“Are you coming, Nick?” Brian called back.
“Naw, you go ahead,” Nick replied, still watching the Coward.
chapter ii
The old man was not peering through his telescope when it happened. He was visiting his daughter, so he wasn’t there to see it. The dance studio had canceled the day’s classes; the Songbird was asleep dreaming about the man she’d lost. Zane was telling his girl that he knew about the mechanic, and the mechanics were all in the back looking at lewd pictures of Zane’s now former girlfriend. No one saw what happened at the commune, or at least no one saw who would talk to the police.
There were the panhandlers who’d returned home for a bite to eat before hitting the drive-home crowd. There were also the women who were waiting for Nick to do all the things with them and for them that drove down the property values. There were the younger kids who were home all day, but they wouldn’t know how to explain to their grandparents what had happened at the deli.
It was bloody and someone should have seen the Coward burst out of the deli door, blood pouring out of a stump that was once his left hand. No one saw Nick follow with a meat cleaver and a grin. The shouting match between Brian and Nick went relatively unheard. No one even heard the Coward whisper “I wanted to make you proud” into Brian’s ear.
And certainly, no one knew the difference between the thick red blood spilt from the Coward’s wrist, and the thick red blood that poured over the knife jammed into Nick’s throat. The women who swooned for Nick quickly retreated into the alleys. The drifters who wanted to get a couple bucks from Nick trotted off toward the abandoned grocery store, and the children ran home to years of nightmares and bedwetting.
No one saw how Vader smiled, knowing that the Dogbowl would now respect and fear him.
Misty hid herself in a bathroom and cried in spastic convulsions as she cradled her own stump, running her fingers over the soft, pink scars. The workers spread out into the street and poured Coca-Cola over the blood. Vader pulled the body into the shop as the workers scrubbed and scrubbed. A doctor soon appeared and attended to the Coward. He left with something stashed deep inside his bag. Brian growled into a phone, and Misty pressed her ear against the bathroom door to hear Brian talking to Herb Hefner. His voice rose progressively until he was shouting. It dropped to a hoarse rasp as they talked of a “mission to replace him” and Brian was in charge.
Misty wanted to tell someone, because she was scared. She rubbed her finger along the spiderweb scars, tracing where the stitches had been, her little tendons flexing in confusion as they still expected the hand to be there.
The Coward’s blood had awakened her from a long dream. She’d slept through sacrifices, she’d slept through blood and screaming, she’d slept when they’d taken her hand, and she’d slept even when they’d beaten someone into a coma. Now, she was awake and she had to tell someone.
After her heaving moans eased, she realized there was no one left to tell. She couldn’t talk to the cops after all she’d done. Instead, she waited for Brian to leave and snuck back to her room. She pulled out a slim pine box with a small glass pipe. Minutes later, she had slipped back into the dream.
Robbsteady0013
“Sweet Caroline” by Neil Diamond chimed suddenly in the form of a cell phone’s ring tone. Robbie glanced at Marcus, and then at Steve. Steve stared back blankly, until he realized it was his pocket singing.
“Oh, sorry about that,” Steve whispered, as he fumbled to get the phone. He flipped it open, looked at the number, and then closed it. “I turned it off.”
Robbie glanced at Marcus and mouthed, “What’s he doing back here?” and Marcus shrugged. There were two other men waiting in the corridor of the church. Robb only knew those two vaguely; they were part of Ira’s Dallas set of friends. Robb had met them at parties, then later at the hospital and now they were supposed to speak about their shared friend who’d just died.
“Sorry,” Steve repeated.
“Why are you here?” Robbie whispered to Steve.
“For Ira,” Steve replied with a slim, warm smile.
“No,” Marcus said, with a patient grin. “Why are you back here instead of sitting with the others?”
“Oh, well,” Steve hesitated, half-waving to the other two. “I just saw you guys coming back here and I didn’t know if we were going to be carrying something or doing something that you needed help with.”
“We’re going to give eulogies, Steve!” Robbie growled.
“Oh,” Steve mumbled, glancing down at his shoes and furrowing his brow as he thought. “Can I …”
“No,” Robbie interrupted. “Just go back out there and sit down.”
“But everyone will look at me,” Steve whimpered. “It’ll be embarrassing.”
“Sweet Caroline” erupted again from Steve’s pocket. Ira’s other friends chuckled as Steve flipped open his phone.
“Good times never seemed so good,” the phone sang as Steve punched at buttons.
“Sorry, sorry, thought I turned it off,” Steve said.
Marcus took the phone and turned it off for Steve.
“Thanks,” Steve grimaced. “Just got it and have never been good with those things.”
“Steve, when we go out there,” Robbie grumbled, “you walk to the pews while we walk to the stage.”
Steve nodded, staring at his shoes.
Robbie turned his attention to a female preacher talking about Ira, whom she’d never met. She’d instructed them earlier that the eulogies were limited to two minutes a piece, two minutes to sum up relationships that spanned years. She, on the other hand, would likely talk for over fifteen minutes. She got to talk longer because of a shared belief in God, but mostly because she was the one being paid to talk. Robbie always wondered if they charged by the word, or if they billed by the hour, like attorneys and hookers.
Robbie began thinking of Neil Diamond and sighed.
“Are you all right?” Marcus whispered to Robbie.
“Yeah,” Robbie replied, laughing weakly. “That song on his phone reminds me of my wife. It’s kind of a long story.”
“Wow, Neil Diamond, really?”
“Like I said, long story.”
Marcus put his arm on Robbie’s shoulders.
“If you can’t go up there, Robbie,” Marcus whispered, “there’s no shame in it; people will understand.”
“I’ll be fine.”
Marcus nodded his head and smiled. They both looked out the window to watch the preacher talking.
“How funny would it be if Steve’s phone went off again during the service?” Marcus whispered.
Robbie sighed and shook his head and Marcus chuckled.
The door opened and an usher led the five men to the stage where pictures of Ira were displayed and home movies from Ira’s childhood played on a large screen. Flowers were piled all across the chancel.
Robbie glanced back to make sure Steve went to his seat, and wasn’t surprised when Steve instead stood in line to deliver a eulogy.
Robbie scanned the crowd, finding pockets of former friends and relations. There were a few dismissive frowns from those who thought Robbie shouldn’t be addressing a crowd in a church. He felt a guilty stab of pride that his reputation had preceded him.
The usher led them to the top of the steps and they glanced at each other, each wishing the other would be the first to the microphone. Robbie was the first to flinch, so he walked the long ten feet to the podium.
He forced himself to look at the eyes of the crowd: Ira’s parents, Ira’s wife, Ira’s friends, all those who were only connected together through Ira and were now dealing with the reality that the connection was gone.
Only the female preacher seemed annoyed that there was now a fifth person in line to cut into her sermon time.
“I recently heard a song my wife liked,” Robbie began, allowing his eyes to drop to the podium. “It was this Neil Diamond song—she said that it was the song that her parents conceived h
er to.”
The crowd chuckled and chattered softly.
“I don’t know how she knew that,” Robbie smiled. He took a few breaths and then looked back at the crowd.
“Just two years before my wife passed, she told me she wanted to divorce me,” Robbie said. “We’d gone through some tough times and I guess I’d become too much for her to deal with. We didn’t get divorced; of course, we managed to stay together until she passed.”
Robbie’s breaths hardened into lumps in his throat, and he struggled to swallow before continuing.
“I know this is only supposed to take two minutes, but I might go over. Feel free to strike up the orchestra and play me off if I go too long.”
The crowd chuckled and smiles emerged. Robbie glanced over at Marcus. He nodded.
“‘Be all things to all people,’ is that from the Bible?” Robbie asked the crowd. “Somebody said it was, but I’m not sure.”
Someone in the crowd called back “yes.”
“Who says I don’t know my Bible?” Robbie grinned. “That quote reminds me of Ira. He would meet someone wherever that person felt comfortable. He was a Christian, but with me and many of his friends, he was Ira first. Because of that, I, who am anything but a Christian, never felt uncomfortable talking with Ira. We’d discuss religion, but it was never a sales pitch. More often, it was just a discussion. He was part of the reason I got my act together and my wife didn’t leave me.”
“When my wife died … that really should have been it for me. Ira could have told me it was time to go to church, but that really wouldn’t have worked for me. He was just there for me, in a way that no other person could have been. We spent a lot of time talking about basketball, video games, all those silly things that we did for years when life was easier. We rarely talked about Angie, my wife, until I could handle it. And when we did, we laughed. When he got hurt, there was no one left to help me laugh about her. It’s been a while since I laughed when I thought about Angie, but I did the other day because of Steve.”
Robbie glanced over at Steve, who then smiled and winked.
“I’ve found consolation in other places than Christianity, and Ira didn’t agree with it, but he never made an issue out of it. He was Ira first, and because of that, he saved my life. I’ve never been able to replace the part of me I lost when Angie died, and I won’t be able to replace what I lost when Ira died, but I can’t give up on life. Both my wife and my best friend invested too much in me for me to quit now.”
Robbie backed away from the podium, shook hands with the others in line. He glanced up at a picture of Ira as he walked off the stage. He quickly made his way outside, found an alley and cried viciously.
******
“Sir?” a small voice emerged.
Robbie was chatting with an older woman. He assumed she was a relative of Ira’s, but he wasn’t really sure. Robbie excused himself and turned toward the voice.
A thin teenager in a cheap button-down shirt, long unwashed hair and a face full of pimples held out a cell phone as he kept his eyes lowered.
“Hold on,” Robbie said. “Wait for me outside, okay?”
“Yes, sir,” the teenager said, shuffling out of the church.
Robbie turned back to the relative, who’d already moved on to someone else. Robbie walked to Ira’s wife and gave her a hug, and excused himself.
The teenager waited just outside with the phone, holding it up, his eyes still cast toward the ground. Robbie grabbed the phone and held it to his ear away from the teenager.
“This is Robbie.”
“There is a problem, Robbie, sir,” a voice on the other line said. “It’s Brian the Lion.”
“What about him?”
“Herb the Lion instructed him to begin the alternate plan.”
“What?” Robbie shouted. “Son of a bitch! Okay, I’ll be there in three hours; do what you can to stop them.”
“Yes Robbie, sir.”
Robbie flipped the phone to the teenager and then kicked a wall.
“What’s the alternate plan, sir?” the teenager asked.
“Get the car,” Robbie said.
“But, sir …”
“Get the car!”
Ash
Ashley felt Billy’s hand clasp around hers underneath the table. She let him do it, but glanced back just to make sure Sean didn’t see it. He was too busy pounding on the buttons of an arcade fighting game. They sat behind the wobbly table of a fast food pizza chain overrun by hyperactive kids screaming, laughing and stuffing themselves with heart-clogging food.
The heat from Billy’s palm made her skin tingle. Ashley alternated between warm shivers of infatuation and intense, sickening waves of anxiousness. She wanted to relax and enjoy the moment, but didn’t feel she could calm down until they were far away from the city and all of the madness surrounding her estranged husband. Ashley slid her eyes around to Billy, and watching him, she felt confident they would be okay.
She startled and jerked away.
“Are you okay?” Billy asked.
“Yeah,” Ashley laughed. “My phone scared me.”
Ashley pulled out the vibrating phone. She glanced at the number, and her smile faded.
“It’s Robbie,” she whispered.
“Do you want me to answer it?”
“No,” Ashley sighed, flipping the phone open. “Hello?”
“Ashley, where are you?” Robbie’s voice blurted.
“Why?”
“Is Sean with you?” Robbie asked.
“Yes.”
“You have got to get away from wherever you are,” Robbie said, his voice panicked. “You are in danger; Brian is on his way.”
“What?” Ashley asked, motioning for Billy to go get Sean. Billy stood and jogged to the arcade game. A group of teenagers across from Ashley were distracted by something out of the front window.
Ashley turned just in time to see glass explode. Screaming broke out, with gunshots popping and tables tipping over. A crowd ran to the back of the restaurant, and Ashley jumped to her feet and searched for Sean. Someone grabbed her by the waist and held her tight.
“Where’s the boy?” a raspy female voice sneered.
“Get away from me!” Ashley screamed, pushing the woman away.
Men in kilts ran past them toward an open emergency exit. Ashley began sprinting for the door, but a body crashed against her. Ashley fell backwards onto a table.
“Run, Billy!” Ashley screamed, starting to push herself up off the table.
Something slammed into Ashley’s temple, a spark of pain danced across her eyes, and she fell. As she struggled to her feet, she felt someone push her back to the ground.
“Stay down!” the female shouted.
Ashley remained still until the woman walked away, she then put the phone to her ear.
“You fucker!” she hissed into the phone.
“Ash, this isn’t me doing this,” Robbie said. “This is Herb. This isn’t what Jim wanted, they are …”
“Shut up!” Ashley snapped. “What happens if they get Sean?”
A woman screamed and Ashley looked up. The woman was kneeling, being held down by an attractive, but effeminate teenager. The kid held the woman tight, but he was very pale and looked as terrified as the woman. His left hand was gone and the stump was wrapped in a bloody bandage. A stalky man wearing a kilt with a braided goatee pushed the young man away and grabbed the woman. Brian walked in through the front door. He surveyed the carnage, the tipped-over tables, the piles of food on the floor, the blood and the cowering customers. Brian strolled through the restaurant and then leaned down to the woman. He whispered to her, leaned away and then shot her through the head. The young man jumped and the man in the kilt grinned, letting the body drop to the ground lifeless.
Ashley backed behind a table.
“What’s going to happen to my son?” she whispered into the phone.
“They are going to use him to ensure Jim shows up at a ceremony aft
er the concert.”
“The one tomorrow night?”
“Jim is coming back, he’s going to play a concert and then they are going to try to stop the anomaly.”
“Robbie, no please. You are not that crazy!” Ashley pleaded, her words breaking with panic.
“Ash, it doesn’t matter what I believe or don’t; this is what they believe and that’s what Jim said he was going to do. They think he might not show, so if he doesn’t, they’ll use Sean to bring him, and if that doesn’t work, they’ll just use Sean.”
“Use him how?” Ashley asked.
She felt a cold hand grip her throat. The phone dropped from her hand and she was lifted to her feet. Brian’s hand tightened as he pulled her by the neck until the whiskers of his beard brushed against her lips.
“You are always so beautiful, even in the darkest of hours, my love,” Brian grumbled. “Where is the boy?”
“I don’t know,” Ashley snapped.
Brian hurled her against a table, she crashed over the side and fell to the ground. Two followers collected her, pulling her by the hair and threw her down at Brian’s feet. He knelt down and picked up the cell phone.
“Hello?” Brian called sweetly into the phone.
“What are you doing?” Robbie shouted.
Brian recoiled from the phone, laughed and then put it back to his ear.
“Robbie, good to hear from you. How was the funeral?”
“What the hell are you doing?” Robbie growled.
“We are fulfilling the prophecy,” Brian replied.
“No you are not, the Prophet would not want this!”
“It doesn’t matter what he would want,” Brian said casually, glancing at the emergency exit as followers dragged two people into the restaurant. Brian motioned them to approach. One was Sean, who squirmed and fought, but was overpowered by two grown men. The other was Billy, whose body was limp. Blood dripped from his scalp.
“If the Prophet fulfills his obligation, then the boy will be fine,” Brian said, motioning for the followers to take Sean outside. “If he does not, then we are doing what we have to in order for this beautiful world to continue to turn.”
The Dominant Hand Page 17
