Everon had to put an end to this. And he had to do it right now.
Jersey!
Line people all around, Everon thought. What if the fat guy starts shooting? Off to their right, in the opening from the large side room, a dozen of the night-shift cable assemblers were bunched up together watching.
It was all too much.
It felt like he was spending half his time fending off new customers (none as aggressive as these guys) — so the line had power enough to produce more panels — which meant more power later. He spent the other half looking for new people. A third half trying to improve the manufacturing systems. Thoughts of his agreement to help Hunt intruded. Go east tomorrow? Cyn’s funeral at sunrise?
He didn’t have time for this crap. Words hadn’t done the trick.
Really, Everon knew he had reached a personal limit the moment he’d seen the thug had actually hit Right and was holding a gun. He looked at the fat man and said softly, “Intelligence isn’t your thing, is it?”
“What?” Fat Manny said, frowning, grip tightening on the gun.
“What was it got to you?” Everon asked, barely audible, eyes thin, turning toward Right but actually speaking to Manny. “Deposition, was it? Or Chamber, maybe?” He inched closer. “Electricity? Plastic? A gun is no substitution for a massive insecurity complex, you know.”
And Manny realized suddenly Everon was right next to him. But as the fat man began to bring the gun up, Everon’s fist shot out and connected with the center of Fat Manny’s face with a loud crack! Blood gushed from his nose, ran over Manny’s lips, down his chin. “Shit!”
The fat man may have been overweight but he was tough too. Ignoring the blood, he tried to bring the gun to bear on Everon. His arm made it no higher than forty-five degrees before Everon’s right hand was twisting the big man’s grip to the outside. Through the air came a blue-gray blur and then the fat man actually screamed as the jaws of an Australian shepherd locked onto his right forearm.
“Yeaaggh! Get this, arg! Get this mutt off!”
As the gun left Fat Manny’s hand, a look of surprise flashed over his bloody twisted face, but no greater than a second later when, BOOM! his own gun was turned on him as Everon squeezed the trigger. The bullet slammed through the center of Manny’s right kneecap and the fat man went down on the concrete floor. He didn’t know whether to hold his knee or try to push away the dog, Happy now ripping at the fat man’s shoulder, working his way up to his neck.
“Please —” the tough guy was actually crying. “Please, get him off!”
As Brown Suit reached into his jacket, Nick grabbed him in a bear hug and Right quickly snatched his small pistol.
“Okay, Happy! Heel!” Happy let loose the man’s shoulder and came growling to Everon’s left side.
Holding Fat Manny’s gun on them, Everon whipped a white handkerchief out of Brown Suit’s jacket pocket and tossed it back at the man as Nick let him go. “Tie that around his knee to staunch the blood.”
Brown Suit squinted, then knelt down and did as he was told. Manny yelled a thick “Aaaaah!” as the thin man tightened the white band around his leg. His shredded jacket moved just enough to expose a row of bloody teeth marks alongside a tattoo of what appeared to be a pale blue octopus on the fat man’s shoulder.
Everon looked up at Charlie shuffling in through the back door. His cap was missing. His uniform was rumpled and dirty. Charlie was holding a rag to the back of his head. His gun was gone too.
“The bastards clocked me. Sorry, E.”
“You okay?” Everon asked.
“Yeah.”
Hopefully only Charlie’s pride. Everon waited until Brown Suit had the handkerchief firmly knotted, then gave a point with the gun at one of the open loading doors in the building’s rear. “You can leave that way. Go!”
Brown Suit reluctantly helped the fat man struggle to his feet and hobble across the floor.
“Fuck Vegas!” Everon’s voice rising, “Next time it’s your fuckin’ heart! I grew up —” he screamed after the two thugs out the loading bay into the night, “ — the first half of my life in Jersey!”
The considerate soft-spoken factory manager Right Deters was loved as much as Everon was respected. As the two thugs limped away, Happy giving a growl for good measure, the whole semicircle of night crew around them, men and women, cheered.
Fuck ’Em, Start Loading!
“Thank you, E,” Right said shaking his hound-dog face.
“But next time it’s your fuckin’ heart!” Nick mimicked, laughing. “Nice job, E!”
“It’s no joke, Nick,” Everon shot back. “Would have been safer if I’d killed him.” He looked at Charlie, “How’s your head? I want you to see Doc Brown right away. I’m not sure if Judy’s still up there. Do I need to call him for you?”
“I can do it,” Charlie said, slouching grumpily for the front of the building. The guard looked more annoyed than anything.
“Killed?” Nick said doubtfully.
“Killed,” Right agreed emphatically for once. “Always assume,” he intoned in his usual tired voice, “when someone points a gun at you they intend to kill you with it.”
Everon breathed out a light chuckle, “Too much paperwork with the sheriff though. As it is, I doubt those guys will even report what happened. Unfortunately they’ll probably be back. Or somebody will.”
“Don’t worry about it, E. I know a couple of guys. We can double security for a while. I’ll take care of it.”
“Thanks, Right,” Everon grinned. “You worry enough for both of us.”
“Are we still going to be selling to the casinos?” Right asked him. “You know, once we get our capacity up where we can?”
Everon studied the rollers at the end of the new line. “Fuck ’em! As far as I’m concerned, the moment they pulled a gun, their contract’s canceled.” He looked at Right. “Get that blood off your mouth, will you? Are you okay? Want to see Doc Brown?”
“Hell no!” Right rubbed a shirt sleeve across the corner of his mouth, removing the bit of blood caked there.
Everon’s eyes took in both Right and Nick. “We’ve got a little weekend trip to talk about.”
Underestimating time requirements again, Right realized immediately as Everon took them through what he’d agreed to do for Hunt.
One of Right’s main jobs was to protect Everon from himself. Excessive optimism over any new project was part of Everon’s charm, the enthusiasm to convince others to go along with almost any plan or idea no matter how wild. But until actual calculations were down in black and white, Everon was known to grossly underestimate how long it took to do anything.
“Weekend in Pennsylvania?” Right said. “Sounds more like a couple of weeks, anyway.”
“Maybe,” Everon admitted. “We’ll see how it goes. We’ll take that batch there,” he pointed. “Load up every panel, inverter and cable assembly not already bolted down — all the spare parts you can grab. Fit what you can into Hunt’s jet out there. The rest go into the semi. Get two of the white electric pickup trucks into the semi too. It can follow us out to Pennsylvania.”
Voices from the yard were calling out cable measurements.
Right walked to the open bay door. “Hey guys, finish up these two rows, then move those arc lights inside!” he yelled, pointing, “Those over there!”
Everon scratched his head as Right came back. “A hundred and eighteen on present payroll?”
“Including twenty in Mexico, a hundred and sixteen now. I had to let that kid with the shaved head on the Farm Crew go. It’s the third time he hooked a wash hose around a bunch of panels then drove off. Ripped a panel set off its base this time.” The Solar Farm Crew — as the guys in the factory called it — were the people who set up and maintained the generating panels outside.
“Couldn’t put him anywhere else?” Everon hated to fire anybody.
“Well, actually the shaved-head kid, Conner, and one of the cable
guys, Sharif, started going after each other. By the time I got out there they were beating each other bloody. The way three witnesses described it, Sharif said something about a white separatist group rumored to be behind the bomb. I guess a big group of them met over in Las Vegas last spring. Conner’s from Idaho, up around Boise. Sharif said he’d heard talk something big had been planned for New York at the meeting.
“By the time I showed up, Conner’s yelling Sharif’s a Muslim and Muslims are responsible for New York, ‘and maybe it wasn’t so bad!’ Because — I’m just quoting here, E — the kid actually laughed, said ‘Sharif’s Muslim friends did kill an awful lot of their own relatives, all those kikes and sand niggers’ — as he put it.”
Right always spoke softly. But the plant manager’s tone rose near anger.
“Before we could separate them, they’d both said a bunch of disgusting stuff. By then they were slamming each other around into the panel laminating machines. Charlie and me got them out of here. I don’t really want either of them back.”
“Okay,” Everon nodded, disappointed. “Better off. But we’re really going to be short. Look, how many guys can we get by without for a few days?”
Right’s gray, saggy hound-dog eyes stared at him. “Nobody.”
Everon shrugged. “Alright, then,” he laughed, “I’ll only take half as many. Three line guys, plus Lama. I’ll get Enya and Nan — Nick? I could use you on this.”
Nick had been listening, not saying anything. “Sure, E, farm efficiency’s good. The cable line automation system is nearly complete. It can wait, if you don’t mind. I can step away — I guess we can wait to start up the new panel line when we get back.”
Everon grinned, shaking his head, “Unt-uh. We’re going to get it running tonight.”
“Tonight?” Nick said, eyebrows rising.
Everon nodded. “Have to.”
Right wasn’t surprised, but he suddenly reached out and gripped Everon’s shoulder. “Hey E,” he said solemnly, “we just want to tell you how bad we all feel about losing Cynthia.”
No Sleep
Franklin pulled off his clothes and lay down on the soft king mattress. Goose feathers. You could really stretch out. It would always feel like home.
He thought about how Everon had always kept himself a little separate from the rest of them. His apartment at the factory. How Cynthia used to sneak in here and they’d talk half the night away — often about Franklin’s girlfriend.
And then Cynthia moved away. To the flaming hell that was now New York City — and death. He didn’t want to think about her like that.
Think of something else! Go to sleep!
But sleep wouldn’t come. The light coming through his rear window was being periodically interrupted by something. Franklin leaned up in bed and looked outside.
He could see Mano through the open door of the ranch workshop. The old Mexican had his back to Franklin’s window. He set something down. A tall tube of white glue. He swung a tool back and forth. A simple hand plane. He swung a hammer.
Glue, nails.
Mano moved past the doorway with a wide plank of yellow pine, and tears flooded Franklin’s eyes. He’s building a box. For Cynthia and Steve. Shaking, Franklin broke down inside.
For minutes his mind went dark. Finally, he pushed himself up off the bed. Turned on the light. Found a pair of old jeans in the drawer.
In the mirror above the dresser, he studied the tiny lines at the corners of his eyes. The tears running down his cheeks.
He was tired. He’d stopped shaving the moment he went on vacation. The two day beard on his strong chin looked like defiance. The strong nose, the full, well-defined masculine lips with warmth in them. Like the eyes — yet searching, inquisitive, piercing — eyes that cut, irises of dark cobalt blue. Were his thick dark hair a few inches longer, his could have been the face of a Catholic missionary priest three hundred years ago.
He was one of two Protestant ministers of the First Congregational Church of Erie, Pennsylvania.
And he had to get back there soon. People were waiting for him. They needed him. For two days he’d set aside his own problems with the church’s other reverend, Ralph Maples. He didn’t want to think about Ralph now either. Maybe I should get something to eat.
Franklin stuck his head out the bedroom door. Voices filtered from the living room:
“We don’t know, madam, we don’t have any idea the total death count yet.”
“Well, all I can say is, when it’s all said and done it will turn out there were exactly six million, six hundred and sixty thousand people killed.”
Del has that damned radio program on again. Maybe I should go sit with her.
He pulled on his pants. Walked quietly down the hall.
“This whole thing is a Catholic plot. Didju see St. Pat’s Cathedral on television? Hardly damaged at all. The tall buildings around it protected it. All the priests made it out except Cardinal O’Shaughnessy. Probably another child molester they wanted to get rid of.”
“Thank you, madam,” (voice filled with sarcasm). “Line three —”
Del was leaned back in her favorite chair. Eyes closed, breath deep and soft, Melissa asleep in the crook of her arm. He didn’t want to turn off the radio and wake her. He wouldn’t bother her with a blanket. The living room was warm enough.
The radio host went on:
“Now the news. A story over the intermittent AP wire.
“Events on American soil were overshadowed in Saudi Arabia today when controversy rocked the Islamic world over a carved tablet of gold discovered in the desert sand outside Mecca during the Muslim holy pilgrimage known as Hajj.
“Dozens of pictures of the tablet have been posted to the AP website. In a sea of white robes, thousands surround three young men holding what looks like a thick slab of gold the size of a speed limit sign.
“The gold tablet appears to be engraved with what some claim may be a lost part of a surah — a chapter in Islam’s holiest book the Qur’an — newly discovered verses extending the traditional words of Surah number Thirty-Three, known as Al-Ahzab — the Allies.
“The historically accepted version of Surah Thirty-Three contains only seventy-three verses. The newly rediscovered Golden Surah, as it is being called, contains seventy-six — with three additional verses in the middle.
“And a major difference.
“While there have long been disagreements among Islamic scholars over interpretations of various parts of the Qur’an, especially between the major Sunni and Shi’a sects, it is generally accepted that Muhammad was the last of Allah’s prophets — primarily because the wording of Surah Thirty-Three says Muhammad was the Seal of the Prophets. This newly discovered scripture clearly states otherwise, offering another interpretation entirely.
“Here we have an English translation of the so-called Golden Ayat or golden verses:
“‘33:40 O people! Muhammad is never to be the father of any man among you, but the Apostle of Allah, and the Seal of those before, yet not last in the line of prophets. Allah knoweth all things, but no man knows the end of days.
“‘33:41 True believers, know ye this. Two more shall arrive, appointed from a land far away, a land whose power is yet to come, a land of many unbelievers. These two shall be for them. To learn, to move them to the path to righteousness. And these too shall be for you.
“‘33:42 O true believers, Remember Allah with frequent remembrance and celebrate his praise morning and evening. Ye too shalt know the One Hundredth Name is His.’
“No Muslim cleric has come out in support of the view that this new tablet is the true word of Mohammad — though several major Islamic leaders have made negative public statements, including one proclaiming the Golden Ayat to be ‘Blasphemy, an heretical derivative of the Holy Qur’an . ”
Two more prophets of Islam? Franklin thought, heading back to the kitchen. What — after Muhammad? The news has it right! If there’s on
e phrase memorized by every Muslim child it’s: There is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is his Prophet!
He shook his head. The Egyptian Pyramid Texts, the Hindu Vedas, the Jewish Torah of the Old Testament — all the other holy books I studied in seminary lay claim to “most ancient.”
But the Qur’an is a relatively modern book — only fourteen hundred years old. It makes no such claim. In this one area it claims the opposite — or so most Muslims believe. Sunnis and Shi’as might fight over faith and politics, but Muslims everywhere agree: Muhammad is not only Allah’s Prophet — but the Seal of the prophets — the Last Prophet. To Most Muslims the word “Seal” has always meant the End of God’s word. God’s final communication.
Two more? A sharp breath escaped his nose.
Carved in gold? Found on the way to Mecca? Muslims will go crazy! Like we don’t have enough problems —
Halfway to the fridge, Franklin stopped.
On the floor next to Harry’s soup box was a wire birdcage. Its brass spokes ran vertically upward two feet, then curved inward and joined at the top. In places, spokes were misaligned. He smiled. An old piece of plywood had been placed over the top of the soup box. She’d left a narrow slot along one side, to let in air.
He knelt down and lifted off the board. Round gold eyes stared up at him. In the glow of the outside house lights through the kitchen windows, Harry’s head moved side to side.
Franklin scooped a hand beneath the downy fluff and lifted the bird inside, onto the floor of the ancient wire cage. The bird let out its long “Hup-hup-hup-hup” as he closed the cage door.
He looked into the box. Harry had defecated on the top copy of USA TODAY Franklin had placed in there in New York. Beneath the newspapers, Cynthia’s private papers were scrunched together and crumpled around. Otherwise they still looked clean.
A rustle caused him to look up.
Del stood in the kitchen doorway staring at him. “Ain’t gonna let that bird just hop all around the house!” She wasn’t actually angry.
Search For Reason (State Of Reason Mystery, Book 2) Page 6