Sins of the Assassin

by Robert Ferrigno

  “Daddy!”

  They all turned as a young woman launched herself across the control center, blew past the guards, and wrapped herself around the Colonel.

  “Daddy, why didn’t you tell me you were back?”

  The Colonel hugged her, kissed her hair. “I just got back, Baby.”

  “You still should have told me.” The young woman stamped her feet, sent her lacy white dress fluttering. “And I’m pissed at you too, Lester God-damned Gravenholtz. You should have let me know he was coming back. Right now you’re at the tippity top of my ass-whupping list.”

  The tips of Gravenholtz’s ears flushed.

  The Colonel swung her in circles, laughing, and she howled wheeeeeee as her feet left the ground. She laid her head back, her long hair flying around them, honey blond, gleaming like warm silk in the camp lights. Round and round they went, the Colonel laughing along with her. She was barely in her twenties, tall and high-breasted, tan as a pecan, so fine-featured that Moseby couldn’t imagine how beautiful the Colonel’s wife must be. The Colonel finally put her down, the two of them out of breath, dizzy, still clinging to each other.

  “Where…where are my manners,” gasped the Colonel. He half bowed. “Baby…may I…may I present John Moseby. Mr. Moseby, may I present my wife, Baby.”

  Baby grinned, stuck out her hand, her gaze amused and coquettish. “Mr. Moseby,” she said, sliding her hand into his, “you better close your mouth before a big ol’ horsefly lands on your tongue.”

  Chapter 18

  Shit. Rakkim saw the cop car hidden in the shadows just as he pulled into the parking lot behind the Piggly Wiggly Diner, the car up against a storage shed where it couldn’t be seen from the road. Too late now. Worst thing to do would be to leave without going inside. Cops were probably inside with a camera remote just waiting for suspicious behavior.

  “What’s wrong?” said Leo, attuned now to any change in Rakkim’s demeanor.

  Rakkim drove past a row of haphazardly parked trucks and vans, finally backed into a spot beside a four-by-four diesel with an armored grill and a winch on the back. A barbecue pit smoldered off to one side, the night air heavy with slow-roasting flesh. A huge emergency generator rested under the kitchen. Sun-bleached yellow paint peeled off the back of the diner. Bird shit streaked the walls and windows from dive-bombing crows, crusty under the parking lot fluorescents.

  “What’s—”

  Rakkim backhanded him.

  Leo squealed, clutched at his cheek, eyes brimming with tears. “Why did you hit me?”

  “How do you feel? Angry? Humiliated?” Leo swung on him but Rakkim easily deflected the blow, not taking his eyes off the parking lot. “Helpless? Yeah, that the one eating you up right now? That’s what it’s like to be an Ident.” He grabbed the kid’s chin, turned his head. The handprint was still fiery. “These little cafés always use Idents for the scut work. They see you walk in, after you got your leash tugged, they’re going to know what that feels like. We may be able to use their sympathy.” He stepped out of the car, boots crunching on the gravel. “There’s local cops inside too. So mind your manners.”

  Leo stayed put. “Cops…?”

  Rakkim snapped his fingers. “Now.” He saw the dishwasher peeking out through the slatted windows of the kitchen as Leo scurried out. Leo kept one step behind him as Rakkim walked around to the front, putting on a serious limp, hitching himself forward like a crab.

  A grinning terra-cotta pig in bright red trousers stood on its hind legs in front of the diner. Rakkim patted its snout for good luck, the paint worn away from thousands of others who had done the exact same thing. All the people filing into churches and mosques, hoping to curry favor with God…Rakkim figured he might as well pat the pig and hope that the heavenly reservoir of good luck still had a few drops left for a thirsty man.

  “Sweet Home Alabama” blared from the sound system as Rakkim threw open the front door and stepped inside. Seemed like half the diners and honky-tonks in the Belt had that old song on permanent rotation. Sarah said that during the early days of the Civil War, “Sweet Home Alabama” had been the battle song for the Belt troops. After the armistice there had been talk of making it the official national anthem, but representatives from the other Southern states had balked, and in the end, “Onward Christian Soldiers” had won out. Rakkim would have voted for “Sweet Home Alabama.”

  The scanner inside the front door beeped, cycling. The clerk seated behind the glass of the gun-check room didn’t even look up, busy with his handheld game. Shotguns, assault rifles, and pistols stood stacked and tagged behind him. Rakkim waited. The Fedayeen knife against his forearm was entirely nonmetallic, and didn’t register even on scans designed to pick up graphite-composite weapons. The inner door beeped. Swung open.

  Rakkim nodded at the flag over the bar, his hand flopping over his heart. Nothing too showy. Shadow warriors on their first mission in the Belt sometimes overdid the patriotism thing. Dangerous mistake. Belt folk loved God and country, loved them so much it was second nature, easy as breathing. Flag wavers drew attention to themselves. The booths were filled, hunters and truckers and college boys. No sign of the cops. The customers craned their necks at the Mudbowl XXXVI rerun on the wallscreen. Good screen too, the image more crisp than anything commercially available in the republic. No wonder the diner drew a crowd, even at this hour of the night. On-screen, young women raced four-by-four buggies, studded wheels spinning rooster tails of mud fifty feet in the air, covering the barely clad contestants in a sheath of muck.

  The woman pouring coffee at the counter nodded at Rakkim, indicated a couple of spots. She had mugs of coffee waiting for both of them as they sat down. Rakkim pushed his aside, ordered a strawberry malt, heavy on the malt. The request tumbled out of his mouth like somebody else was talking.

  The Mudbowl camera zoomed in on a filthy blonde whose buggy went airborne over a jump, her hair flying as her feet left the pegs, her body horizontal for a full five seconds.

  “I’d eat that three ways from Sunday,” said the hunter beside Rakkim, tall guy with a grimy camouflage jacket, jabbing a thumb at the screen.

  “Amen,” said his buddy.

  The guys in the booths cheered. Before the tit-for-tat in the ionosphere between Russia and China made the point moot, the republic blacked out all foreign satellite images. Couldn’t blame the religious authorities—half-naked women riding around full-throttle like they owned the world…people could get ideas. Rakkim leaned forward. The filthy blonde was Tanya Tyson, three-time motocross champion from Baton Rouge—every underground club in Seattle had satellite descramblers to pull in forbidden programming, but all that space junk had shut down the global Net, and no one was willing to say how long it would be before things settled down. Rakkim wondered what the Blue Moon and the other clubs would do to keep the customers happy.

  Eagleton would have figured a way to filter out the chaff from the transmissions. Worst body odor in the Zone, a real curl-your-nostril-hairs stink, but the guy had vision. Until al-Faisal killed him, Eagleton had sold the best Swiss and Malayan black-tech out of that hole-in-the-wall shop of his, zero-grav tech that he tweaked even further. Rakkim still wondered what Eagleton had put together for al-Faisal—it must have been major, so important that al-Faisal couldn’t trust him to live. State Security was certain that al-Faisal was dead, blown to chunks rather than allowing himself to be captured. He and the device he had picked up from Eagleton. Rakkim would have liked to believe that…another reason he wasn’t convinced.

  The president of the Belt came on-screen, and somebody immediately turned the sound down. Laughter rolled from the booths as the new president jabbered away, a slick young politician with a mop of carefully tousled hair and too many teeth.

  “That grinny-Gus done nothing but sell us out since the day he got elected,” said a fat man with a straw hat pushed back on his forehead.

  “He weren’t elected,” said his buddy. “Never met nobody yet who voted
for him.”

  “Brazilians own his ass,” said the fat man. “How you think they got logging rights on the Carolina state forest?”

  Somebody switched the station and the crowd cheered.

  The waitress set a strawberry malt in front of Rakkim, the clear glass glistening with condensation. “Got five kinds of barbecue and breakfast’s served twenty-four/seven,” she said, pointing to the LED menu embedded in the counter. The cigarette tucked in the corner of her mouth bobbed with every word. Melissa McQ was stitched onto the left pocket of her uniform in fraying red thread. She noticed Leo’s Ident collar. Noticed the handprint on his cheek too, but didn’t say anything.

  “Bacon and eggs for me, side a grits too,” said Rakkim. “Give him the same, without the bacon. Jew boy here spits out swine. Real disgusting-like.”

  “Jew boy?” Melissa peered at Leo. The cigarette rose to the one o’clock position. “I’ve met a few Jewish people in my time. You know a man named Hermann Weinstein? Long drink a water. Big head of black hair. Very clean hands.”

  Leo shook his head.

  Melissa tapped out their orders on the counter keypad. “A Jewish Ident. What won’t they think of next?”

  Rakkim sucked up his strawberry malt. Loved it. He didn’t remember ever ordering one before. Wondered what had taken him so long.

  Melissa leaned over the counter. She had a full, soft face, her frosted hair in tiny ringlets like some kewpie doll’s. “I was an Ident myself way back when.” She absently touched her neck where the Ident collar had once lain. “Spent seven years just outside of Jamesboro. Wasn’t so bad. Man holding my contract was a good Christian. Seven children and the poor man’s wife died birthing the eighth. I learned my way around the kitchen, I’ll tell you that much. Just the kitchen; like I said, he was a good Christian. No funny business.” She wiped her hands on her apron. “I still get Christmas cards from Darleen. She was the youngest. Ugly child, but nice-shaped feet. You don’t appreciate nice feet until you take off your shoes after standing twelve hours a day.”

  Rakkim nodded, waiting for the cops to show. Matter of time.

  “Never had children myself,” said Melissa. “Those were good years. Like the good Lord said, seven lean years followed by seven fat years. Yes, sir, lots a wonderful folks been Idents, so you got nothing to be ashamed of.” She patted Leo on the arm. “What kind of trade are you going to learn, honey?”

  A line of spit ran down the side of Leo’s smile.

  “Taking him up to the lead smelter at Fayetteville.” Rakkim dragged on the straw, sucking up the thick, sweet malt. Amazing stuff. “Got a five-year contract.”

  The hunters started laughing.

  “Mister, you should be ashamed of yourself,” said Melissa, “that place is hell on earth.” She tried to get Leo’s attention. “Honey, you don’t want to go to Fayetteville. You won’t survive a year. Only folks working there are convicts chose the smelter over the electric chair.”

  “Relax, lady, he doesn’t feel pain like a normal person,” said Rakkim.

  “They got no safety equipment there, mister, none at all.” Melissa shook her head harder, curls flying. “It’s a hundred and thirty degrees where he’s going to be feeding the furnace, and the fumes peel the rust right off the pipes. This poor soul shows up, all they’re going to do is hand him a kerchief to wrap around his face and lock the door behind him.”

  “Kid’s bought and paid for, so save your breath.” Rakkim pointed to the kitchen. “How about you fetch my eggs and let me run my business.”

  “Good on ya, she’s a lippy one,” the tall hunter said to Rakkim as the waitress started down the counter. “You want my opinion, her owner didn’t check out the goods ’cause she was ugly as sin, not ’cause he was some good Christian.”

  In the mirror behind the counter, Rakkim watched two cops come out of the bar. “Any luck?” Rakkim asked the hunter.

  “Got a few ducks,” said the tall hunter. “Weird birds, though. Beaks all papery and splintered, half starved.”

  “There’s meat on ’em,” said the other one, “that’s all that matters.”

  “They ain’t right,” said the taller one. He leaned closer to Rakkim. “They roost in the wetlands around Houston. Lord only knows what’s in the water there.”

  “I’m tired of hearing you complain about toxic this and toxic that,” said the other one, a sunburned yokel with tiny white-tipped pustules covering his cheeks. “You don’t want to eat ’em, fine, that’s more for me.”

  Rakkim could see the cops chatting with the people in the booths, making everyone nervous as they slowly made their way closer. “I heard there was typhoid in Houston.”

  The second hunter picked his teeth with a fingernail. “You heard fucking wrong, pal.”

  “There is typhoid in Houston,” said the taller one. “And worse shit too.”

  The smaller scratched the bumps on his face. “Like I said, more for me to eat.”

  Melissa placed a piece of peach pie in front of Leo. “On the house, honey.” She glanced at Rakkim. “Cook burned your eggs. Going to be a while more.”

  The two cops stood behind Rakkim and the hunters, hands on their stun sticks. Couple of natty lawmen, creases sharp, clean-shaven. A third cop stepped through the front door with a machine pistol against his hip, safety off.

  “Evening, gentlemen,” said the oldest cop, a bald cracker with plenty of gym time.

  The hunters grunted, looked down at their plates.

  Rakkim swiveled around on his stool. “Buy you officers a cup of coffee?”

  The question seemed to anger the other cop, short fellow with a clipped mustache.

  “That your caddy pulled into the lot ten minutes ago?” said the bald cop.

  A trick question. They knew what he was driving at. “Yes, sir, it is. It’s for sale if you’re interested, but I have to warn you, it burns oil.”

  Leo shoveled in peach pie, chewing with his mouth open.

  “This your Ident?” asked the bald cop.

  Another trick question. Rakkim took comfort in the blade against his forearm. He could take out the two cops behind him with one slashing movement, but getting to the third one before he ripped the clip…that depended on how the cop reacted to the sight of blood. “Yes, sir, he is, but I apologize, he’s not for sale.”

  The bald cop held his hand out and Rakkim gave him the Ident chip with all the fake paperwork. The bald cop slipped the chip into his reader, ran a check. Finally nodded, handed the chip back. “Looks like everything’s in order.”

  The waitress set Rakkim’s grits and eggs in front of him. Leo’s plate had twice the food on it as Rakkim’s. “You sure I can’t get you anything, William Lee?”

  The bald cop shook his head. He laid a hand on Rakkim’s shoulder. “You been to Mount Carmel earlier today?”

  “Yup,” said Rakkim. “Quite a show too. ’Bout to broke my heart.” He looked from one cop to the other. “There some kind of problem?”

  The bald cop looked him over. “We got word that a couple Rangers in that area didn’t check in. Not like them, evidently. Been some trouble with the Mexes lately, so headquarters put out a three-hundred-sixty-degree alert.” He had a soft little smile and Rakkim imagined him at Christmas, drinking eggnog as he watched his grandkids open their presents, making sure they were suitably grateful and correcting them if they weren’t. “Seems like half the folks been in here tonight are on their way home from Mount Carmel. Thought you might have seen something.”

  “Well, sir, I took the interstate even though I was warned against it,” said Rakkim. “Supposed to be press-gangs swooping down on folks, but I didn’t worry.” He rapped his right leg. “With this bum leg of mine, I’m not much good—”

  “These Rangers weren’t patrolling the interstate,” said the bald cop.

  “I see.” Rakkim mixed yolk with his grits, sprinkled in a little sugar.

  Melissa refilled Leo’s coffee cup.

  “I don’t fe
el so good,” said Leo.

  Melissa felt his forehead. “You don’t have a fever, honey.”

  “We checked your car.” The bald cop waited. “Found your weapon under the front seat.”

  “Nothing wrong with that, is there, Officer?” said Rakkim.

  “Not unless they repealed the Second Amendment when my back was turned,” said the bald cop. Rakkim laughed with him.

  “Let’s take ’em in for questioning until the Rangers turn up,” said the other cop. “Everybody’s guilty of something.”

  “The gimp and the retard?” said the bald cop. “Waste of time.”

  “You want to show up empty-handed at the end of the shift?” said the short cop. “Fine. You listen to the sergeant give that same lecture on casting a wide net and the big one that got away. Not me.”

  The bald cop sighed, beckoned to Rakkim. “Come along, boys. Duty calls.”

  Rakkim stood up. His fingertips itched with excitement. No way were they going to the station or anywhere else with these three cops.

  “Oh, nooooooooo,” wailed Leo, squirming.

  “What’s his problem?” said the short cop.

  “I…I pooped my pants,” blubbered Leo.

  The bald cop grimaced. “Goddamnit, stay here…stay here and do something with yourself.” He grabbed the tall hunter, jerked him off the stool. “You and your buddy are coming with us.” He glanced at the short cop. “Unless you want to change the retard’s britches.”

  The short cop reached for the other hunter.

  Rakkim watched the cops brace the hunters, banging them around good. Their sergeant would appreciate that. Probably tell them it builds character. As the door closed behind them, Leo went back to wolfing his pie. Melissa McQ returned, humming a happy tune. Rakkim finished his strawberry malt, ordered another one, feeling good. He should check, see if the oceans had caught fire or the earth had spun off its axis, because for the first time since he dragged Leo’s ass ashore, the kid was earning his keep.