Sean flinched, turning away, and scurried down the sidewalk.
* * *
Who was HE?Kerry thought. Pale, shrinking from contact, with a face unlike the others—hungry, possessed, unsmiling. What was this odd flicker of fear, of recognition.
It was falsepre cognition, Kerry thought, the instinct for danger that made him study faces, looking for the eyes of a man who, like the one who murdered Jamie, wished to take his life. But Kerry had looked into ten thousand faces and had no time to wonder, or remember.
Jamie. Perhaps what had driven Kerry here to headquarters was the wish to thank those too young to remember, who worked not for a myth but because they believed in Kerry himself. He could feel what he meant to them, was learning what they meant to him.
Turning, he looked at the blond-haired girl in front of him. She was delicate, Irish by the look of her, poised between shyness and naked wonder at his presence. He reached out to her, smiling. “I’m Kerry Kilcannon,” he said. “I wanted to thank you.”
She took his hand, her touch soft, and then began grinning like she might never stop. “I’m Kate Feeney,” she told him.
Kerry squeezed her hand. “Thanks, Kate. I’ll remember you.”
* * *
Sean ran away.
Chest pounding, he fought the sour sickness rising from his stomach to his throat, as he dodged pedestrians startled by his panic.
Stopping abruptly, he began to gasp.
He bent, wheezing, clasping his knees as his body shook with coughing. Eyes moist with anguish and humiliation, he stared at the spittle at his feet, stained with blood.
Coward,he told himself. The frightened child he once had been had returned to claim him.
* * *
As the press bus shuddered to a stop three blocks short of Kerry’s headquarters, Lara saw him—a lone man, perhaps drunk or mentally disturbed, retching saliva as others passed him without looking. A sad piece of urban detritus, like so many Lara had seen here, people with stories that broke the heart. She could not seem to look away.
The man’s body trembled, and then he straightened, staring wildly at the bus as if he had just noticed it.
Eyes narrowing, Lara leaned her face against the window.
She had seen him before, she was certain. But not recently, and she could not remember where. It could only have been here, she thought, in San Francisco.
Wheeling abruptly, the man ran away, vanishing from Lara’s vision and, moments later, her thoughts. The motorcade began moving again, toward the airport.
FOUR
It was past three in the afternoon when Kerry arrived in South Central Los Angeles.
The air was hot, dense with smog Kerry could feel on his collar. He stood on the steps of the Third Baptist Church, a plain stucco building dating to the thirties, transformed by the Reverend Carl Wills into a social center that provided food for the urban poor, day care, after-school programs in sports and remedial reading. Though Wills’s congregation was mainly black, it reached out to Asians, Latinos, progressive whites, the urban poor. In a city marked by racial conflict, this set Wills apart.
For months, Kerry had worked to get Wills’s endorsement; the minister, a calm but strong-minded man who would not be used by anyone, had deflected Kerry’s appeals. When Wills’s call had come, days before, it was a surprise. “Well,” the minister told Kerry dryly, “guess you got a chance to win. I take that as a sign from God.” His voice softened. “Don’t let Him down, Senator. Or us.”
Now Wills stood beside him—a gray-bearded man with a benign countenance and shrewd brown eyes—speaking to a group of his supporters, the pool, and, well behind them, the remaining press.
“When no other congressman or senator would come to this state and say ending affirmative action was wrong, Kerry Kilcannondid .
“When no other candidate dares to stand up for the farmworkers, Kerry Kilcannondoes .
“When no other of our politicians strives to save our cities, Kerry Kilcannonwill .
“And when almost every President tries to hide from the problems of race, Kerry Kilcannonwon’t .” Wills raised his hand. “This country needs a leader, not a pollster; a healer, not a wheeler-dealer; a conscience-raiser, not a fund-raiser.”
Slowly, Wills lowered his hand, placing it on Kerry’s shoulder.
“This is the man,” he said. “This is the one.”
The two men turned to each other. It was a moment the boy Kerry Kilcannon, a parochial Irish kid in a city divided by race, could never have imagined.
“Don’t let Him down,” the minister repeated quietly.
Kerry smiled. “Perhaps Him,” he answered. “But never you.”
Wills nodded, looking at him intently, and then Kerry stepped up to the microphone. The crowd was mostly African Americans, some in suits or dresses, some not, but also Asians, whites, Latinos. In their faces, Kerry found his theme.
“When I meet a man like Carl Wills,” he began, “when I see the work of this church, I wonder how anyone can seek office by asking us to vote against each other.”
From a distance came the faint whine of a police siren. Kerry raised his voice. “Too often,” he said, “we’re told that politics is a matter of black versus white, suburbs versus city.
“It’s the era of the frightened white man, we’re told, of the endangered middle class. That’s true. Many white Americans have a right to feel threatened—they’re working hard for less money, and their kids go to lousy schools. And it is not their fault.” Pausing, Kerry said succinctly, “Nor is it the fault of Asians, Latinos, or African Americans. Many of whom face the same problems.
“I hope the day comes when bigotry ends. But that day is not in sight. And every day that a politician claims that the only discrimination left favors minorities, and that the problems of white Americans will vanish when we end affirmative action, thereal solution to our common problems slips further from view.”
At the edge of his consciousness, Kerry heard the wail of more sirens meet above the grid of treeless streets he had passed through in his limousine: rows of small stucco houses with barred windows; oil-stained asphalt lots; burned-out buildings; seedy strip malls; men loitering with boom boxes. But here and there were neighborhoods with well-kept lawns and no graffiti, where neighbors organized community-based day care and health centers. It was this that gave him hope.
“I’m here to answer your questions,” he finished. “But I want to promise you this much—that I will always speak out for this community. And for hope, not fear.”
The crowd applauded, a sound fainter than Kerry was used to, dissipating in the void: bare concrete, debris, abandoned storefronts, and, Kerry thought to himself, years of rhetoric that had left no trace. Looking into their faces—hopeful, wary, reserved—Kerry said, “Now tell me what’s on your minds.”
* * *
In the pool, Nate Cutler glanced at his watch.
It was three-thirty; he wanted to call Jane Booth, check on whether they had found anything new about Kilcannon and Lara Costello. But working the pool meant dogging the candidate, the absence of time or privacy.
The wail of sirens grew louder, more insistent. The Secret Service agents guarding Kerry seemed to tense.
What was it? Nate wondered. The air in South Central still crackled with volatility—too much crime, hopelessness, distrust or outright hatred between blacks and Asians and Latinos. Kilcannon could say what he wanted, even mean it, but the motorcade would move on.
Near them, a young black man in denim, with gold-rimmed glasses and the intense air of activism, demanded of Kilcannon, “What does affirmative action do forus ?”
“For this community?” Kilcannon asked. “For many of you, damned little.” Kilcannon unknotted his tie. “You obviously know that, or you wouldn’t have asked the question. So let me askyou a question: How wouldyou give people inthis community choices and chances? And how can people in this community take better advantage of the opportunities they hav
e?”
The man shook his head. “What about you, Senator? Have you thought about it? Or do you think ripping off Martin Luther King’s enough?”
Kilcannon’s eyes seemed to flash. “Better Martin Luther King,” he retorted, “than Louis Farrakhan. But your first question’s worth answering.”
Watch it,Nate thought. His interest suddenly intensified; there was about Kilcannon, most reporters believed, a whiff of buried anger which could hurt him. Whereas if Dick Mason had a temper, almost no one claimed to have seen it.
“Government can’t transform South Central,” Kerry said more evenly. “Or truckloads of cash. If they could, the war on poverty would be over, and this would be a garden spot.”
There was a small ripple of cynical laughter. “One thing South Central needs,” Kerry went on, “is more and better jobs. Private jobs, not make-work, based on training which encourages employers to come here, and stay here for the next generation.
“A lot’s been written about what’s wrong with black families, and a lot of it’s unfair. Families—black or white—often break up because there’s no hope, no jobs, no future. But churches like this one show how local institutions can help change things for the better. Especially if Washington cares to listen, and to learn.” Stopping, Kerry looked around him, his demeanor transformed into sudden mocking innocence. “Where’s Dick Mason, by the way? Does he ever call? Does he ever write? Did we only imagine him, like the Wizard of Oz?”
The crowd laughed more openly; they had begun to enjoy Kilcannon’s edginess, Nate thought, his willingness to engage. “Well,” he said to his interrogator, “for the moment you’re stuck with me. And I believe we’re both responsible for the future of South Central. So let me tell you what I think we can do together . . .”
The sirens were louder now, Nate realized. And then, abruptly, they were silent.
* * *
It was the silence that told Lara there was trouble. She could see that Wills sensed it too; standing still, he seemed to cock his head, listening for something he could not hear.
As Kerry finished, she saw a squad car pull up. A cop got out—by the look of his gold braid, a senior officer—and hurried toward Carl Wills.
* * *
The officer was heavyset, with brick-red skin, a seamed, alert face, pale-blue eyes. Cop’s eyes, Kerry thought.
Wills seemed to know him. As the crowd watched, anxiously speaking among themselves, the cop placed a hand on the reverend’s shoulder and began talking in a low voice.
“Damn,”Wills said under his breath.“Damn.”
“What is it?” Kerry asked. He felt the Secret Service surround them.
The cop turned, grim-faced. “We have a shooting incident, Senator, involving a Korean grocer and a black kid. In the last year, the grocer’s been held up twice, he says, by black men with Saturday night specials. So he bought himself a shotgun.”
He spoke now to both Wills and Kerry. “Today two black kids came into his store after school, one thirteen, the other ten. The thirteen-year-old pulls out a plastic toy gun—as a joke, he says now—and asks Young for a box of Snicker bars. Next thing the kid knows, he’s looking at the barrel of a gun.
“He drops the toy and begins running. On the way out the door, he hears a shotgun blast. Since then, nobody’s seen the ten-year-old. He may be dead, wounded, or a hostage. We just don’t know.” The cop faced Wills again. “The grocer’s locked up the store and pulled down the metal screens behind the doors and windows. Now there’s a crowd, and the boy’s mother’s there, screaming at us to get him out. We may want your help.”
Wills nodded. “We need calm here. All of us.”
Kerry remembered Newark—the fortitude of Liam Dunn, the shells of buildings, the residue of hatred. “I’d like to go with you, Carl.”
“Senator—” Dan Biasi began to protest, and then the cop cut in. “I’m sorry, Senator. The Secret Service doesn’t want it, and we don’t, either. We’ve got all we can handle, and we can’t guarantee your safety.”
So that’s it,Kerry thought.I just run away. “Thereare no guarantees,” he told the cop and Dan. “And I don’t expect any.” He turned to Wills again. “Maybe I can make a difference by coming. I can’t tell people I care about what happens here, then drive off in a limousine.”
Wills glanced at the policeman, and then the cop’s face turned hard. “There are people in the crowd with guns, Senator, and some of them have been drinking. There aren’t enough forms in the world to get rid of the liability. And I wouldn’t put you in that crowd if you signed them all.”
Nodding, Wills turned to Kerry. “Something happens to you, and this neighborhood, maybe race relations, get set back a long ways.”
Kerry did not answer. Perhaps, he told himself, he had expected this before he asked to help.
As Wills rushed off, the Service closed around Kerry, hurrying him to his car.
* * *
When Sean Burke reached the Tenderloin, it was twenty minutes until four, and the street punk was nowhere in sight.
Sean felt wasted, shamed, pathetic in his self-hatred. He had run from his moment; now Kilcannon was in another city, safe in his cocoon of security, and Sean had become the walking dead.
For two hours, he had sat at a table in elegant Union Square, the sun beating down on him, the sweat on his face like a fever. A delirium overcame him; he was barely conscious of the people who stopped, of what he said. The Asian woman who took his place seemed more a dream than a person.
A death, a kind of death.
A lifetime ago, some other man had walked into an abortion clinic with a gun. Now all that was surreal fragments—a woman with a red hole in her forehead, the abortionist falling into a file cabinet, the supine body of a nurse. What felt real was flinching as he looked into Kilcannon’s eyes.
Sean was already dead—putting a bullet through his brain would be no different than withdrawing life support from wasting flesh. Across the street, the prostitute with sores on her face and eyes like burn holes loitered on the sidewalk, a figure from hell; that she seemed to look right through him was no surprise.
A dead man.
Sean felt hard fingers on his shoulder.
Turning, he saw the black street punk. His eyes were like marbles—glassy, opaque. “I got your piece,” he whispered.
The words jolted Sean. The black man touched the pocket of his pea coat. “In here,” he said, “but I ain’t gonna sell it to you on the street.”
Yesterday, in another life, there was no way Sean could have trusted this man.
“Come on,” the punk said.
Following him, trancelike, Sean stayed close.
Between the liquor store and a tenement hotel they found an alley lined with garbage cans, its pavement smelling of urine and rotten scraps of food. The man slowed, walking next to Sean, then a little behind, prodding Sean deeper into the alley. The dank sunlessness seemed to change the chemistry in Sean’s brain, sending a current to his nerve ends.
The man was at his back now. “Turn around,” he said.
Even before he complied, Sean could feel the gun against his stomach.
The soulless eyes stared at him. “Your wallet, man.”
Dead,Sean thought. Though his fingers trembled, his mind felt calm, almost peaceful.
“It’s not in your back pocket,” the punk hissed. “I seen that. So you just tell me where it is.”
Slowly, Sean reached for the inside pocket of his army jacket. As he found the handle of the knife, he watched the man’s eyes. Their faces were so close that the smell of whiskey filled Sean’s nostrils.
Take your time,Sean told himself.You’re already dead.
Beneath his jacket, he pulled the knife up to his collar, still hidden.
“Careful, man. Don’t make me waste you.”
With a flick of his wrist, Sean turned the point of the knife to the street punk’s throat.
“We’re both dead,” Sean whispered.
&n
bsp; The punk blinked; through the blade of the knife, Sean could feel his throat twitch. Split-second calculation darted through the black man’s eyes: if he pulled the trigger, Sean’s knife might cut his throat. If he didn’t . . .
Sean’s fingers tightened on the knife.
“Man . . . ,”the punk mumbled.
Sean jammed the knife into his throat.
Pain shot through his wrist, metal hitting teeth. Sean’s eyes shut against the bullet that would rip his stomach apart; he felt the punk’s whiskey breath in his face, expelling a terrible squeal of agony.
The gun clattered on the sidewalk.
Slowly, Sean opened his eyes.
Impaled on the knife, the punk stared at him, eyes stricken, a foam of blood and saliva on his parted lips. The knife was stuck in his palate; all his power of movement seemed to have gone to his knees, buckling and twitching as blood seeped from his throat.
Placing a hand beneath the man’s chin, Sean wrenched the blade out in one convulsive motion.
The man crumpled, falling on his side.
Repelled, Sean stepped back, staring. The punk’s eyes were still open. His mouth made small gurgling sounds, and his breathing was shallow; Sean thought of a fish his father had thrown on a wooden dock, to die there.
Dropping the knife, he glanced toward the mouth of the alley.
No one there. A car drove by, so quickly that it was gone before Sean flinched.
He was alive.
Sweating, he picked up the punk—twitching, still alive—and awkwardly dumped him facefirst in a half-empty garbage can. The can teetered as skull struck metal.
Sean turned away.
Lying in a patch of oil was the knife and, near that, the gun.
Sean wiped the knife on the sole of his boot and put it in his pocket. As he reached for the gun, he saw the blood spatters on the sleeve of his coat.
The gun was oily, cheap-looking. But when Sean curled his fingers around the trigger, he saw the moment again, but somehow transformed: Kerry Kilcannon, eyes widening in fear as Sean aimed his weapon.
A faint cry came from the garbage can.
Sean looked up. The man’s legs made spastic kicking movements, like those of a drowning child. But Sean felt no pity; the man had meant to rob him, perhaps kill him, and his death had brought Sean back to life.
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