Charisma

by Steven Barnes

  The eternal party had already commenced. Reba McIntyre was asking “Why Not Tonight” in the background, and a few of the patrons were swaying their shoulders to the beat. Otis sat at the bar.

  Cory Brogan was a beer-barrel of a man, just a bit over six feet tall, but carried it like seven. “Otis,” he said in greeting. “Haven’t seen you in a while. Usual?”

  “Just a beer. Taking the kid shopping tonight.”

  “Got it,” Cory said, and drew a foaming glass of Miller. “What for?”

  Otis sighed. “Gym stuff. Shoes, shirt, pants. I remember when tennis shoes cost five bucks. Now you got to take out a mortgage. Nikes, Adidas, New Balance. Wow.”

  “I’m in the wrong business.” He slid the glass down in front of Otis. “Here you go.”

  Otis drank. Then too casually, he asked: “Seen Cappy around lately?”

  “No. Not really. Not since you handed him a whuppin’.”

  Otis laughed. “Got around, huh?”

  “Yeah,” Brogan said, but didn’t laugh along. “Chuckle now. But Cap’s a mean one—I wouldn’t turn my back on him.”

  “Don’t intend to.” Otis sat for a minute, just drinking and thinking. He was going to have to deal with Cappy again, he knew it. But with every sip of his drink, it got easier and easier to remember the victory, and forget the uncertainty and the fear. Hell, he had thumped the bastard once, he could do it again.

  Except that next time Cappy wouldn’t hold his boys back. Next time, it would be a mob scene, and that was going to be ugly.

  When he looked up at the clock, forty minutes had passed.

  “That gonna be it?” Brogan asked.

  “Maybe a whiskey. Just one.”

  “Just one. Right you are. Hey, Otis, what time does the store close?”

  “Store?”

  “You know, the one you’re taking your kid to?”

  “Oh, yeah. Sure. How could I forget?”

  Brogan looked at him carefully, shrugged, and went to service other customers. Otis sat alone, staring into the reflection in the mirror behind the bar. The guy staring back at him looked big, dark, confused. And not nearly drunk enough.

  * * *

  Patrick waited by the window. The headlights of a car slid by, followed by a long dark Chrysler.

  That wasn’t his dad. He shifted, looking over at Cap’s trailer. It seemed quiet over there, darker. It had been, since the night on the bridge. Worse, since the parking lot. Something had changed over there, and he wasn’t sure what. As if a great weight had descended upon them. The air felt compressed, as though at any moment it might explode.

  “Where is he, Mom?”

  He had murmured it to himself, but somewhat to his surprise, she appeared behind him, laying a comforting hand on his shoulder.

  “He’ll be here, hon. I’m sure he’s just working a little late.”

  He glanced at the clock. It was six o’clock.

  His mother tried to comfort him, but he just continued to stare, almost unblinking, into the darkness. Three times she had asked him if there was something wrong, as if she sensed some deeper significance in his distraction and nervousness in recent days.

  She busied herself with small things, and the next time she came back to stand beside him, it was almost six-forty.

  “Store closes in twenty minutes,” Patrick said dully. There was something else burrowing around inside him, something far stronger than a lust for new shoes. It was genuine concern, fear that something might have happened to his father, an emotion so deep and selfless that Patrick might have been the adult, and Otis the child.

  “I know,” she said, “but…” she was interrupted by the sound of another car pulling up. This time, thank goodness, it was his father.

  Vivian’s hand tightened on his shoulder. “Wait here a minute, darling.”

  Patrick shrugged her hand away. “I’ll get my coat.”

  * * *

  Vivian wrapped a shawl around her shoulders, and stepped out on the porch. Otis appeared, just the slightest bit unsteady.

  “You’re late,” she said.

  “Just a li’l bit.”

  “You’ve been drinking.”

  There was a Band-Aid on the side of his face, and when she tried to get a closer look, he drew away. “Ain’t nothing. Don’t have to make no case out of it.”

  “I don’t like you taking him when you’ve been drinking.”

  “I had one beer. A li’l whiskey. Ordered another one, but didn’t drink it.”

  She watched him carefully. Lying had never been one of his faults. “Why not?”

  Otis hawed a bit and finally shrugged, as if unable to devise a really good answer.

  Something occurred to Vivian, and the realization saddened her. “Me?”

  He shrugged again, seemingly more a big kid than a grown man. She reached out and touched his cheek, just below the bandage. “What happened?” she asked.

  Otis’s only answer was a shrug. A little boy’s shrug. An I don’t know what happened to the cookies shrug. She saw it then, saw that the boy she had fallen in love with was still there. The only problem was that the girl he loved was gone.

  “Otis,” she said, as tenderly as she could. “This isn’t going to work.”

  His face went slack, but before he could speak, Patrick appeared on the porch, bouncing out almost on cue. “Ready!” he called, and piled into the car.

  Otis shuffled his feet as if working up his nerve to speak, but the clock was running. Instead of talking he just nodded and climbed behind the wheel, backing up without looking at her again. As if he were afraid of what he might say in response.

  * * *

  Patrick and his father sat quietly as the streets rolled past, some of his ebullience vanished now that they were alone.

  “We’re already too late to shop much.”

  “Oh, shit, Pat. I’m sorry. Listen, though—we can be quick. You know what you want, right?”

  “I don’t know.” The boy was unconvinced.

  “Oh, come on.” They had pulled out of the trailer park, and were driving down River Front. The western hills cast deep shadows, mimicking a deeply orange dusk.

  Otis shifted uncomfortably. “What then? You want to just go home?”

  “Yes,” Patrick said coldly. Then a moment later: “No.” He shifted, uncomfortable in his seat. “I don’t know.”

  Then in a very small voice, he said: “Maybe bowling?”

  A huge grin creased his father’s face. “Now you’re talking! Tell you what: I’ll get my ball, and we’ll have a great time over at Starlight.”

  Now, at last, Patrick smiled.

  * * *

  Otis lived in a rather ratty apartment building behind the Fred Meyer department store at the east edge of town. It was a small, unattractive, decidedly bachelor building, a place Otis had never expected to stay in more than a month or two. They bumped up into the parking lot.

  Something glimpsed in a shadow behind the building reminded Patrick of a motorcycle: glimpsed, not seen. Perhaps even imagined. He wanted to tell his father to back up and take another look, but realized that he was wrong. It hadn’t been a motorcycle, just a set of box-springs leaning against the alley wall. Yesterday his fevered imagination had transformed an abandoned clothing rack into a Harley. This had to stop, before he made an idiot of himself.

  Otis turned the engine off, but left it in the ACC position, so that the radio stayed on. “I’ll just be a minute,” he said.

  “Okay. Dad?”

  “What?”

  “It’s okay about the shoes. We can get ’em later.”

  “Was thinkin’ that way myself.”

  And he got out. Some country western ditty was playing on the radio, someone howling about his wife running off with his dog, or vice versa. Something. He looked up at the apartment. He couldn’t quite see his father’s window, then leaned further sideways, and could make out a dark window. He blinked thoughtfully, and looked at his watch.
r />   The song about the dog finished, and then another one came on, a guy singing that his girl was more laughs than a stack of comic books. Patrick liked that one.

  Then he heard a motorcycle starting, perhaps as close as a block away. He looked up at the apartment again, and the window was still dark.

  He exited the car, and walked toward the stairs. Distantly, someone laughed. The motorcycle sound dwindled.

  One step at a time, he took those stairs, more confusion than fear on his face. He reached the landing. His father’s door was closed. Patrick reached out and gripped the handle. It wouldn’t turn. He knocked on the door. Nothing. He looked to either side, and the corridor was utterly empty.

  He reached into his pocket, and found his key. He pushed it into the lock, twisted, and opened the door.

  A slowly widening wedge of light pierced the room’s darkness. Patrick felt numb, disconnected. Through the wall, he heard that song, that damned song, no longer funny, some stupid hillbilly ranting about how his girlfriend had her daddy’s money and her momma’s good looks, the beat a distant, driving pulse. He took a step forward, and his foot thumped into something. His breathing was so shallow it was hardly better than holding his breath.

  Otis Emory looked as if he was curled onto his side, sleeping on the floor. Patrick touched his shoulder, got no response. He pushed with all his strength, rolling his father face-up. “Dad…?” Nothing. No mark, no motion.

  Patrick felt as if his insides had turned to ice. It wasn’t his father lying on the floor, and it wasn’t he, Patrick Emory, who rolled his father onto his stomach to inspect his back. It took only a minute to find the tiny hole at the base of Otis’s skull. Feeling ever more disconnected from reality Patrick felt the wound, the sticky warmth of Otis’s blood coating his fingers. It was a simple puncture, one that had severed skin and punched a pencil-thick, roughly triangular hole in the base of his father’s skull.

  Patrick stared at his soiled hands, distantly wondering what it would take to clean the blood from beneath his nails. Something in his mind simply shut down, as if a wall had fallen over his emotions. An image came to him, clearly, too clearly. So clearly. Cap sitting on the porch of his mobile home, cleaning his fingernails with a triangular knife blade. Smiling.

  Without a word, or a sound, he laid his father’s leaking head on the ground, stood, went to the telephone, and punched in the numbers 911.

  After he said the things that he needed to say, he folded his legs and took his father’s head into his lap, breathing through his mouth, staring out into the darkness with unblinking eyes. His ears were closed to any sound but the beating of his own heart, and the fragmented thoughts running in his mind like crazed rats in a barrel.

  I did it.

  He’s dead because of me.

  Daddy, I’m sorry.

  Daddy …

  And then finally, flatly, I’ll kill them all.

  40

  SOUTH DAKOTA, SATURDAY, JUNE 9

  The rented Pontiac sat in a rest area turnout, near the outskirts of the town of Whitehorse. Through a combination of modem and digital phone, Schott and Wisher were hooked into the net.

  Schott, the larger and older of the two men, had wandered off for aspirin and a couple of Cokes and brought back two frosty cans while Wisher worked the computer.

  “Hot,” Schott said, handing over a Tylenol blister pack and one of the colas.

  In the back seat, Wisher nodded without speaking, tapping at the keyboard, maneuvering through cyberspace. He paused long enough to push two capsules out of their plastic cocoons and wash them down with Coke. Maybe they’d kick in before his head exploded. Maybe.

  “What’s the word?”

  Listening to Schott’s voice was like chewing on aluminum foil. “‘Proceed to staging, complete unless you receive contrary instructions.’”

  “Oh, Jesus,” Schott said.

  Wisher’s head pounded. He took another swig, contemplated another tablet, and changed his mind. Everything would be all right. Just give it a little time.

  His switched his attention back to the computer. He clicked on a file folder, and the screen asked him for a code word. He typed in “Eltotsira.”

  A list of names emerged, some of them scored in red. Several had pictures beside them. They were all pictures of children. One was a beautiful young black girl labeled Tanesha Evans. One was a sweet-faced Hispanic boy with ancient eyes. Those eyes bored into Wisher, seemed to be asking do you know what you’re doing? Do you realize what you’ve done?

  No, I don’t.

  “What?” asked Schott. “Did you say something?”

  “No,” Wisher mumbled. “Nothing.” He bit his lip hard, using the pain to push away the weakening thoughts.

  A long-haul trucker pulled into the space just behind them, brakes squealing and hissing. Wisher looked back over his shoulder. The truck’s gigantic grill grinned at him with metal teeth.

  Wisher grimaced to himself, and returned his concentration to the screen.

  Half of the children were white, with some indefinable hollowness about their eyes, a roughness of complexion that suggested their families were trailer trash, mining stock, federal cheese-eating hillbillies.

  Wisher clicked off the Hispanic boy, whose name promptly went red. He massaged his temples. He had forgotten to take Miguel Sanchez off the list in New Mexico. He was losing focus. It was so easy, so damned easy to lose focus, and he couldn’t afford the luxury.

  The list was long, almost a thousand names, but fewer than two hundred had pictures beside them. Wisher studied the list carefully. “Acceptable risk,” he said to himself.

  “What?” Schott asked. He was sitting on the front passenger seat, door open and his feet hanging out.

  “He said that we were now at a level of acceptable risk.”

  “Is that what that fucker called it? Shit.” Schott spit Coke on the ground and tossed his can toward the nearest trash barrel. The can spun end over end, spraying brown fluid until it clanged home.

  “Then the rest can wait for Independence Day.” Wisher sank his head down into his hands, squeezing his eyes shut until red and white dots formed in the darkness behind his eyelids. “Acceptable risk,” he said. When he closed his eyes, he saw the faces of the dead, and those who soon would be.

  And prayed for their souls. I’m sorry. Please forgive me. I don’t know what else I can do. If there’s another answer please show me, tell me.

  He waited, but the only reply was silence. Wisher opened his eyes again. The screen was still in front of him, and he felt a vague sense of disappointment, as though if he prayed hard enough, they might disappear.

  Names were clustered together into states. One alphabetical subgrouping was headed “Washington.” In Washington, there were two pictures. One of them was labeled Frankie Darling, a little freckled face with sad, deep eyes. The other one was a Hispanic girl named Destiny Valdez. Both read: Confirmed.

  Wisher hit the SEND button. The computer uploaded. The program terminated. He closed his eyes, squeezing hard. “I think you’d better drive,” he said.

  “This is the last one?” Schott asked.

  “Until the Fourth, yes.”

  Schott grunted and slid over behind the steering wheel, while Wisher climbed into the front seat. He sat, with the motor idling, his big hands on the wheel. “Do you believe in God?” he asked.

  Wisher shrugged, and then nodded. “Fuck. I don’t know. Maybe. Yeah, I guess I do.”

  Schott shook his head slowly. “We had better hope to hell you’re wrong,” he said, and then backed them out of the lot.

  41

  WEDNESDAY, JUNE 13

  The wind blowing off the Cowlitz seemed to cut right through the sweaters and coats of the mourners at Riverview Cemetery. Patrick and his mother Vivian stood stock-still at Otis Emory’s gravesite, listening to the obsequies through a shroud of grief and pain so thick it was difficult to draw breath, to think, even to feel.

  Frankie’s
father, the Reverend Darling, performed the ceremony. The Reverend was a good but somber man who spoke in measured tones. “—And although life can seem painful, and even unfair, it is to be remembered that the days of a man are few, and that what matters, what has and will always matter, are the things that we leave behind, the people we love and the deeds we do—”

  Vivian wept quietly, lost in her pain and regret. Lolly Schmeer and her husband Kiefer stood to her right. The others were neighbors, friends, a few relations. Otis’s sister Melanie, a large, dark woman with damp rings beneath her eyes, had flown in from Los Angeles. His uncle, a slender, tidy man with salt-and-pepper hair, had closed up his Atlanta barbershop and come west for the interment. Otis hadn’t seen Uncle Gerald for years. He would have been happy.

  But Otis’s eyes were closed now. He couldn’t see the gray sky, or the mournful faces. He couldn’t hear the sobs, or the Reverend’s fluid words. The time for all of that was past.

  Briefly, starkly, Vivian remembered another time here in the graveyard, a Saturday night, so long ago. Two sleeping bags joined at the zipper, two young lovers joined at the heart, dreaming of a life together, rejoicing in the Now. All gone, now. All hopes dashed and gone. She was barely coping. Barely.

  She pulled her attention out of the past and onto her son Patrick, who stared straight ahead without a single trace of visible emotion on his face.

  Each of us deals with grief in her own way, she thought. Still, she would have felt better if Patrick would let himself cry. Or scream. Or get angry. There was nothing.

  And that frightened her.

  * * *

  Patrick turned, just enough to see Lee, and Shermie, and Destiny. Lee and Shermie’s parents were there. Destiny’s weren’t: She had carpooled to the funeral with Shermie’s folks. Frankie stood next to his mother. As soon as Patrick’s eyes found him, Frankie nodded. Destiny nodded. And Shermie.

  Lee kept his eyes away, and Patrick accepted that.

  A decision, once made, creates its own path. A great man said that. And the path Patrick intended to walk was not for everyone.

  In fact, it was for no one except the damned.

  * * *