The Reluctant Prophet

by Nancy Rue

  “Okay,” she said. “Okay.”

  “You get back in my bed, and I’ll join you, and we’ll let him handle it.”

  “Okay.”

  She was slipping into shock, but it was easier to deal with than hysteria. Her body still shook even after I coaxed her under the comforter, fully clad as if she’d already been halfway out the door. I shook too when I reached for my phone on the bedside table and found it in a puddle of water. I didn’t even have to pick it up to know it was now useless.

  “I’m going to take this downstairs and call him,” I said. “The signal’s better.”

  She whimpered from a fetal position.

  I grabbed my sweatpants from the back of the chair and my tennis shoes from underneath and closed the bedroom door behind me. Anxiety seethed under my skin. What Sherry saw probably wasn’t Opus, but I was more concerned with what she’d heard. It was hard to confuse the sound of a Harley with anything else.

  I managed to get the sweatpants and shoes on before I got downstairs and opened the side door. The air nipped at me, so I snatched up my Harley jacket from the back of a bistro chair and thanked God I was a slob.

  The night was moonless as I hurried down the porch steps. All the outside lights on Palm Row had been turned out hours ago. I should’ve grabbed a flashlight, but I was afraid if I went back in the house one more time, Sherry was going to suspect I was doing more than making a phone call. As I crossed the lane, I glanced up at my bedroom window; the shutters were still closed. She’d probably gone back to sleep, and I was going to feel like an idiot waking Chief up if he hadn’t actually ridden away.

  The dead van sat dark and still in the driveway, waiting for its inevitable haul to the junkyard. With one more wary glance toward the shadow of the trash can, I rapped my knuckles on the passenger side window.

  Nothing stirred. If he was as wiped out as the rest of us, that wasn’t going to do it.

  “Chief?” I hissed, and then rolled my eyes. Why was I whispering, for Pete’s sake? “Chief!”

  Still no answer. Hoping the man didn’t sleep in his boxers, I opened the door and peered in. We’d taken out the seats, so I could see all the way to the back even without a dome light. The only thing in there was a rumpled sleeping bag and a tossed-aside pillow.

  I tried to talk myself out of a cold sweat. Okay—nature had called and he’d gone to take a pee behind the garage. That’s who Sherry had seen. That was it.

  But I didn’t call his name as I backed out of the van and raised the garage door. I already knew the Road King would be gone.

  “Chief,” I said out loud, “where did you go?”

  “He gone lookin’ for me.”

  A gasp caught in my chest.

  “He gone lookin’ for me so I could look for you.”

  I whipped around in time to be shoved back by two enormous black hands. I had to grasp behind me at my bike to keep from crashing it to the floor and taking myself with it. It rocked, startled, on the kickstand but remained upright. I clung to the handlebar with one hand and dug with the other into my pocket for something, anything to scratch into the dark face that forced itself toward me. All I found was my Harley key, but I worked it between my fingers, jagged side out. It wasn’t going to do me much good against this beast. All I could think of was Desmond, backed against the wall in the alley, relying on his faltering wit.

  PleaseGodpleaseGodpleaseGod.

  “So,” I said, “you must be Opus. I’ve heard so much about you.”

  He pulled his arm across his chest and came at my face with the back of his hand. I twisted away so that he caught me on the shoulder. The bulky glove muffled the blow.

  “Yeah,” I said, “that’s one of the things I heard about you: You love to hit women. Now that’s the sign of a real man.”

  He swore at me.

  “So’s that.”

  His eyes were like two poke-holes in the mud, but I could see the flicker of surprise I’d hoped for.

  “What else did she tell you?” Opus said.

  “Who?”

  “You know who.”

  He swore at me again, and I shook my head. “Actually the name’s Allison. Not whatever that was you just called me.”

  My hands were sliding on the handlebars, covering them with sweat, but his forehead furrowed. No wonder Desmond used this technique. If I could just keep it up until Chief came back.

  “So I don’t get it,” I said. “You sent Chief off to find you, only you’re here. How did you manage that?”

  “Called him. Told him I had the kid over at C.A.R.S. if he wanted him.”

  “What kid?”

  “Geneveve’s kid.” Opus smirked. “I don’t—but he don’t know that.”

  I swallowed and forced a smirk of my own. “Now just how did you get Chief’s cell phone number? Just out of curiosity.”

  “Sultan give it to me.”

  “Smart man, that Sultan. That must be why you work for him.”

  Opus pulled off his right glove and wiggled his fingers, flashing several obnoxiously gold rings. “This is why I work for him.”

  “Yeah, money talks, doesn’t it?”

  “Sure do. But I’m done talkin’. You ’bout to take me to Sherry.”

  “And that would be because …”

  “Because Sultan wants to see her.”

  I folded my arms and hoped I looked casual. “Interesting. See, I thought Sherry was your girlfriend. I can’t keep up with y’all.”

  “I’m done with that—”

  “So now Sultan wants her.”

  “No—he wants to make sure she don’t open her big mouth—and you either.”

  “About?”

  The poke-hole eyes squeezed in. “That’s enough. You just shut up and take me to Sherry.”

  He reached for my shoulder but I tilted away. The Harley rocked, and Opus took a startled step backward. My heart was racing, but I clutched at that moment like a lifeline. Opus was afraid of my motorcycle.

  “Looks like I don’t have much choice, do I?” I said.

  “No, you don’t.” He recovered the smirk. “She in your house, right? I know she weren’t stupid enough to stay in that other house.”

  “Y’know, that Sherry, she’s pretty stupid. That’s probably exactly where she is—man, we can’t pull anything over on you.”

  He seemed to struggle with that, which assured me he hadn’t been to Sacrament House looking for her. At least there was that.

  “I tell you what,” I said. “My van’s dead, but I’d be happy to take you by there on the bike to check. Jump on.”

  Opus pulled back as if I’d just offered him a boa constrictor.

  “Unless you have your own wheels,” I said. In which case I would call the police and the women and the National Guard—if I had a working cell phone. If I hadn’t taken out my landline.

  “I ain’t ridin’ on that thing,” he said. “I got my car around the corner.”

  “The Oldsmobile?” I said. At least I thought that was what Desmond said it was.

  Opus gave a caught-off-guard nod.

  “Those women will call the cops if they see that coming,” I said. “Now, if they hear my Harley pull up, they’ll get up and put the coffee on. You can waltz right in and take Sherry—on one condition.”

  “I ain’t lettin’ you go, if that’s what you’re thinkin’. You got a bigger mouth than Sherry do.”

  “I get that—it was only a matter of time before you got to me. Don’t let my calm exterior fool you—I’m terrified right now.”

  The line between his eyebrows twisted into his thick forehead.

  “I just have to know—that night I ran you down in the alley—”

  His eyes darted to the bike I was still clingi
ng to.

  “Was it you who beat up Geneveve and left her to die in the garbage—or was that Sultan? I mean, I know you get off on beating your girlfriends—”

  “She wasn’t my girlfriend. She belong to Sultan. She always belong to Sultan.”

  “So he came here and took her to the alley and beat her up because he loved her. Y’all have a whole other mating ritual going on.”

  “I come here and took her—”

  “And my DVD player and my laptop. Am I ever going to get those back?”

  “I done that to make it look like she ripped you off.”

  “So did you shoot her up too?”

  “I didn’t shoot nobody.”

  “I’m sorry—I don’t know the lingo. With drugs.”

  “Yeah, I done that. But I didn’t beat her. Sultan done that, warnin’ her.”

  “About what?”

  “About leavin’ him. He tol’ her next time she try to get away from him, he gon’ take the kid—”

  “The kid.” I heard the cover slip off of my voice, but I didn’t care. “He was going to take Desmond? Why?”

  His eyes sank into the incredulous folds of his face. “Because that’s his kid,” he said.

  Scattered pieces lifted in my mind and frantically put themselves together. Sultan’s hold on Geneveve was Desmond. She didn’t die for Sherry—she died for her son. And it wasn’t Sherry who Sultan was looking for.

  “You’re not as stupid as I thought you were, Opus,” I said.

  “Whatchoo mean?”

  “Sultan doesn’t just want Sherry so he can shut her up. He wants me so I can tell him where Desmond is. Right?”

  He didn’t have to answer.

  “Hey, he’s not my kid,” I forced myself to say, “And he’s sure not worth my life. Get on—I’ll take you straight to him, and you’ll be the man in Sultan’s eyes.”

  His face worked.

  “Fine—I’ll get the kid and take him to Sultan myself.”

  I dug the key out of my pocket and straddled the bike. “You coming or not? Look, you’re safer on it with me than in front of me when I’m driving it. We’ve established that.”

  He licked his lips and nodded.

  “Good. Let me walk it out of the garage, and you can get on. I don’t want to wake up the neighbors.”

  He nodded again and kept a frightened three-foot margin between the Classic and me as I power-walked beyond the garage door and past the van.

  “Okay,” I said over my shoulder. “Come on.”

  He took a step toward me, and I rolled the throttle—once, twice, three times, and screamed out of the driveway and down Palm Row. Before I rounded the corner onto St. George, Miz Vernell’s porch lights startled on. I didn’t have to look back to know that Opus was left standing in their accusing glare in the middle of the road.

  My hair snapped its stinging ends at my eyes, but I couldn’t slow down. The Nudge was more than a Nudge—it was an uncontrollable slam that hurtled the bike through the night as if someone else was driving her. I didn’t have to think where to go. I shot straight down St. George to King, barely rolling back on the throttle before I leaned into the turn and gunned it again, past the plaza, the college, the police station. Two blocks and I’d be at Ponce de Leon Boulevard—a few more to the right and I’d be at the boys’ home, with Desmond—and I wasn’t leaving there without him.

  The light at the intersection was red. I slowed down only enough to see if I could make the turn without having to stop. Two tractor-trailer rigs barreled toward me, side-by-side, horns blaring. If I turned the wheel and braked, I was going down. I kept the handlebars straight and downshifted, but it wasn’t enough. The force of both trucks sucked me in as they blew by. I had no choice but to hang on to the straightened handlebars and shoot across the highway to the other side.

  DearGoddearGoddearGod. The engine was screaming a protest against the low gear. Insides turning to jelly, I clicked into third and swerved into the C.A.R.S. parking lot to make a wide U-turn. A tall figure took the space between me and the corner of the building in two strides. I swerved to miss him and did. But something long and hard smashed into my windshield. The bike jerked to a tilt and slid on her side. Asphalt bit into my face until we careened into the rotting fence that bordered the property. The engine died on top of me, and I heard footsteps striding toward me, as if their owner were sure there was no need to hurry.

  I wrenched my left leg free and clawed at the weeds to crawl away.

  “Stop right there.”

  I didn’t. I got to my feet and stumbled forward. Something zinged past, close to my ear and stabbed into the fence, sending shards of wood flying. I froze, until the footsteps once again approached. Jolted by that unseen slam, I took the last few feet to the fence and grabbed for the handle of the knife. The man’s hand got to me first and wrapped its white iron fingers around my wrist.

  “I think we’re about done with this game.”

  It wasn’t the painful clench of his hand that took away my breath. It was the voice. Low and rich. And oozing charm. When he pulled me up to his face, I knew I was going to see a smile designed to manipulate. A twisted version of my Desmond’s grin.

  “It’s time to make a deal,” he said. “You tell me where my son is, and I won’t kill you. How does that sound?”

  “It sounds like I’m going to die,” I said.

  He was a colder, quicker man than Opus Behr. I never saw the hand that slammed into my face and snapped my head back.

  “Where’s my son?” he said. The charm had drained from his voice, leaving nothing. Not even anger. The absence of emotion was frightening.

  “I don’t have him,” I said. “They won’t let me have him, and they sure aren’t going to let you have him.”

  “Who?”

  “You’re the man, Sultan. You can figure that out for yourself—or have Opus do it. Now there’s a winner right there.”

  My bitterness was no longer a cover for fear. I’d gone beyond that, all the way to the hard edge of nothing left to lose—except Desmond. I was going to my grave knowing he would never learn to be what this man had become.

  “I told you, I’m done with this game.”

  Sultan closed both of my wrists in one hand and yanked me toward the parking lot. I tried to dig my heels in, but pain shot up my left leg and I stumbled. He pulled my arms over my head and shook me, and I kicked at him with my good leg. He was unfazed.

  “You can make this hard, or I can make it easy. Your choice. But it’s going down either way.” He pulled me within inches of his face. “What’s it going to be?”

  “This way,” I said. And I spit.

  Something cracked. Sultan’s hand jerked and released my wrists. For the first time I saw surprise in his eyes, as if at last he’d encountered the unexpected. Then he teetered sideways and dropped to the ground.

  My first impulse was to run, until I saw the blood. Disbelief pulsing through me, I knelt and pressed my hand to his throat. If there was a beat, it was too faint for trembling fingers to feel. I didn’t check for breath—I was sure I wasn’t going to find it.

  Footsteps brought my head up, but they were fading off in the other direction. The thought finally formed: This man had been shot, inches away from me, by someone who was now fleeing down the alley behind C.A.R.S. Again.

  Terror finally took hold and pulled me from my knees. I limped to the Harley, but I couldn’t lift it, even with adrenalin coursing through my veins. I patted all my pockets, all the while knowing my dead cell phone was lying on the bistro table. The police—okay—run to the station.

  I abandoned my fallen bike and hurled myself forward, but my left leg buckled, and I met the ground with a jar so hard I could barely breathe. My hand hit a tuft of weed, and I used it to pull myself forward.
Hand over hand, and weed after clump of weed, I crawled to the curb and clawed my way up the front of the wood fence. Leaning and sliding, I kept going toward the highway until I ran out of fence. Then all I could do was lower myself and pray Ican’tdoitIcan’tdoitpleaseGodpleaseGod. Until I heard the Road King, growling for me.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  My leg wasn’t broken. Neither was my nose. Except for the road rash down the side of my face and the strained ligaments in my knee, the consensus in the emergency room was that I was the luckiest woman on the planet.

  “I hope this means you’ll wear a helmet from now on,” the fuzzy-faced young ER doctor said.

  My Harley did not get off as easy. Chief said it had suffered some serious cosmetic damage, but as soon as the police determined it hadn’t been used in the commission of a crime, he’d make sure it got to the Harley dealership for full assessment and repair. I couldn’t even think about that as I sat propped up on a gurney with my knee packed in ice, waiting for somebody to let me out of there so I could go throw up or weep or both.

  “You’re sure Desmond’s okay,” I said for the fifteenth time.

  For the fifteenth time Chief said, “Yes. I called the home. He’s zonked out.”

  “Did they shake out the covers, make sure it isn’t a dummy in the bed?”

  “I woke Liz Doyle up and had her go over there personally.” Chief squeezed the hand he hadn’t let go of for an hour. “I told you she’d give you a kidney.”

  “What about Sherry?”

  “She’s at Sacrament House. Evidently she went over there as soon as Opus left. Walked, I guess. Hank’s there with all of them now.”

  “I owe her big time.”

  “She’s got help. Leighanne’s there, and Nita’s flying back ASAP.”

  “What about her cruise? What time is it, anyway?”

  “She cut it short, and it’s four a.m.”

  “What about Opus?”

  “Miz Vernell called the cops on him, but he was gone by the time they got there. They’ll put a warrant out on him after they take your statement.”

  “Then Sherry’s not safe!”