Book of the Dead (12 page)

Once a severed hand tried to close over her wrist… then loosened.

That was all.

There was an unused cistern, polluted, which Jack had been meaning to fill in. Maddie Pace slid the heavy concrete cover aside so that its shadow lay on the earthen floor like a partial eclipse and then threw the pieces of him down, listening to the splashes, then worked the heavy cover back in place.

“Rest in peace,” she whispered, and an interior voice whispered back that her husband was resting in
pieces
, and then she began to cry, and her cries turned to hysterical shrieks, and she pulled at her hair and tore at her breasts until they were bloody, and she thought, I am insane, this is what it’s like to be in—

But before the thought could be completed, she had fallen down in a faint that became a deep sleep, and the next morning she felt all right.

She would never tell, though.

Never.

She understood, of course, that Dave knew nothing of this, and Dave would say nothing at all if she pressed. She kept her ears open, and she knew what he meant, and what they had apparently done. The dead folks and the… the parts of dead folks that wouldn’t… wouldn’t be still… had been chain-sawed like her father had chain-sawed the hardwood on Pop Cook’s two acres after he had gotten the deed registered, and then those parts—some
still
squirming, hands with no arms attached to them clutching mindlessly, feet divorced from their legs digging at the bullet-chewed earth of the graveyard as if trying to run away—had been doused with diesel fuel and set afire. She had seen the pyre from the house.

Later, Jenny’s one fire truck had turned its hose on the dying blaze, although there wasn’t much chance of the fire spreading, with a brisk easterly blowing the sparks off Jenny’s seaward edge.

When there was nothing left but a stinking, tallowy lump (and still there were occasional bulges in this mass, like twitches in a tired muscle), Matt Arsenault fired up his old D-9 Caterpillar—above the nicked steel blade and under his faded pillowtick engineer’s cap, Matt’s face had been as white as cottage cheese—and plowed the whole hellacious mess under.

The moon was coming up when Frank took Bob Daggett, Dave Eamons, and Cal Partridge aside.

“I’m havin a goddam heart attack,” he said.

“Now, Uncle Frank—”

“Never mind Uncle Frank this ‘n’ that,” the old man said. “I ain’t got time, and I ain’t wrong. Seen half my friends go the same way. Beats hell out of getting whacked with the cancer-stick. Quicker. But when I go down, I intend to
stay
down. Cal, stick that rifle of yours in my left ear. Muzzle’s gonna get some wax on it, but it won’t be there after you pull the trigger. Dave, when I raise my left arm, you sock your thirty-thirty into my armpit, and see that you do it a right smart. And Bobby, you put yours right over my heart. I’m gonna say the Lawd’s Prayer, and when I hit amen, you three fellows are gonna pull your triggers.”

“Uncle Frank—” Bob managed. He was reeling on his heels.

“I told you not to start in on that,” Frank said. “And don’t you
dare
faint on me, you friggin’ pantywaist. If I’m goin’ down, I mean to
stay
down. Now get over here.”

Bob did.

Frank looked around at the three men, their faces as white as Matt Arsenault’s had been when he drove the dozer over men and women he had known since he was a kid in short pants and Buster Browns.

“I ain’t got long,” Frank said, “and I only got enough jizzum left to get m’arm up once, so don’t you fuck up on me. And remember, I’d ‘a’ done the same for any of you. If that don’t help, ask y’selves if
you’d
want to end up like those we just took care of.”

“Go on,” Bob said hoarsely. “I love you, Uncle Frank.”

“You ain’t the man your father was, Bobby Daggett, but I love you, too,” Frank said calmly, and then, with a cry of pain, he threw his left hand up over his head like a guy in New York who has to have a cab in a rip of a hurry, and started in: “Our father who art in heaven—
Christ
, that hurts!—hallow’d be Thy name—oh, son of a
gun
, I—Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it… as it…”

Frank’s upraised left arm was wavering wildly now. Dave Eamons, with his rifle socked into the old geezer’s armpit, watched it as carefully as a logger would watch a big tree that looked like it meant to fall the wrong way. Every man on the island was watching now. Big beads of sweat had formed on the old man’s pallid face. His lips had pulled back from the even, yellowish white of his Roebuckers, and Dave had been able to smell the Polident on his breath.

“…as it is in heaven!” the old man jerked out. “Lead us not into temptation butdeliverusfromevilohshitonitforeverandeverAMEN!”

All three of them fired, and both Cal Partridge and Bob Daggett fainted, but Frank never did try to get up and walk.

Frank Daggett intended to
stay
dead, and that was just what he did.

Once Dave started that story he had to go on with it, and so he cursed himself for ever starting. He’d been right the first time; it was no story for a pregnant woman.

But Maddie had kissed him and told him she thought he had done wonderfully, and Dave went out, feeling a little dazed, as if he had just been kissed on the cheek by a woman he had never met before.

As, in a way, he had.

She watched him go down the path to the dirt track that was one of Jenny’s two roads and turn left. He was weaving a little in the moonlight, weaving with tiredness, she thought, but reeling with shock, as well. Her heart went out to him… to all of them. She had wanted to tell Dave she loved him and kiss him squarely on the mouth instead of just skimming his cheek with her lips, but he might have taken the wrong meaning from something like that, even though he was bone-weary and she was almost five months pregnant.

But she
did
love him, loved
all
of them, because they had gone through a hell she could only imagine dimly, and by going through that hell they had made the island safe for her.

Safe for her baby.

“It will be a home delivery,” she said softly as Dave went out of sight behind the dark hulk of the Pulsifers’ satellite dish. Her eyes rose to the moon. “It will be a home delivery… and it will be fine.”

BY PHILIP NUTMAN

Corvino, pulling the trigger…

…
and the film loop turns again. Twenty years the same image; slight variations, but ultimately the same: blood, death
.

The bullet takes the Negro straight between the eyes, exiting the back of the cranium, spraying bone, blood, cerebral matter over the wall.

A professional assassin, his aim is true. A dead shot.

The body of the janitor lies on the floor, legs splayed open in a V pattern. What is left of the head lolls to the left. Above the corpse, a crimson skid mark.

Corvino, exhaling.

So easy. Squeeze a trigger, snuff out a candle. Another life taken
.

He steps between the disorganized desks that clutter the classroom, proceeding to check the supply cupboard.

Empty.

From down the hallway the sound of breaking glass; three rapid-fire shots.

The brain, Harris. The brain
.

Silence hangs heavy in the still atmosphere.

(…the white room in the apartment block overlooking the Potomac. Simple, Spartan, befitting an assassin. The two abstract paintings in the style of Pollack. One composed of blue and orange slashes, paradoxically both dynamic and tranquil. The other a red arc on white, like a seppuku mat…)

Harris’s aim is deteriorating under the stress of the past week.

(…his room, his retreat from the insanity of the world’s war zones, where only his eye for accuracy had kept him alive… Vietnam… the Middle East… Nicaragua…)

They call him One-Shot, or Mr. Trigger. Dominic Corvino, the most reliable wet-work operative the Department owns. Guns are his friends. In the art of killing he is a master craftsman.

Now the stakes have changed.

(…his sanctuary defiled… the shadowy figure suddenly appearing in the doorway… the hiss of a suppressor… and a white-hot poker of pain piercing his chest…)

Now it is all down to basics.

He sits on a desk, pulling a Camel from his chest pocket, lights it, and exhales. The stench of death an old companion, the taste of a cigarette rare pleasure. Smoke catches at the back of his throat. Too dry, the tobacco stale. Corvino grinds it out with the heel of his right boot as he stands, checking the clip in his .45 automatic.

In life only one thing is certain: change.

The whole apple cart has fallen; not to the left or the right but straight down on its axle, spilling the load in every direction so there is no escape from the fallout.

Strange times in Casablanca
.

All the same: the streets and suburbs of the world’s cities awash with blood. Friend against friend, brother against sister.

(…followed instantaneously by a suffocating weight of blackness…)

Survival instinct overriding sentiment. There is no time to care, just the will to survive.

Corvino catches sight of his reflection in the window, the encroaching darkness defining the face that stares back at him, illuminated from above by cold electric light. Shadows pool his dark brown, deep-set Italian eyes, framed by his thick, black brows, the pallor of his skin wan and mottled in the unnatural light. His mouth is a faint, terse red slash. The nature of his work, the index of his experiences, do not encourage levity; he is a serious man who performs serious tasks with irrevocable results.

He scratches at his jawline, his fingernails grating against the fringe of stubble that coats his cheeks. Layers of dry skin adhere to the nails. He flicks them away.

Lack of proper nourishment
.

Corvino steps into the corridor. To his left, Skolomowsky and Lewis stand outside their respective classrooms, the latter’s navy blue jacket splashed with dark patches. Skolomowsky smiling. Cordite and the copper aroma of blood drift in the stale air of the high school. Corvino looks to the right. No sign of Harris. As he is about to move toward the room, Harris appears.

“Clear,” he states in his harsh Brooklyn accent.

Corvino nods, turns to Skolomowsky and Lewis.

“Ditto,” says the Pole.

Corvino pulls the radio from its holster as he replaces his Colt automatic in its sheath under his left arm.

“Alpha to Cleanup. Fourth floor sweep and clean complete. Start bagging them.”

He signals visual confirmation to the bag boys in the parking lot from the wide windows next to the stairwell. Ten men in teams of two, each with a body bag, trot in formation up the steps and through the open doors.

“Are there any other rooms in this building that have not been swept?” He addresses the question to Lewis, but Skolomowsky answers.

“No,” the big man replies. “Every inch of this place that’s worth checking has been covered. We’ve got them all.”

Corvino nods slowly. “Any resistance?”

“Nope,” Lewis says.

Corvino notices a bullet hole on Lewis’s jacket, fringed by a brown stain.

“Nada,” mutters Harris.

“Not enough,” Skolomowsky adds, smiling. “Too easy.”

Corvino looks penetratingly at the Pole. Skolomowsky’s passion for bloodletting threatens to cloud his professionalism again.

(…Tehran… Juzl dead… Lewis wounded… Skolomowsky’s cock-up? … mission aborted…)

Skolomowsky: professional killer; professional sadist.

He distrusts the Pole, who has perverse tastes.

(…Nashville… Skolomowsky… the remains of a prostitute… skinned alive… the motel room awash with blood… unnecessary…)

Skolomowsky continues to smile at Corvino.

“Something wrong?”

Before he responds, the first duo of bag boys appear at the top of the stairs.

“Where?” one inquires.

“Each room… No,” he says finally to the Pole. “Check weapons, then return to the parking lot.”

Corvino turns his gaze to the window, aware Skolomowsky is still staring at him. On the horizon small pockets of fire pulse in the South Washington suburbs. He looks down at his gun, pulling it free from the velcro strap, pops the clip, and replaces the cartridge with a full one.

Just in case.

A second duo run up the steps. He points to the nearest classroom. Lewis, Skolomowsky, and Harris file past him, heading to the first floor.

He has dispelled the question of what is happening. Like any good government employee he obeys orders; speculation is for the Think Tank, a foot soldier merely carries out orders.

Below him Lewis, Skolomowsky, and Harris gather in the parking lot next to the two gray armored vehicles. Bag boys and Beta team emerge from the school entrance to join them.

Corvino pulls the cigarette pack from his pocket without thinking, places a smoke between his dry lips, pauses, removes it, replaces it in the box.

He screws up the pack and tosses it to one side.

A sharp chill has settled in the air. Lewis paces by the truck, his M16 slung over his shoulder; expression calm, his movements indicate his internal feelings: stress, too many sleepless nights, and the psychological aftershock of what the Hit teams refer to as AZ—After Zombification— clearly taking their toll on his flayed nerves. Corvino can see he is a prime candidate for postoperation crack-up.