Run

by Douglas E. Winter

  Here’s what we’re gonna do, CK tells me. Pretty soon we’re all gonna be hauling our asses up to say some more mumbo jumbo or sing some bullshit song, okay? And as soon as we all stand up, you’re gonna make like you need to take a piss. You’re gonna stand up and you’re gonna walk back up that aisle, and I’m gonna be right behind you and so is Elvis.

  Cue another jab of the barrel into my neck. Then he says:

  And you’re gonna walk out into the alcove and when you get there, you’re gonna see this little hall off to the lee side, and you’re gonna walk down that hall and there’s a little room at the end of that hall, and you’re gonna walk into that room and there’s some chairs in that room and you’re gonna sit down in one of those chairs and then I’m gonna decide whether or not you get to live. What do you say?

  I say nothing. I decide to take in those famous stained-glass windows, there are five of them on each side, and the windows are these pretty pictures, they tell the story of the Commandments or the Beatitudes or something else that Jesus guy said or did, and after I look at the windows awhile the priest raises his arms as if he’s embracing the bride, the groom, the attendants, the congregation, everybody, and the priest says:

  Let us pray with confidence to the Father in the words our Savior gave us.

  So we’re all standing up and the priest is saying this prayer and I know this prayer and all the people are saying it with him, they’re saying:

  Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name

  And I’m easing my way over to the aisle.

  Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven

  And I’m walking into the aisle.

  Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses

  And that’s when I trespass, and I need forgiveness.

  As we forgive those who trespass against us

  Because I just can’t seem to forgive.

  And lead us not into temptation

  So I’m not walking away.

  But deliver us from evil

  I’m walking the other way, the only way that’s left to me. I’m walking down the aisle, I’m walking toward the priest, I’m walking toward the altar, and everything seems to go silent but the voice in my head, the voice keeps going, and I think, I really think, it’s my mother’s voice and I’m almost to the altar, I’m between the groomsmen and the bridesmaids, and that’s when I pull the Glock from my belt; I pull the Glock and I turn on CK and I point the Glock at him and he’s about twenty feet behind me and he raises the Magnum in his fist and he points the Magnum at me and there’s this strange silence, the priest has stopped talking and there’s silence, just silence, just silence until I say, along with my mother, I say:

  Amen.

  Movement, there’s movement at the periphery of my vision, the shuffle of feet on heavy carpet, a choked kind of scream or sob or something in the congregation, and the sad sounds of people not knowing what to do, but I know exactly what to do and I’m not losing focus, I’m looking down that Glock at a sight picture I don’t ever want to forget and CK knows what I know, that if we shoot we’re probably both dead, but that if he misses he might shoot himself a newly married bride or groom.

  So it’s time to say what I came to say.

  I say:

  Mr. Berenger.

  The shock is passing and the silence is giving way to the white noise of surprise and anger, and there’s movement again and it’s movement in my direction and I say:

  Let’s all stay calm. And let’s all stay right where we are.

  Then I say: Please.

  I hear the sounds of hands on grips, some pistols going clickety-clack, and I have a feeling I’ve got more than CK looking down a barrel at me.

  I clear my throat, it’s getting dry in here, and I say again, a bit louder:

  Mr. Berenger.

  To which at long last I hear Mr. Berenger, my employer, my mentor, my friend, dear Jules, say:

  Do I know you?

  To which I start to say yes, when CK says to me:

  Shut the fuck up.

  He rocks the trigger back on that hand cannon and he calls out, he calls out loud and clear:

  Dawkins.

  Then: Quillen.

  Then: Kill him.

  But Jules says:

  Belay that.

  To which CK says:

  Kill him.

  And Jules says:

  Clarence!

  There are furious noises, and I can’t help it, my eyes dart right and I barely make out the wide load of tuxedoed Jules Berenger, an irate penguin, face pinched with rage, shoving his way past a wife and an ex-wife and a bridesmaid and into the aisle next to me and then I’m staring back dead on and down the sight of my pistol at CK. At … Clarence?

  The guy is named Clarence?

  Apparently so, because damn if Jules doesn’t yell that word again:

  Clarence! He’s getting control back into his voice. Stop this, Jules is saying. Clarence, you will stop this now.

  That’s what you call a direct order, but CK doesn’t seem to hear him. In his face there’s this perverse thing that’s pulsing. It’s pride. It’s arrogance. Or maybe it’s just insanity.

  CK makes himself grin.

  I know where I’m going to shoot him: K-5. Center of mass. Doesn’t matter whether they’re wearing body armor or not, you always go for the center of mass.

  Dawkins, he says.

  You kill them or you knock them down, same difference. If you’re firing the right piece at the right place with the right ammo, the shock is what you want and the shock is what you get. So it’s center of mass: K-5. For as long as my finger keeps twitching.

  Quillen, CK says.

  I go loose.

  Kill him, CK says.

  Loose.

  CK breathes one in and takes a step closer and I get ready to blow him right out of his shoes and that’s when the fun begins. This thing didn’t go down according to plan, but right about now the ten minutes are up, at least the right guy’s watch says five past eight, and that’s when there’s a shriek of feedback, the clunk of somebody tapping a microphone, and a voice comes echoing down off the altar but it’s not the priest’s voice, no it’s not, and it’s not the bride and it’s not the groom, no no no, not at all.

  It is the voice of one very bad man, and the voice says:

  Dearly fuckin beloved.

  I see the eyes of the congregation moving, looking up and locking on the man who stands in place of the priest and the men who stand with him, assault rifles at the ready. I hear the sound of the cellular phone in his hand, a dial tone and the swift melody of a number being speed-dialed.

  It’s Doctor D. He doesn’t speak into the phone, he speaks into the microphone. He speaks to us all.

  It’s Nigga Day, he says.

  Then everything goes boom.

  nigga day

  The stained-glass windows on the east side of St. Anne’s Cathedral implode with a rush of panicked wind.

  In that instant, that frozen moment alive with the ring of a thousand tiny bells, before the windows on the other side blow out in a hail of slivered glass, before I hear the actual explosion, the screaming starts.

  The roof hitches and the ruined wall to the east crumbles inward, casting down bricks and torn chunks of wallboard and plaster, and through the broken and empty spaces where the stained glass told stories of the saints and the martyrs there’s a new picture, a new story; it’s the story of a black sky whose bright clouds billow in yellow and red. Angry serpents of flame coil and lash out, vomiting up an entire city block of Old Town Alexandria—the warehouse, the headquarters of UniArms, fractured concrete and wood and plastic and metal and guns and guns and more guns—and that’s when the sound comes, a blast that’s like thunder, but a thunder I’ve never heard, it’s the thunder that says what’s going to rain now is blood.

  And that, of course, is when the shooting starts.

  I don’t know which idiot
rattles off the first shot. It isn’t me and it isn’t CK, but you’d need a fine-tuned stopwatch to decide that one. Most likely it’s some amateur, one of the rent-a-suits in the back of the room, but after the first shot it doesn’t matter. This dim bulb back there, he starts rocking off with something full auto, and the U Street Crew gives back some of the same, and the next thing you know we’ve got a firefight in a Catholic church with a couple hundred civilians in between, on the side, here, there, everywhere.

  I see CK’s Magnum jerk and as I squeeze the trigger I get punched in the left arm, so I get off a lousy shot but I think I hit him and then I’m staring in a different direction but I didn’t turn my head and I know nothing and I’m on the floor and I know something. I know I’m hit but I know I’m okay and I know I’m going to stand up, I don’t think about anything else, I’m going to stand up, the thought of where I’ve been hit doesn’t even feature in the act, I just struggle to my feet, leaning into the end of the first pew for balance.

  I point my pistol back at CK, trying to get a sight picture, I want to wash the guy, but he’s down, he is down in the aisle and he’s hit too, and the blur around him becomes motion and the motion becomes people and the people are civilians and the civilians are in flash panic, they’re rushing in front of him and behind him and it’s a stampede and I hear the roar of gunfire all around me and I can see this swirling rush of humanity, the tuxedos and the suits and the gowns and the dresses, and they all have faces, frightened and astonished and angry faces, and I can’t pull, I can’t pull the trigger.

  CK scuttles away. He’s got an entrance wound about the size of a nickel in the meat of his right thigh. Not much blood. Yet. He yanks his belt from the waistband of his suit pants and starts knotting it around his leg, and all the time he’s looking at me, and it’s that look, you know, the one that would kill, but he’s going to need at least one more shot at me for that.

  I kneel behind the cover of the first pew and that’s when I notice my old pal Jinx and he’s kneeling next to me, which is also when I hear him sum things up:

  Shit.

  This is not what I wanted. This is not, was not, supposed to happen. This was going to end with words. Jules was going to confess his sins, CK’s sins, in front of these people, and afterward Doctor D would blow up the warehouse, have his payback, then light out and watch the guys who made this mess try to clean it up. No shooting. No more shooting. Not here. But everything I touch turns to blood.

  People are surging in all directions, trying to get away from the altar, but there’s no way out. Hotpoint and Tiny should have taken the narthex and they’ve got the wide double door locked or blocked, and they’re keeping the big and bad guys out while they’re keeping all these good folks in. Some pistolero in a tuxedo learns that one the hard way when he tries to shoot his way out of the sanctuary and into the narthex and does a backward jig with about a dozen rounds for a partner.

  The columns behind the altar disappear, shredded into a confetti of chewed timber and wallboard and brick. One of Doctor D’s homeys, it’s Khalid, pops up out of the smoke and rocks back with his AK. He dives down before they can rattle back at him and then he’s up again with a new magazine.

  Flowers blossom around us, pink and red, as the bullets tear across the sanctuary, chew through the wooden pews, chew through anyone who is standing between us and them, chew through these poor people and spit out pieces and gobs and geysers of blood. I see flowers of flesh, flowers of blood, and in the distance I hear the faint shriek of angels, dying.

  My God! It’s Jules Berenger, and he’s saying: My God, stop this! Somebody, somebody, stop this!

  But God’s not at home.

  I get myself partway around and I see Ray-Ban make some kind of hand signal and some of his guys go for the right aisle, AKs up and pointed, but they’re not firing, they’re yelling at the crowd: Get down! Get the fuck down! Another hand signal and two of the gangbangers stand and unload their AKs on the back of the room, firing over the crowd and ripping the shit out of the wall and a couple of CK’s shooters. Like a fucking fire team.

  QP Green vaults onto the first pew, a couple feet from me, standing there like John Wayne at the Alamo. He rides his AK on his hip and runs the magazine over the heads of the boiling crowd.

  Get down! QP Green yells. Get the fuck on the floor!

  No one seems to hear him. More screams, more animal confusion, and finally more gunfire. QP Green takes a hit for his trouble, the top part of his shoulder disintegrates in a cloud of red, and the hit spins him around to meet more bullets. Jinx keeps his head down and scrambles over to the body that plummets to the floor, but it’s a gesture. We’ve got another dead man.

  McCarty! It’s CK. He’s trying to get his people together but there’s too much of everything: too much noise, too many people, too many guns.

  CK is up, and his men are up, and they’re pushing guests out of the way and down, fighting their way through the crowd, some of them firing back at the U Street Crew. CK is shouting, trying to take charge, but things keep spinning right out of control, until the voice comes, the voice comes again:

  No more.

  It’s Doctor D, his amplified voice engulfing the mayhem. No more, he’s saying, and the U Street guns go silent, and I see Jules Berenger and he’s got his hands in the air, stumbling up the center aisle toward CK, toward his men, stepping over the frightened people pressed to each other, to the floor, and Jules is saying something, and his arms are alive with frantic motion and I hear him shouting:

  Stop stop stop.

  Dear God! he cries out. His voice is hoarse and anguished. Stop!

  That’s when CK lets the barrel of his Magnum tilt into the air. He squints through the smoke and through Jules Berenger, squints at the ruined altar, and barks: Cease fire!

  Other voices echo the command and that’s all it takes. It’s over and done, except for the amateurs. Behind CK, one clown keeps firing his bullshit machine pistol, and when he finally clicks dry, CK strolls over to him, hefts his Magnum and blows the guy’s excuse for brains out the side of his head.

  Cease fire, he says to the guy’s corpse. That ends it, except for the torn voice of Jules Berenger, calling:

  My God—

  The silence answers him, and his arms fall back to his sides in a kind of palsied collapse. He circles around to face the altar, where a crucifix, torn from its cables, swings like a scythe through the smoke-filled air and crashes to the floor, angling into the first of the pews. Where the priest crouches at the edge of that marble altar, safer there than in the arms of his Lord. Where one of the bridesmaids, the pink of her gown blotted into deep red, cradles a kid in a tuxedo whose legs are slivered ribbons of fabric and flesh and bone …

  And where Doctor D stands, High Priest of the Order of Death, his left arm curved around his white-veiled offering. It’s Meredith Berenger. His chrome four-nickel, that bright and shiny .45, is pressed to her pretty blond skull. Ray-Ban stands to the other side of her like an unholy best man. Most of the U Street Crew stands with them, pointing their AKs down and dirty.

  Please, Jules says, suddenly old and shaking right down to his overpriced shoes.

  He reels toward the altar. Toward us. I’ve got my Glock pointed at him. Jinx stands next to me. The guy still hasn’t pulled his piece.

  Please, Jules says. To me, to Doctor D, to anyone who will listen.

  I let him pass, hold my piece on CK and the rest of them. The civilians look on like the survivors of an air disaster, their eyes dull and doubting that this could be real.

  Please, Jules says, and this time there’s an answer.

  I don’t know that word, Doctor D says. His hand flexes on the grip of that four-five and he says:

  You fucked with me, Boss Man, and you lost.

  Doctor D cocks the hammer.

  And when you lose, he says, you got to pay the dues.

  The word is there, right there in my throat, and it’s about the shortest word around. Jus
t two letters in it. The word no one seems to be able to say anymore. But I say it, I say it.

  No, I say. No.

  And I’ve finally said that word in time to stop something.

  I turn around and I put my Glock on Doctor D.

  No, I tell him again.

  Ray-Ban turns his piece on me and right about now I decide that no one is ever going to do that to me again. That I’m going to kill the next guy who even thinks about pointing a gun at me.

  Thank God, Jules says, and it’s like a whispered prayer. Thank God, Lane.

  I say to Doctor D:

  You got what you wanted. You killed the thing he loved most. You think that’s the love of his life you’ve got there?

  No way, I tell him.

  I point out the broken east wall to the burning sky over Alexandria.

  That’s his flesh. His blood. And it’s finished. It’s dead and gone.

  It’s only a heartbeat, but it’s like that eternity before the dentist touches down with the drill. Until Doctor D says:

  Yeah.

  He rocks the hammer back and lets his four-five down gently. Meredith Berenger doesn’t even notice. She’s a teary white-eyed deer caught in the headlamps of reality.

  But— Doctor D says, turning his pistol on Jules. Somebody’s got to pay.

  And he’s right, somebody’s got to pay and somebody’s going to pay, but that wasn’t the deal. That was not the fucking deal.

  The voice beside me says:

  No.

  It’s Jinx, and Jinx has pulled down at last, and he’s aiming his pistol, that spurless Ruger .38, at Doctor D.

  This is over, Jinx says. This is where it ends.

  I hear the creep of footsteps at our backs and I turn around, and who’s coming our way but CK and a couple other zealots, and my Glock brings them right to a halt.

  CK starts to raise his Magnum but maybe it’s in my eyes. He thinks better and then he knows better.

  Way I see it, Jinx says, the dead are dead. But so’s this man. Look at him, D. He’s white and he’s old and there ain’t nothin inside him but rot. It’s not even a matter of time. He’s dead already.