The Celestial Instructi0n (4 page)

Feeling better after his shower and his freshly
washed clothing, he had thought about how to begin to carry out the next step,
which was to take the initiative away from his personal stalker. Zugzwang, big
guy. He considered the potential implications of everything that had happened
to him today. He was not recently used to thinking in a logical, orderly,
linear way. He left that way behind him. But why not just run far away from
this place?

It came down to a random stalker would likely not
have a long gun, nor would have previously investigated him at the Commissary,
nor a new car, and certainly not an armored SUV. Or enlisted the help of the
police. Or tracked him to the forest. (How?) A random stalker would not have
been able to track him at all. This implies that the stalker was following a
plan and specifically after X baby. But why? And how could a professional
killer miss despite taking several shots? But most critically: what in the
universe of his personal downspin—qualities which were shared by thousands of others
in better or more effective or more public ways—a stalker felt that must be
extinguished in him? An undistinguished homeless bum on the street?

Joex could not think of a single reason why anyone
would want to be his caput mortuum. What? Death’s head? Where had that phrase
come from? “Bums don’t talk like that,” Joex whispered into the air, “that was
another life.” He was considering the most likely ways of attracting his
stalker to a place of his own choosing, but as if aligning to his thoughts, on
the north side of the plaza across from the showers, he saw the silver GMC
Suburban SUV with the sea-green windows slowly enter and park in a red zone.

“Joe X Baroco. ‘X’ marks the spot, old buddy,
crosshairs, Christ on a cross,” he mumbled to himself. He wheeled around and
walked widdershins to the traffic, away from the showers and behind the
Suburban that would eventually wrap around to the rear of the SUV. He walked
just fast enough so that his gait could still be described as shambling—looking
into the storefronts, away from the massive SUV: “I just don’t have the fucking
balls for this,” Joex said, loud enough to be specifically ignored by a
passer-by.

Joex’s self-assessed half-assed plan was this. If
the stalker left the Suburban, and left it unlocked, Joex was going to get
behind the back of the broad cargo seat. He would wait for a surprise
opportunity to get a story out of his stalker, by force. Use deadly force, if
necessary. We are going to dance a deadly gavotte, you and I. Joex had no idea
of this would work: was the stalker alone? Was the SUV vulnerable? Was there
sufficient space to hide? Could he surprise someone who likely trained and
practiced for his task? All of those objections became irrelevant as Joex
settled into visualize each step of his plan. Rehearsing it with variations as
fast as his sluggish brain would fire. “This doesn’t suit me, man,” Joex
whispered. His left hand shook. Overall, Joex sought some kind of resolution to
the end of his life, and it might as well happen now.

The tall man with the undecipherable complexion got
out of the driver’s side and, as Joex, began to walk counter-clockwise around
the edge of the plaza. The man kept his eyes on the building with the showers
across the street through the palm trees and topiary of the plaza gardens. Again,
he made the betraying brush of his hip.

“Time for a puff of sharav.” Joex gauged his
ambling so that he would reach the SUV at the same time the wiry man—Joex
decided to call him Mr. Brillo—reached the front of the shower building. “How
in the hell did he know I was here? How in the hell?” As Joex had anticipated,
Mr. Brillo reached the front of the building and immediately started around the
side toward the back fronting the showers entrance, stepping up his pace. “I’ve
got about half a minute now.”

Joex too jogged forward and quickly surveyed the empty
SUV through its unfathomable windows. In one fluid motion as if he were taking
home the weekly groceries, went to the driver side, opened the door, climbed
in, and looked for the best way of concealing himself in the back. His eyes
stopped when they saw the keys left in the ignition. Joex changed plans, settled
into the driver’s seat, put on his seat belt, locked the door, started the Suburban
with a satisfying visceral roar. He signaled his entry into traffic and merged
with the autos leaving the plaza for the coastal highway.  It was all magically
easy.

While he had not driven for a very long time, Joex
felt as if he were fifteen again and given the wheel of a car for the first
time. As the powerful machine got up to speed, Joex loosened the silk tie
coiled around his neck like a scarf and began a syncopated crooning to the air.

Joex’s elation did not last long. He drove a few
minutes heading north on 101 and began to glance obsessively in the SUV
side-mirrors. “If Mr. Brillo has clout with the locals, then I got to let this
puppy go.” He took the exit to the Mad Landing beach and parked in the day
camping area. There were just a handful of other cars and no one obviously around.
Joex re-wrapped his Paisley tie around his hand like a bandage and used it to paw
through the car. In the back under a dark-green plastic tarp was a Pelican long
gun case locked with its unpickable Abloy locks. He saw no key. “Well, I guess
that is that,” Joex muttered into the air.

Nothing under the driver’s seat or under the visors
or in the center console; but in the glove compartment Joex struck gold: a compact
Glock pistol, a Federal Reserve bank-banded stack of new $100’s, and finally, the
pinnacle of Joex’s search, the registration slip showing the registered owner
as a “Riddler’s Crosstown Rental’s” in Portland, Oregon. Every path has two
directions, Joex thought.

He left everything—not even touching the pistol—except
the money, which he put in the hip pocket of his worn trousers, trudged back
along the sandy frontage road to the coastal highway, smiled as if he were pure
sunshine, and stuck out his thumb.

Mark Langley, Special Agent in Charge of the
Portland office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation took the call from
Assistant United States Attorney Jim Rauchmann.

“Mark. You free?” This was Jim’s catchphrase to
ensure Mark was alone and a confidential conversation stayed that way.

“Shoot.”

“I need to move back the Rui Bao arrest.”

Mark paused and leaned back in his chair. “What’s
cooking?”

“I’ve got a thread that needs pulling before the
show begins,” Jim said in his cadenced diction that was to normal speech as a thin
7H pencil stroke was to a carpenter’s pencil. “I just need a few days. Can you
tell your people to hold up?”

Langley wiped his shaven head with his palm. “Jim,
I’ve known you since you were a Portland prosecutor; you need to leave the
investigating to us and you just stick to subpoenas and press releases.”

“This is important. A week.”

“And what is the thread you need to pull?”

“If I could talk about that, then I wouldn’t need
to ask you.”

“You are running up a bill here, Jim. It’s not a
matter of mailing a traffic ticket to Bao for him to come in at his leisure. We
have to arrange a media presentation and a perp walk for the press. This is the
fashion catwalk of the season. Once you start arranging that crap with them,
they never let you alone. Bao is big, not only the district but also the entire
Western region. And he fits perfectly into the new get tough with foreign trade
secret theft push, Computer theft and intrusion as acts of war and the
Perpetual International Copyright Treaty that POTUS has the hots for before the
election. This is national press.” Mark paused.

“But you know this. This is bigger for your career
than mine, Jim. My retirement is not long now. Maybe I’ll set Bao as my
capstone.”

The sound in the phone automatically cut off to
total silence until Jim spoke again. “One week. Please, Mark. You’ll have
plenty of time to catch salmon.”

This time Jim’s phone cut to silence until an
instant before it became uncomfortable.

“Okay. You got it, Jim,” Mark said, “have a great
day.”

There was dead air for a few seconds and then a
click as the phone trunked back to an unsecured line.

Mark took out his fountain pen with its custom 25-year
service livery and examined the chased iridium-gold nib. It was as uncorrupted
and beautiful as when it came from the factory, Mark thought. “Unlike people,”
he said aloud.

So Bao gets another week before he spends the rest
of his life in prison for espionage and theft of trade secrets. Maybe Beijing
will trade a democratic activist for him. Everybody makes deals. Mark looked
around for his antacid.

Mr. Brillo knew that he was dead when he saw that
his Suburban was gone. And the person who was to carry out the execution,
Principality Geedam, didn’t even know it yet. Failure of this magnitude had
only one simple consequence. He might as well give the finger to a Seraph. He
could run, but he had no resources whatsoever. The Crux knew his family as well
as he knew them. Probably better. Every childhood friend, every enemy. Every
lover, every pet and every friend of the family. The Crux knew them all. They
would be required to pay if Mr. Brillo did not succeed.

The Church of the Crux demanded unwavering devotion
and the suppression of self: this meant no savings, no personal property,
friends only among the Angels, and time that was completely under discretion of
the Choir. As a parichoner, he had no idea of the consequence of his
volunteering to be an Angel. He knew he would do service to the Crux in
exchange for training in all the arts and techniques of the Crux. He longed for
the Games Machine. Perfection took all the life one had. Now, he knew the price
of his entering the Choir of the Crux: his life has ended.

Strangely, though, Mr. Brillo became unburdened. He
walked over to a café at the corner of the plaza where the cornflower and
turquoise prayer banners fluttered in the on-shore breeze. It felt fresh to Mr.
Brillo; it reminded him of his childhood in Sri Lanka, running on the beach,
collecting exotic conches and debris winnowed from the incessant tide. Although
he did not have any money, he ordered a Café au lait, took out his mobile
phone, saw that Geedam had repeatedly been trying to reach him all morning. He
thought about that and punched the numbers for the Portland Parich from memory.
Geedam is one person who he would never call again.

“Throne Kingston,” he said to Angel who answered,
“Angel Ruddy here with a new crux.” Though opaque to outsiders, Mr. Brillo knew
that this phrase would get him through. Not a lot of delegation; the stakes are
too high Mr. Brillo thought.

“Kingston.” the Security Throne answered.

Mr. Brillo began to cry.

Later that evening just before nightfall, a tall,
thin but sinewy middle-eastern looking man, dressed in a dusty suit, looking very
small against the setting sun and wide open Pacific Ocean that wavered in the
breeze and shimmered in the rising moisture of the red-tipped tide, walked alone
to the end of the northern jetty and into the boiling surf.

Freetown was the largest city in Sierra Leone and
was a magnet for everyone in the bush who dreamed of regularly eating more than
Cassava and greens or fu-fu monthly and a chance at modest wealth and the small
life—if not power—the city brought. As in Accra and Abidjan, employment divided
itself into tribal affiliations. Tima, Mende, Kriol. You knew what language the
police officer would speak, as well as the baker. And you held no hope to work
in the field to which a competing tribe lay claim. Sam Lion-McNamara had no
illusions that life would be anything but nasty, brutish and short. One the one
hand he was glad that he was not laden with an ass-cart that in Freetown the
boys hustled over avoiding gaping holes in the street, but that was in turn
better than the vague classes of beggars and rent-boys that lined every road
and clustered around the ex-pat bars for Europeans near the center of town. Sam
considered the life of Sierra Romeo who had no arms or legs so constantly
whistled for attention at his corner. Even he had to turn over most of his
collections to his beggar-boss.

The old center of town, low, near the harbor, was
where the Datatel cafes were as well, although “café” was a stretch given that
the only respite from the battered keyboards and skipping mice was warm water
in recycled red plastic cups, drawn from a nicked garden hose marked by skittish
crowds of thirsty flies.

Sam did not give an instant of thought to the
legality of his internet activity. He would have laughed if asked about it. “A
starving man does not ask the price of the food,” he would have said. It did
not matter. He just assumed it all was illlegal and, as everything else about
his life, either someone would give him a beating or no one would care. One
thing appealed to Sam about his work as an attendant at the café. The Chinese
or Americans would come down for a few hours to look at politics (Chinese) or
porn (Americans) and often leave Sam with random junk that were treasures to
him. A Zippo lighter. A Fenix flashlight. A broken mobile phone with intact
battery. Tips in Australian dollars with the plastic windows, or uneaten pizza
or dim sum in greasy butcher paper.