Jackie's Week
Page 18
There, she thought. It was out. It was over.
"It’s too late," he said. "We already made the wine."
His words ripped through her brain like an electric shock.
"What?" she said. "There must be some mistake. You couldn’t possibly have done it so fast."
"We crushed the grapes already," he said. "Four separate pressings."
"Four?" she said. "Already?"
"Yes. "
"Oh my God."
"I’m glad you called, Jackie. I expected you to. And don’t worry. It’s natural to feel remorse. You feel remorse because you’re on the side of the angels. There’s no mortal sin attached. Good-night, Jackie. Sleep well. Your problems are over."
"Good-night ... Godfather," she said.
She fell to her knees, learning the truth. A murder, no matter how justified, crushed the soul. She could feel the weight of her sins pushing down on her with a force greater than the universe itself.
"Oh my God," she said aloud. "I am heartily sorry to have offended you. I have killed four men, and my stupidity in taking the law into my own hands led to the death of my dear neighbor, Sandy." She fell on her face and wept bitterly. After a time, Jackie understood what she must do. In all of her new-found bravado, in all of the liberating drug and alcohol fired insanity, in her frantic attempt to escape the jail without bars she’d been living in, she had failed to see the truth about herself. She would never be able to live with the killings, especially that of Sandy. In truth, she was just a weak nobody.
Johnson had been right. She wasn’t the kind of person who could bear the weight of violence. Only special people could. People like Johnson, Catalano, the impossibly huge and violent Nasturtium, the deadly Bobby Q., and the vicious Viktor Bout. Now she had foolishly dabbled in their world and could no longer tell where the good ended and the evil began. She had lost her soul. There was only one way to be forgiven for a sin like that. She walked to the living room and sat watching the street, the dawn refusing to come, the mists still softening the hills.
She went to the kitchen table and retrieved her gun. The answer was so simple really. It hadn’t changed since Monday morning, only this time she had a means far more effective than a box cutter. She raised the gun and pressed the barrel to her right temple, the place where, a lifetime ago, Viktor Bout had left his first big scar. Her finger began to tighten on the trigger. It was such a short distance for her finger to travel. How could such a small effort on her part yield such huge results? It was a mystery.
Her body began to vibrate as the cylinder began to turn. Her finger tightened further on the steel. A couple of millimeters more and the pain would be over forever. Just a couple of millimeters. A distance not even worth measuring in the grand scheme of the universe. Yes, hell would be waiting, but it was only what she deserved. She had turned her back on God and it was only fitting she spend eternity away from Him. She had tried to break the law an learned something. The law could not be broken. It was powerful and eternal. Foolish humans could only break themselves on it. Someone inside her head was praying again. Hail Mary, Full of Grace.
Then she remembered. The cat. Moody. She was supposed to pick it up from Dr. Black later today. It had been abandoned and left to die. She felt guilty about the cat. It was her job to save it.
The guilt. You either kill yourself or you fight back. It’s the guilt. It will kill you. You can fight this. Live.
The spell was broken. The gun dropped to the floor. She pulled out the cell and hit the speed dial.
"Johnson," he said, voice thick with sleep.
"I need you," she said. "I’m never removing your friendship ring. I just wanted you to know."
"I’m glad you called. I need you, too."
"Johnson? There’s something else you need to know."
"I’m listening."
"You can retire today if you want. The case is closed."
"Are you saying what I think you’re saying?"
"Yes. It’s over. Bout and his friends are gone."
"Jackie, I’m sorry. If only I had done my job better."
"Don’t, Johnson. It is what it is. I am sick of all the guilt this thing has caused"
"All right. Jackie, this may not be the right time, but I’ve been thinking. I want you to have Heinz. If you want him."
"I do. And I’ll take really good care of him. By the way, don’t forget the party at Gelson’s. Good morning, Johnson."
After the call, she found Heinz sleeping in the kitchen and let him into the back yard. In the kitchen, she took an Ativan in anticipation of a few hours of sleep and then poured herself another glass of vodka.
She walked back to the living room and dropped the glass. There was a man standing beside the fireplace. He was a little shorter than she was, but twice as wide. Up close, she realized he was wearing a T-shirt tuxedo, oddly enough with real buttons.
"You."
There had been a mistake. He had found her at last.
"Vzjat’ na abordaž." With a cat-like quickness, he bounced forward, a sweeping fist pounding her neck, knocking her hard to the floor. She landed on something hard, her gun, still on the carpet where she’d dropped it. Bout dropped his full weight atop her, knocking her breathless.
The blackness swarmed across her eyes, the starry pinpoints of light swirling at the edges of her fading vision. His arm went hard and tight across her throat, bringing forth a nauseating crescendo of fear accompanied by a harsh sweat scent. As if in a nightmare, she felt her hand close over the rubber grips of the gun, but her arm was pinned, frozen beneath her body, numb from the shock of Bout’s dead weight dropping down on her.
She had not only lost the battle in a single amazing instant, but it entered her thoughts that she might die before she could shoot Bout. The thought brought a wave of sadness through her. Somewhere, far away, she heard the frenzied barking of a dog.
Her lungs heaved against the burning but there was no relief from the smothering. Then she remembered the lesson from the coffin. Even without air, she had a couple of minutes before she passed out. A couple of minutes to go berserk. To fa jin to the max. An eternity.
But try as she might, she could not gather herself for the effort. The fa jin wasn’t working. The weight of Bout began to crush the very life from her body. Then it all became crystal clear. The fa jin showed her another way. She could be defeated and still die a proud warrior. There would be no shame. She must kill herself with the gun. Her sins required a sacrifice and she was it. Simply fire the weapon into her own body. Bout would never have the pleasure he sought, would never have the victory. Fire the weapon. She had the strength for that. As she began to pull the trigger, the fear surged higher and higher. The fa jin. And she knew it was a gift from God. The fear came in a wave as powerful as a tsunami. The fear was her friend, giving her the strength to do what she must. With an ear splitting scream, she stepped into the fear and fired the weapon into her heart.
"Jackie! Jackie!"
Jackie opened her eyes, staring directly into her sister’s worried gaze. "Donna," she said.
"Jackie, are you okay? We heard a scream."
Jackie managed a crooked smile. "I’m okay," she said. "It was the dream again. But this time it was different. I’m learning to live with it."
Chapter 38
The early morning clouds provided a refreshing coolness for her drive over the hill. She’d stayed on Mulholland most of the way before dropping down the hill to Gelson’s. It was a little after 10 a.m. when she pulled the bright red muscle car into the lot. Everybody was already there waiting. She headed towards the back wall, which somebody had livened up with a lot of balloons. Someone else had cordoned off the area with yellow police tape.
She rolled up to the place where it all began and opened the door and got out. The cheers and applause overwhelmed her, the tears flooding her eyes until she could barely make out the faces of the tiny knot of people who’d become so important to her. One in particular stood out, by virtue
of the hot pink pants suit that glowed like a reactor in the gray of the sunless morning.
The smell of Jamaican Blue coffee filled the air, reminding her of a special place. She walked over to the table and poured herself a cup. Someone handed her a tissue and she dabbed her eyes. She could see them all clearly now. There was even a large, cream-face cat staring out at her from a battered travel cage. She raised the cup high.
And then she saw it. Overhead, a small plane towing a banner: JACKIE’S WEEK. Her emotions, long held in check, finally hit, and she knelt down, the feelings cascading over her in wave after wave, the tears flowing like rain until there was finally a peace unlike that of anything normally available on Earth. She looked up. They were closer now, surrounding her, touching her, allowing their strength to join with hers, allowing their love to fill in for what she herself still lacked.
"Here’s looking at you, kids," she whispered.
She knew there was still a lifetime of work to be done, work that would take her further and further towards her ultimate destiny. There was monumental effort to be made, but it would be done one day at a time. She knew something else: There was no safe place, but that didn’t matter anymore. What did matter was the next time they came for her, ready or not, she would fight.
The End
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Jackie's Week