IA: Invincible Assassin

by John Darryl Winston

  The answer is obvious. It’s time to cash in on the trust I’ve earned with Coach and find out if the ends justify the means. I believe they do, at least in this instance. Naz has a higher calling, and revenge isn’t part of it. I see no other viable solution or option. I need to spend as much time with Coach and Soul as possible, so when duty calls, they will be less likely to question me.

  “Traitor.” Soul jabs me with his elbow as he restarts the game.

  “That’s a good idea,” Coach says. “You should have a pretty good shot at Varsity over there.”

  “Yeah, that’s what Coach Benedict said,” I lie again.

  “They’re bums,” Soul chimes in.

  “I don’t know; they won their conference last year,” I half-heartedly defend.

  “Their conference is weak, too … all bums, like you … and you’re still not trying, Wordsmith.” Soul taps away at the game controller.

  Coach smirks. “Tell Coach I said what’s up? We’ve played together before. It’s been a while.”

  Uh-oh—I shake off the possible fallout of Coach catching me in a lie and move on. “Fasho.” I catch myself fidgeting, my mind on where Naz is and what he’s doing. I trust he’ll give me the three weeks he promised, but this has to start now. “I need to go for a walk.” I pause the game and stand up.

  “I’ll go with you,” says Soul.

  “I’d rather be alone.”

  “It’s like that?” asks Soul, putting his open palm out to me, his voice raising half an octave.

  “Nothing personal, Soul. I-I feel like writing.” I grab my backpack. “I can only do that alone. You know how it is.”

  Soul puts his hand down, his shoulders slumping.

  I start toward the door.

  Coach follows. “Wait.” When we get to the door, he reaches in his pocket, pulls out a key, and hands it to me. “Don’t stay out too late. I don’t have to remind you how dangerous it is out there.”

  I nod, grabbing my coat out of the closet and putting it on.

  “Your brother … Naz is gonna be all right, just needs some time.”

  “He’s right, Wordsmith,” Soul yells from the sofa. “Our Tin Man’s got heart.”

  On the walk back to the cemetery, I kick a few empty cans down the street that attempt to bar my way. Coach has just shown me another level of trust by giving me the key to his house, and I’m betraying that trust by being deceitful. I hold the key in my fist as if it might try and escape. But I have to. I’m gonna need this key—I look at it resting in my palm now—to come and go, to give myself the freedom to carry out my mission. Maybe Coach knows that. I look back at the house and then carry on.

  Several blocks from the cemetery my watch chirps and buzzes. It tickles my wrist. Naz is on the move. I stop. I need to keep my distance. I don’t need to follow him. The satellites will do that, and the tracker will relay his position to my watch. I slip into the first market and pretend to browse the shelves. I will, however, keep him close, in my sights so to speak.

  Naz heads north up Panama Park Street. It’s getting darker and colder. Where’s he going? I leave the market and make my way to Panama Park. Naz slows down, and I match his speed, keeping several blocks between us. Naz stops. I use my finger to swipe my watch and zoom in on his position. The Excelsior?

  I look up the Excelsior on my phone. It’s an all-night movie theater that shows martial arts flicks around the clock. He must be looking for a place to crash.

  When I arrive, people are standing in line at the ticket booth, and a small crowd stands inside, milling around and getting refreshments. I’m relatively sure I can melt into the crowd and not allow Naz to detect my presence. I don’t want to stay and watch the movie; I just want to make sure the tracker is working and that this is where he’ll be. I buy a ticket, bypass the refreshment stand, and make my way into the theater.

  I sit in the corner in the back row. I make a mental note to get my night-vision goggles when I go back home, last year’s Christmas gift from the General. I chide myself for not bringing them in the first place. What was I thinking? I try to think of what else I have, that Dad might have given me that would help me in my efforts and make a mental list.

  The Last Samurai plays on the screen as I scan the dark auditorium. I should be able to spot him by his hair, which was wild at the cemetery. There he is, in the front row, only he has his hood on. I make my way down the aisle. I’ve seen this movie a few times, including once with Naz, but decide to pay my friend one last visit.

  I sit next to him. Naz doesn’t flinch, but his odor precedes him.

  “You stink,” I say

  He scoffs.

  “I’m serious.”

  I watch a few more scenes and stand up, deciding to leave Naz alone with his stench. Since I’m relatively sure Naz will stay out of trouble for a while, at least the three weeks he promised, I head back to Coach’s. I’ll spend the last couple of days before Christmas vacation making everything appear normal with Soul and Coach and then head back to Soldiers’ Plank to spend two weeks with Mom.

  THE NEXT WEEK is uneventful, other than my need to lie to Coach and Soul when they ask me about Naz. Actually, I’m not lying. I haven’t heard from him, as he doesn’t return my text messages, but I do know where he is, where he goes every day. I look at my watch again. He sits at the cemetery sometimes, for two, even three hours. I resist going there, not sure if my presence will help or make matters worse.

  And he’s added a wrinkle on his hamster treadmill. After leaving the theater, he goes to Albatross Street, which could only mean MeeChi’s. Only time will heal the wounds, something my mom and dad would agree on, and MeeChi’s is a good start. He never goes far from the cemetery, back and forth from there to the theater and then MeeChi’s and back again. He must know the dialogue from The Last Samurai by heart.

  Today, after the last day of school leading into Christmas break, I check on Naz one last time before I head back to Soldiers’ Plank to see Mom. I try to hand him some cash, but he won’t take it; he just looks at my hand, and we walk the several blocks to the theater almost in silence. The ‘almost’ equals two lonely words delivered unrequited by Naz:

  “Two weeks,” reminding me of my deadline with a countdown.

  I have no desire to sit in the theater with him as I had planned today. The awkward silence would do neither of us any good. I do leave him with four more words, hoping for a laugh, a comeback … anything.

  “You need a bath,” I say and mean it. He reeks.

  But only silence returns. I watch him pay for one ticket, wondering where he gets the money and then catch the Helix one block up and two blocks over.

  On the two-hour train ride home, I pull out my notebook and add to my list of things to acquire for my mission:

  I remind myself the knife is for cutting and not as a weapon. Either way, it will come in handy.

  I get home before Mom arrives. So I don’t have to worry about it while she’s here, I waste no time getting what I need. A few hours later the front door opens, and I sprint from my bedroom almost falling down the stairs. Mom’s home.

  She’s closing the front door when I catch my first glimpse. It’s been almost a month since I’ve last seen her, but it seems like longer and at the same time like it was yesterday, if that’s even possible. She turns around and takes off her wooly black hat that seems to be an extension of her black hair, which falls just below her ears. I like the disarray of it, something different from everything else around here. The mess of her mop doesn’t last long as she gives her head a shake and moves the uniformly cut bangs away from her forehead. To me, she is the picture of perfection, her hair symmetric in its cut framing the keen features of her round face perfectly.

  She catches my stare, returns a warm, sympathetic smile, and puts her arms out, beckoning me inside them. I oblige shyly. It always starts this way and then we settle in, but today I notice something different right away.

  “Where’s my … your pin, the
brooch I gave you?” It’s of Alexander the Great, the very first gift I gave her when I was only seven. As far back as I can remember, the General went on and on about the Macedonian King, how young he was when he came into power and how he started studying with Aristotle when he was thirteen. Mom probably doesn’t wear it all the time, but whenever she returns from a business trip, she always has it on, until today.

  “I’m sorry, Harvis. I lost it the last time I was home, on the train.”

  “On the train? Since when do you ride the train?”

  She doesn’t answer, and I’m not sure if I posed the question as rhetorical. But she’s never not answered one of my questions before … under any circumstances. I skip it and move on. Nothing last forever, especially costume jewelry, and I don’t feel like prying. I’m clearly a little hurt, but I immediately try not to show it.

  From there, we get formalities out of the way, her telling me about her dealings in Tokyo, Shanghai, Beijing, London, etc.—sometimes I lose track—and me telling her about school at Lincoln. She can’t be any more interested in basketball than I am in business. I’m not sure if either one of us is truly interested, but we should be. We have to be; this time is precious. It will end as soon as it starts.

  After I take her bags upstairs, we sit in the kitchen and play more catch-up. She always seems to be smiling when she’s not talking, and she lets me talk more than she does, seems to require it actually.

  Our conversation eventually loses steam, and we decide to go to dinner at a familiar Italian restaurant in Los Gardens. Cooking is not one of my mother’s many talents, and eating out is the order of the day and night usually. The General hires a part-time maid who comes a few days a week and cleans and cooks if someone is at home. This is not one of those days. I order my usual lasagna, smashing the sizable portion in minutes while she barely touches her tilapia. Slight in size my mother is, but she possesses the mental power and wisdom of the queens of ages, I like to say. When she does talk, her eyes seem to bore through me, and I lose track of her words. Her eyes have the shape of mine only smaller.

  When she’s finished playing with her food, she puts her elbows on the table, intertwines her fingers, and rests her chin on them. She has bruises on her wrists, both of them. They’re faint but I can see them against her pale skin under the lamp over our table.

  “What happened?” I ask, reaching across the table and examining her wrists.

  “I fell.”

  For an extremely intelligent woman her excuse is anything but.

  “On the train?” I employ the General’s sarcasm.

  “Nothing to worry about, Harvis.” She looks away.

  It always bothers me that she calls me by my given name, no pet names like, honey or baby or even Harvey—eww! Something happened. It has to do with the Alexander pin and those bruises on her wrists, and she’s not telling. Stubbornness: another quality she and the General have in common.

  She changes the subject, and I reluctantly follow. The conversation becomes interesting and somewhat funny as I talk about Soul and his crazy antics, about how Coach has more or less adopted him, on account of Soul’s sick grandmother not being able to handle the man-child.

  When the waitress returns with the check, my mother gives her head a slight bow, at least the third one tonight. I equate it to the General’s salute as a show of respect only way more often and way more subtle.

  When I finally exorcise her evil secret from my mind, I realize I’m content in this pause, and I sleep easy tonight, the first night in many weeks. My mother’s presence can have that effect on me. We spend the next days going to different malls and shopping. We go to the Phantom of the Opera where I take a few bony elbows to the ribcage to wake me up. A few days later, we check out a viewing of the science fiction thriller, Ultima Humana, and I wake her up a few times with an elbow of my own.

  I get the latest basketball game for my game console and more clothes than I’ll ever wear. As we sit at a fountain in one of the malls, an advertisement at a kiosk directly to my right catches my eye. They have an AI chip coming out for some of the video games, and I get excited. She’s smiling at me when I come back to earth.

  We have lunch today at a Los Tres Amigos, and we order a plate full of tacos. Of course, I will eat most of them.

  “You want that game?” she asks.

  “Huh?” I finish chewing a mouthful of taco.

  “That game on the advertisement at the fountain, IA … you want that?” She hands me a napkin.

  I take it and wipe my mouth. “It’s AI for artificial intelligence, Mom … not IA.” I think of the Incubus Apostles and shudder at what’s in store for them.

  “What’s wrong?”

  She reads me well, again.

  “Nothing.”

  “You thinking about your friend who lost his sister?”

  “Yes.”

  “Sad … very sad. Have you spent time with him? He will need you, and I would like to meet him. Maybe I can take you both to lunch, or we can all just spend a day together.”

  I shake my head and cringe. That would be nice, but I know Naz would never go for it. It’s weird; she’s never met him, although she’s seen him before when he was younger. She probably wouldn’t remember. It was in passing at a park. Then again, that was a day to remember, the day I first got a look at the things he could do.

  My phone buzzes in my pocket and my eyes or some other telltale sign must give me away as being distracted.

  “Was that him calling?”

  “No.” I look away from her. It always amazes me the way the booths and tables are designed and decorated in Los Tres Amigos. The benches in the booths are so high that only recently did my feet begin to touch the floor when I sit in them, and my mother’s don’t. Every color of the spectrum is represented in the art on the tables with scenes of early Spanish life in the Americas. My favorites are the conquistadors. There’s something to be both admired and feared about those ruthless professional warriors. I think of Naz again.

  “Kaylie?” She takes a second, and this time successful, guess.

  “Hailey, Mom.”

  “I’m sorry. Hailey.” Names are not her strong suit. “Is she still meeting us for dinner later?” She looks worried.

  “Yeah, but she’s gonna be a little late. She has to take the train in.”

  “Oh, good.” She beams and then corrects herself. “Not that she will be late. That I’ll finally get a chance to meet her.”

  “It’s not that big a deal, Mom.” I resist rolling my eyes, and I silently regret planning this evening’s dinner. The good part is that Hailey and my mother will have no trouble keeping each other entertained for hours. I just have to endure the ordeal.

  “It is to me. That’s all you talked about on the phone before Thanksgiving. Don’t you still like her?” She senses my lack of interest.

  “She’s cool.”

  “Well, tell me about her again, how she talks and dresses, how she looks. You were so excited when you described her. Have you kissed her yet—”

  “Mom!” Ugh!

  She laughs, and I see her white teeth are not so perfect as I always imagine. “Well?” she prods, her smile transforming into a devious grin.

  I recover, not taking the bait. “I’m only thirteen,” I joke. I pull my phone out of my pocket and find just the right photo of Hailey. She is pretty.

  “For a few more days,” she challenges.

  “Weeks,” I correct and hand her my phone.

  “She goes to Lincoln.”

  I can’t tell if it’s a question, so I give the appropriate response regardless. “Union … High School.”

  “An older woman?” she teases.

  “She’s only two months older than me.”

  “She’s a cougar.” She laughs. “Then how did you meet her?”

  “She went to Lincoln last year. She was a cheerleader.”

  Mom frowns as anticipated. Hailey being a cheerleader was something I conveniently left
out in our post-Thanksgiving talk. My mother doesn’t believe in superficial or shallow (as she calls it) endeavors for girls.

  As she looks at the picture on my phone, she whispers, “Aleumdaun,” and then says it louder. “Aleumdaun.”

  It’s one of her favorite words, but she rarely uses it, usually only when referring to me, since as far back as I can remember. She’s always wanted to teach me Korean. And I wouldn’t mind learning my mother’s language if we ever had the time. Maybe one day. But she’s right; Hailey is beautiful, and her beauty has taught me something valuable; beauty alone isn’t always enough.

  Mom says a few more words in Korean that I don’t understand before the phone buzzes in her hand, bringing her back to the land of the free and the home of the brave. She tilts her head, apparently reading a message that has come through on my notifications. I resist taking the phone from her before she decides to give it back. That would be rude, and I have nothing to hide, not really.

  “It’s Naz. He says ‘six more days and the party begins.’”

  Like my father, my mother doesn’t encroach upon my privacy, but just the same, her eyes give me a reason to open up. She hands me my phone back and looks at me compassionately. It’s clear she doesn’t take Naz’s message in a literal sense that in six days a party will begin.

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  I nod, but I need her to start it off, ask that right question.