to his feet, bracing himself against the back of the chair. He started to remove the bandages from his head but thought better of it. “Let’s go.”

“To where?”

“The county jail downtown.”

“Joshua Logan?”

She drove them downtown. Nail slumped in the passenger’s seat with his eyes closed, nursing his headache. Sharon turned on the radio and caught a live broadcast being delivered by President Anastos from a D.C. high school gym.

“The old order has been shaken,” he was saying in his rich baritone, “the old ideas and institutions are crumbling, and, uh, a new generation is called upon to remake the world...”

Nail opened one eye. “You can’t get away from that man.”

She glanced at him. “Remind you of anything from history?”

“Only that I have a headache and he’s making it worse.”

He switched the radio to Classic Country FM 99.5. Linda Ronstadt crooning
Blue Bayou.

Sharon stopped at a red light. “What will we learn from Joshua Logan?”

He shrugged. “That’s why we’re talking to him.”

She waited for him to continue. He didn’t. She prompted, “You said there were connections between Ron Sparks and the shooting at McDonald?s...?”

“We don’t have diddley yet. It’s a cinch the Homies aren’t about to tell me anything. I’ll have to start from the outside and work my way toward the center.”

“Don’t you mean
we
?” she corrected. “I have a stake in this.”

He said nothing. The light turned green. She pulled on through the intersection.

“I need to help in this, James. I was with Jerry almost from the beginning. What he knew and what he said got him—and your daughter—murdered.”

They were almost to the jail.

“It’s too soon to speculate,” Nail pondered. “The way you work a homicide is like you throw a bunch of marbles on the ground. You start picking up the marbles one by one until you get to the center.”

“And Logan is—?”

“Marble number one.”

Nail studied her as she looked for an open meter in the courthouse parking lot.

“I’ll get to the center one way or the other,” he said.

She stopped the car in the middle of a lane in order to meet his steady gaze.
“We
will,” she said.

* * *

The county jail consumed the entire sixth floor of the district courthouse. By the luck of the draw, Deputy Johnson happened to be on duty, manning the security desk in front of the electronics door to the cellblocks. He was too old and too fat to work the streets anymore.

“Man, you look like—” Johnson began when Nail got off the elevator. He saw Sharon and amended the last of his statement to “—awful.”

“Good seeing you too, Johnson. This is Sharon Lowenthal.”

“Meecha,” Johnson said. “I’m Jewish too. ‘Johnson’ don’t sound like no Jew name, but it is. Johnski.”

He laughed heartily.

“You know how to get on the right side of a girl,” Nail said.

“That’s what my three ex-wives say. You got my message about Logan.”

“You want to bring him out?” Nail asked. “We can use one of the interrogation rooms?”

“No can do. The Feds came and picked him up about two hours ago. Custody slip says they taking him to the Homeland lockup in Oklahoma City. I’ve transported prisoners there before. They don’t let no other law enforcement in that joint. They meet you out front and that’s as far as you go.”

Nail had had run-ins with Oklahoma City before, trying to interrogate homicide suspects in cases the Feds considered sensitive.

“Logan knew they was coming for him,” Johnson added, “so he left this for you.”

He opened a desk drawer and extracted a sealed envelope with
Nail
scrawled on it. Inside was a sheet of lined legal yellow paper filled with barely-legible handwriting. Sharon read it with Nail.

Det. Nail. I seen you at McDonald’s when the feds kilt Greg Morris so I thought you a straight arrow. One of the cops told me who you was when they arrested me. I don’t got much time. They coming for me cause I know some things, like how the Defenders didn’t kill Ron Sparks and who did. I know it sounds crazy, but it ain’t. Ron was what you call a double agent who knowed things from somebody he knew in Washington, D.C. He was supposed to infiltrate the militia cause the militia is the only ones standing up to fight. Understand what I’m saying? He was working for Homeland, but he was really with us. Det. Nail, the commies ain’t going to let me live either, sure as God made little green apples they ain't. Not much time left. I hear them coming for me…

The letter ended abruptly. Nail took it to mean Logan had had only enough time to slip the envelope to Deputy Johnson before Homeland Security took him away.

“Anybody else read this?” Nail asked Johnson.

“I put it in my pocket so the Homies wouldn’t see it.”

“Much obliged.”

“Nail, I’m real sorry about...your daughter and all.”

Chapter Twelve

Tulsa

Sharon suggested Nail return to the hospital to complete his treatment. He shook his head.

“I’m apt to run into Kimbrell and take his head off. Drop me at my apartment. You have a place to stay?”

“I took a room at the Kensington.”

He thought about it. “Is Baer’s security still in Tulsa?”

“Ernest was sent home to Iowa to be buried. Herb, the other bodyguard, escorted Jerry’s casket back to New York. They were good friends. Do I need security?”

“Whoever these people are may have intended to kill you too,” he said bluntly.

They went quiet, she in sober reflection, he in dark and revengeful thought.

The route to Nail’s apartment led past the ORU campus, which Sharon had avoided earlier on the drive downtown. Both glanced at the dome-topped stadium where so much blood had been spilled and where their lives had been suddenly changed forever. The stadium and parking lot were still roped off with yellow tape bearing warnings every few feet along its length:
Homeland Security. Restricted Area.
Tears filled Sharon’s eyes. Nail’s jaw hardened and his eyes narrowed.

“Do you think they’ll try again? To kill me, I mean?” Sharon asked when they reached his apartment building, a red-brick, four-story structure left over from forty years ago when the area was known as The Restless Ribbon.

He got out of the car, but his equilibrium faded. He staggered against the open door for support. Sharon rushed around and slipped underneath his free arm.

“Lean on me.”

“I’m all right.”

“Don’t be stubborn, Nail.”

He relented. He fished in his pocket for the key to his apartment and handed it to her. She opened the door and locked it behind them before letting him down on the sofa.

“You don’t have a cat or dog? Maybe a parakeet?”

“Mice.”

“Yuk! Is it too late for breakfast?”

“There’s a Burger King down the block.”

“You’re in no condition. I’ll fix us something here. If you have something?”

“There are some cans of tamales and beans in the cupboard. Above the sink.”

She smiled when she looked. The cupboard was as bare as Old Mother Hubbard’s except for the can of tamales, one of pork and beans and a Campbell’s chicken noodles.

“As long as I have a can opener, we eat,” he said. “It’s in the drawer by the stove.”

She removed cans, employed the can opener on them, turned on two burners and found some pots below the oven.

“Jamie...” The catch in his throat made him pause. “She wasn’t much for cooking either.”

Sharon looked around the cramped apartment. “I can’t believe she stayed with you.”

“She had her own apartment over by TU. If you think this is bad, you should have seen hers. Just like her mama.”

He watched her at the stove in her jeans and red shirt, a spoon in one hand, tending the pans. It had been a long time since a woman cooked for him. It was a nice feeling, even under the circumstances.

There was an old-fashioned percolator coffee pot on the back burner. She shook it, found it half-full and turned on the burner.

“You didn’t answer me. Do you think I’m in danger?” she asked without looking at him.

“You said this runs deep. How deep?”

“Did you ever watch Jerry Baer’s show?”

“He was some kind of conspiracy nut.”

“I suppose that makes me a conspiracy nut as well. I telephoned Zenergy News this morning. Carl Patton is running
Best of Jerry
next week with a special on Thursday for the funeral. Judge Galliano will fill in until I return to New York. I fully intend to take up where Jerry left off by continuing to expose these people for what they really are.”

“Which would be?”

“Marxists,” she said without embarrassment. “Communists.”

Nail shook his head. “I thought the Cold War was over.”

She was stirring beans with a spoon. She seemed unoffended by his disbelief, as though she had been through it before.

“Did you know Virginia erected a statue honoring Josef Stalin?” she asked.

“You’re kidding, right?”

“Communists are cool these days. Public schools ban American flag T-shirts, but you can wear one with Che Guevara on it. Actress Cameron Diaz toured Central America carrying a purse with a Soviet red star on it and the slogan ‘Save the People.’”

He shrugged. “Hollywood is full of dimwits.”

He recalled that Rupert had left a Che Guevara T-shirt in Jamie’s closet.

“Those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it,” she said gently, as though trying not to indict him for his ignorance of current world affairs. “Most everyone thought we had beat the Marxists, but they never give up. That’s what Jerry was doing—educating America on our history and where we’re heading.”

She tasted the beans. “Do you have condiments?”

“In the cupboard to your right. Both the salt and pepper.”

She had a nice smile, a little sad because of things, but still nice.

“We used to view communists as dangerous to the Free World,” she continued. “Now, communists are teaching our kids history. Kids know about ‘social justice,’ but they’ve never heard of the gulags or the mass slaughter in the Soviet Union, China, Cambodia, and wherever else Marxism is implemented. They can give you the name of Michael Jackson’s monkey and the titles of Lady GaGa’s albums, but most of them never heard of Vladimir Lenin or Pol Pot. All the networks are producing programs commemorating the anniversary of Michael Jackson’s death while America is burning and the emperor is fiddling.”

Nail thought her a bit melodramatic. The United States was the only permanent, dependable nation in the world. It was too big and powerful to fail. America would
never
accept communism.

“Do you want to eat on the sofa?” Sharon asked.

He got up from the sofa to take a seat at the table. “I go formal when I have guests.”

“Which by the looks of things isn’t too often.”

She dipped tamales and beans on his plate, took a share for herself and sat down. He started to dig in, but she stopped him with a sharp look.

“What?”

“Let’s say grace.” She bowed her head and took Nail’s hand in hers. He hesitated, then bowed his head. He hadn’t talked to the Big Guy in a long time.

She finished the blessing and let Nail’s hand go. “Now, we eat. Today
is
Sunday, right? Don’t you go to church?”