The Brigade

by H. A. Covington

  “Of course, all it takes is one witness to ID the car and we’re toast,” pointed out Annette.

  “If we see one single person in the area who might witness the hit, then we abort,” said Eric. “But you know, it will be dark, and even if somebody does see it go down by accident, it will probably be at a distance. If all of our other forensics comes up squeaky clean we might be able to bluff our way out of some guy’s fleeting glimpse of a vehicle under a street light. But I agree, it’s a risk. Especially using one of our own cars. You want to back off and try to come up with something else?”

  “No, I want to get this done,” said Annette, shaking her head. “I don’t know how long I can keep all this up before I start gibbering. I have a good feeling about hitting him in this area, and it’s the only likely place we’ve come up with. In this time and place there can be no justice without risk. Let’s do it.”

  “Okay. Now, if the cops don’t buy the NVA angle, you’ll receive a visit from them, since you have a motive for whacking Flammus. You tell them we left and came straight home, and don’t vary from that story. Be very vague about where I was parked, but only if you are asked. Don’t volunteer anything. If it starts looking at all dangerous, be very prim and polite, shut your trap, and yell for the best lawyer your father’s money can buy. You’re rich enough so they can’t pull a Patriot Act on you. They’ll have to actually prove something, with evidence.”

  “Got it,” said Annette. “When’s the next basketball practice?”

  “Today,” said Eric. “But it’s too soon. We don’t have the gun yet. Next practice is Thursday, day after tomorrow.”

  “I’ll get the gun and the ammo for you tonight and give it to you when you pick me up tomorrow,” said Annette. “We’ll need to find some place to test fire it. Let’s hope my Dad doesn’t notice it’s gone before it’s served its purpose. What if Lucius doesn’t come out to smoke his dope on Thursday afternoon?”

  “Then we have to wait for him every practice night until he does,” said Eric. “Sound good to you? Any questions?”

  “If there are, I’ll ask them when we go over this for the hundredth time, which is the number of times we need to go over it. But yes, it sounds good. Will Jan rest easier after this?” Annette wondered aloud.

  “Will you?” asked Eric.

  “I know I will,” she said.

  “You know, there’s another advantage to this plan,” said Eric soberly. “Doing it this way, you don’t have to degrade yourself with your sister’s murderer, in body or in spirit.”

  “I noticed. Plus I get to wear a mask, like a real terrorist. Eric, thank you.” She kissed him, and Annette’s kisses were rare enough so that each one was a treat worth remembering.

  * * *

  They did go over it a hundred times, and in the gathering darkness on Thursday evening, it all worked perfectly. The dark gods of homicide favored them in all things. Annette was amazed at herself, how calm she was, how right it felt as she pulled a baseball cap down over her head, a scarf up over her face, and eased the Volvo up beside the huge negro. She heard him scream “Muthafukka!” one last time as the .45 Peacemaker in Eric’s hand split the air in a thunderclap and a lightning flash, splattering the wall behind Flammus with his blood. Then came another thunderbolt as Eric got out of the car, leaned down and fired into the kicking, gabbling black lich on the ground, and a sorry-ass nigger died a nigger’s death. Eric tossed the playing card down on the ground beside the corpse, got back into the car, and they left. The ride home was completely silent. In Annette’s driveway they came together in a passionate kiss, and before she got out of the car she whispered to him, “This weekend we make the time and find the place, and I don’t mean the back of a car or the band room this time.” And they did.

  Nor did Annette even get a visit from the police. The law bought the NVA angle without question. The media certainly did. The talking heads on television and the headlines in the newspapers shrieked in horror, “RACIST TERROR CLAIMS NBA HOPEFUL,” and “CAT-EYES LEAVES HIS CALLING CARD ON CORPSE OF AFRICAN-AMERICAN ATHLETE,” and “OREGON MOURNS FOR PREP SCHOOL HOOP STAR.” Dean Hopkinson spluttered in a stunned and ragged voice to the reporters, “We have no idea how that racist murderer got onto our campus or got off. It’s like he’s a ghost!”

  If Ray Ridgeway noticed that one of his handguns was missing, he said nothing. He said nothing at all, in fact, about Flammus’ death, which was a significant omission. Annette took that to mean that he probably suspected something, since she knew her father was far from a fool, but he had simply decided that now was not the time or place to go into the matter, for which she was intensely grateful.

  Once more Annette had occasion to wear her mourning dress, a delicious irony in which she delighted. Three days after the killing of Lucius Flammus, classes were canceled at Ashdown Academy and the entire student body and faculty drove to North Portland in buses or in their own cars to Flammus’ funeral at the First African Methodist Church, a large building that fortunately had a large parking lot across the street to accommodate the fleet of cars, buses, and limousines. Eric escorted her, dressed in an immaculate suit with a black armband, and they sat grim-faced through the eulogies and stood respectfully for the hymns from the robed black singers, albeit the choir was smaller than usual. Many of Portland’s African-American residents were finally starting to get the message, and were departing for healthier climates outside the Pacific Northwest. One of the most moving of the eulogies from Ashdown came from Wade Schumaker, Annette and Eric’s English teacher, a portly middle-aged man who literally broke down in tears at the podium, so distressed was he at the loss of this brilliant young adornment to Portland’s African-American community and to the gorgeous mosaic that was America.

  The funeral was crowded with state and local politicians and media, and surrounded by a security cordon of hundreds of heavily armed police and National Guard and FBI SWAT teams; the NVA had been known to attack funeral services that threatened to turn into political statements before this. Eric and Annette waited patiently for the crowd to thin out before crossing the street to where the white Lexus was parked, beside a long black stretch limo. “You actually didn’t burst out laughing!” Eric told her in a low tone. “I’m impressed. Now that was above and beyond the call!”

  “I don’t care if they arrest me now,” said Annette. “If they just take me and not you, I honestly don’t care if they kill me now, Eric. I’ve done right by Jan and however long I have to live without her, I can take comfort in that.”

  “The Sicilians say that revenge is the only dish that tastes best when it’s served cold,” said Eric. “Well, that may be, but I can tell you, it tastes damned good served hot as well! Give me the keys, I’ll drive.” They stopped at the rear of the Lexus and as Eric took the keys from Annette, he felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned around and found himself facing a spare and bespectacled man in a chauffeur’s uniform and cap, presumably from the VIP limo next to them.

  “Hello again, Eric,” the man said with a polite smile. “Hello again, Annette.”

  “Uh, do we know you?” asked Eric suspiciously.

  “Sure you do,” the chauffeur said easily. “Hank Jarrett. I used to run Jarrett’s Tune and Lube down in Woodburn, but I’ve got a new job now. I had to give up my service station, see, when a couple of smart-ass preppy kids came by asking stupid questions.”

  Eric gulped and mumbled, “Uh, well . . .” He and Annette took a step back, but Annette almost stepped on the toes of someone standing behind her. She whirled and saw a lean and handsome young man with auburn hair, a devilish twinkle in his blue eyes and a slight, sardonic smile. He was dressed in a suit as neat as Eric’s, with the same black mourning band on his arm.

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Sellars,” he said. “Good afternoon, Miss Ridgeway. My name is Jesse Lockhart. I’m told you two have been taking my name in vain.”

  “Oh shit!” gasped Annette, white-faced.

  “Oh shit, indeed,�
�� said Lockhart amiably. Behind them, Jarrett opened the door of the limousine. “We’d like a word, please,” said Cat-Eyes, gesturing toward the black yawning interior of the limo. “Get in the car.”

  XII

  “Are You In Or Out?”

  Yea, from the table of my memory

  I’ll wipe away all trivial fond records,

  All saws of books, all forms, all pressures past,

  That youth and observation copied there;

  And thy commandment all alone shall live

  Within the book and volume of my brain . . .

  Hamlet—Act I, Scene 5

  Annette and Eric looked at each other. They knew that they couldn’t risk screaming for the nearby police. Even if the Volunteers didn’t shoot them on the spot, they could hardly afford to draw attention to themselves, in view of their role in the death of the black man whose funeral they had just attended. Eric took her hand and squeezed it, and they got into the limousine. Lockhart got in behind them, and they found themselves seated in the spacious rear compartment across from two other men. One was wearing a neat suit and a blue ski mask over his head. The second was a large man with a chestnut ponytail and beard, dressed in jeans and a jacket, beneath which they could see a large .357 Magnum in a shoulder holster. Lockhart sat down beside them, and the chauffeur-dressed Jarrett got into the front seat behind the wheel, then rolled down the partition window so he could listen in. Eric broke the ice. “I know this is a stupid thing to say to people who are probably about to kill us, but are you guys aware of the fact that you’re surrounded by a hundred heavily armed cops and government gun-toters of various kinds? Either you’ve got balls the size of grapefruit, or else you’re just plain nuts. I’m curious. Which is it?”

  “Audace, audace, toujours l’audace,” said the man in the mask. His voice was teasingly familiar. “Danton. French Revolution. Fortune favors the brave and all that rot.”

  “Okay, what happens now?” asked Annette. Her voice was calm, but her hand was almost crushing Eric’s. “Mr. Lockhart, will it do any good to apologize for our appropriating your Jack of Diamonds signature? I know you’re mad at us, but we didn’t realize it was copyrighted material, so to speak.”

  “Oh, hell no, I’m not mad,” laughed Cat-Eyes easily. “I’m just glad you guys didn’t fuck up the tickle. You’ve actually augmented my rep and helped confuse the enemy. I don’t normally use a handgun, but now they’ve got something more to addle their brains with, and your dean’s comment about my being a mysterious ghost who can make myself invisible is a plus. Adds to my legend and all that crap. These comrades of mine wanted to have a word with you, and I asked to come along out of curiosity to see what kind of kids have the stones to do what you did and then hang it on me. You guys did a damned good job, by the way. Congratulations.”

  “That’s from all of us,” said the big bearded man. “I’m Comrade Thumper.”

  “I can imagine,” said Annette, eyeing him. She looked at the man in the mask. “Do I know you?”

  “Not yet,” said Jimmy Wingo. “Maybe you will in future, maybe you won’t. That’s up to you. I think you can guess why we’re here. The Army is always looking for new talent.”

  “How did you find us?” asked Eric.

  “The fact that you both gave me your names was a pretty big help,” said Jarrett from the front. “That and the fact that you were wearing Ashdown Academy school uniforms. We had our eyes on you even before you cacked that coon.”

  “That’s reassuring,” said Annette. Her voice was still calm but Eric could feel her hand starting to tremble.

  “We wanted to see how you’d handle yourselves, and you did all right,” said Wingo. “Actually, Flammus was already on our to-do list. We just hadn’t got around to him yet. Cat here cruised the area around the school a couple of times scoping, the terrain and looking for firing positions and escape routes.”

  “I recommended we take him elsewhere, just before or after a game, when he was in transit,” explained Lockhart. “An enclosed area like your campus is hard, if you have to beat feet right after your shot. Not many exits or possible pickup points for a vehicle to catch you on the bounce. But you know that. Just for the record, can I ask how you pulled it off? Two revolutionary comrades to another?”

  “Praise from the master,” said Eric with a shaky laugh. “Well, you see, that nigger Flammus was a real louse. He—did things to someone Annette and I both cared about a lot . . .”

  “We know about your sister, ma’am,” said Wingo gravely. “For what it’s worth, please accept my sympathies and the condolences of the NVA. We all lost a sister when Jan died, although I guess you don’t understand that fully.”

  “I do understand,” said Annette quietly. “Thank you, uh, Thumper.”

  “So you decided to kill Flammus,” prompted Wingo. Jarrett spoke up from the front seat.

  “Parking lot’s clearing out,” he said. “We better roll, or somebody might wonder why we’re just sitting here.”

  “Okay, Jeeves, take her for a spin,” said Wingo. “We’ll bring you back to your car when we’re done,” he told the two young people, and suddenly they knew he meant it and they were in no danger. They both palpably relaxed.

  Jarrett started the limousine and pulled away out of the parking lot. Annette turned to the driver. “Mr. Jarrett, I’m sorry Eric and I lost you your gas station. I know now it was a stupid and careless thing to do, but we wanted to find the NVA really bad, and your place was all I could think of.”

  “Don’t worry about it, miss,” replied Jarrett, smiling back at her. “It was time. I’m amazed the feebs never picked up on me before. You guys were a wake-up call. If you could remember the Party papers in my waiting room, I’m sure others could as well, and maybe the next guy who remembered would have picked up the phone to the FBI and done some dialing for dollars. I can get the business back after we run these bastards out of our country, if I want.”

  “You were saying about killing Flammus?” prompted Wingo again.

  As they rode through the wintry streets of Portland, Eric quickly and accurately ran down the entire murder plot from beginning to end. Wingo and Lockhart looked at one another, clearly impressed. “Using one of your own vehicles was a mistake, but luck was with you, as it so often is with us these days. Otherwise that really was good work,” said Wingo with an approving nod. “Good planning and execution. You both have the knack for the job, and you’ve got the belly for it. It’s not everybody who can keep his cool, plant the package and thumb the detonator, pull the trigger and then not go to pieces afterwards. Even some of our own comrades don’t have that kind of steel nerves, and they can’t be used for wet work. Okay, I’m sure you know what the next question will be. Where do you two want to take it from here, if anywhere? We understand that this was a private matter, and you may have always thought of it as a one-shot deal, or a two-shot deal, to be accurate.” Annette smiled. “If you just want to leave it there and get on with your lives, that’s 100 per cent your call. We’ll take you back to your car and you’ll never see us again. If you want to form your own group and continue the fight in your own way, without any official connection to the Army, then that’s an option as well. We’ll even give you one emergency contact if you ever need any help. Some people are doing that. Whatever their reasons may be, they don’t want to be officially connected to the NVA or under Army discipline, but they are waging their own resistance struggle in small groups or as individuals. That’s acceptable as well. In fact it’s sometimes a good idea in this phase of the war, although at some point in the future, when this thing gets really big-time, we’re going to have to connect all the dots. Or you can throw in with the NVA itself and keep on with what you’ve started. Have you thought about it?”

  “I’ve been thinking about it since I watched my sister’s coffin lowered into the ground,” said Annette bitterly.

  “We both have,” said Eric soberly. “We’re young, but even we can see that things i
n America can’t go on this way. I laugh when somebody refers to us kids at Ashdown as privileged. Jan’s death showed us that all our so-called privilege won’t protect us against this—this filth, this madness, this—oh, this whole damned mess. We’re living in a toilet and eventually we’re going down the drain, one way or another. I don’t know what else to call it.”

  “Don’t worry,” chuckled Wingo. “Greater minds than any of ours have spent their lives trying to describe the world we live in. Our job is to change it. One thing, though. I’m afraid for security reasons, which I’m sure are obvious to you, we need an answer right away. You say you’ve been thinking about it for a while, so you should be able to look into your hearts and know. Are you in or out?”