“You’re good at fucking with his mind.”
“Keep your vulgarities to yourself.”
Karl’s eyes tightened. She needed slapping around. She needed… “You know, he frightens me when it comes right down to it. I don’t scare easily, but the things he can do… Doc, I have the perfect plan for Bannon. If we implement it, the plan will solve both your father’s problem and your own.”
“My problem?” Parker asked. “I have no problems concerning Bannon.”
Oh, this was rich. This was good. Didn’t she realize yet? He savored the moment, and asked, “You don’t think I know?”
Parker froze, and she stared at him.
“You should think about it,” Karl said. Can you believe it? I pulled the cat’s tongue. “We should use Bannon with the Justice and… How does the saying go? We’ll solve two problems with one stone.”
She kept staring, and finally she said, “You may be right.”
“I am right. I know you know it. All we have to do is to convince the Controller.”
Parker became thoughtful. He could see the lights working in there.
I’ve planted the seed. Now I have to let it germinate. If anyone can convince the old man, it’s the ice queen.
Karl peered through the glass partition at Bannon. He didn’t like the assassin. He didn’t like the concept. If the old man and his bitch could see reason…that would be one less problem for Karl Sand.
-9-
Bannon woke up slowly. There was noise, a droning sound. He became aware of a voice, a female voice. It spoke softly to him, and the owner wore a fragrant perfume. The scent tickled his nose.
He opened his eyes, and he found that he lay in an office. He glanced around and found a stunningly beautiful woman smiling at him.
“Feeling better?” Dr. Parker asked.
He tried to open his mouth, but he was still much too tired. He felt exhausted, and there was a strange taste in his mouth like copper, or maybe like blood. Closing his eyes, he decided to go back to sleep.
Parker chuckled. “No, Mr. Gemmell, I’m afraid you don’t have time to sleep here. You need to get back home to Sacramento.”
He opened his eyes again and unglued his lips. Turning his head, he noticed a gauze pad on the vein of his left arm, on the opposite side of his elbow. A tiny piece of tape held the pad in place.
“Nothing to worry about,” she said. “You needed your regular injection.”
“Oh,” he managed to say. He moved the arm, and the joints seemed welded tight. How long had he lain here? He could feel his scalp, how oily it was. He needed a shower. He liked to shower every morning, yet it felt as if he’d missed several of them. That was absurd, of course, the idea that he’d been on her couch for several days. The thought gave him a surge of energy.
“I went down hard,” he said.
She chuckled, nodding. “You must have taken your dosage before coming in, and you had one here, too. A double dose can do that.”
“The pills?” he asked.
“I’m going to give you more. That should hold you until your next appointment.”
“Okay.”
“Did you enjoy your vacation?”
He thought about the question and then grinned shyly, feeling like a fool. “I don’t seem to recall a vacation.”
“You went to Mexico, you said, to the beaches there.”
“Oh.” Now that she said that, he faintly recalled going to Mexico. He couldn’t remember any beaches, however. He might have gone exploring in the southern jungles. Oh, that’s right. He’d been to an Aztec ruin in the south. It was a bit fuzzy, but he knew his faulty memories were due to the medications he took. He had a condition, an anger problem, the doctor had told him before. Beautiful and smart Dr. Parker worked with him.
“How am I doing?” he asked, trying to hide his worry. “What did the tests find?”
She patted his arm. “You’re doing fine, just fine. My advice: go home, tell your boss you’ve been on vacation a little longer than expected and now you’re ready to work hard. He’ll like hearing that.”
“I like to work hard,” he said.
“I know. Don’t forget your meds.”
“I can go then?”
“Yes. Have a safe trip home.”
Gemmell lifted his torso and swung his feet onto the floor, waiting as dizziness threatened his vision. As he waited, he remembered why he’d gone to Mexico. He had followed the doctor’s suggestion.
He still mourned the loss of his wife and daughter. They had died in a senseless auto accident. The trip to Mexico was to try to get his mind off the loss. The accident had occurred nine months ago, but he still had trouble adjusting to it.
“Thank you for everything,” he said, and he meant it.
She smiled, and there was sadness in it. He appreciated her compassion and her humility about how well she did her job.
“I don’t know how I’d have coped without your help,” he added.
She looked away. It was hard for Dr. Parker to accept praise. He remembered that now.
“Don’t drive too fast,” she said.
“I know. No more traffic tickets.”
She stood. He took that as a signal and forced himself to his feet. The first few steps were the hardest, almost as if he had to learn how to walk again.
He waved. She waved, and then he was in the outer office. A giant, flat-faced man typed at the receptionist’s desk. The man glanced at him, and it made Gemmell uncomfortable. He stopped, although he wasn’t sure why.
“Good-bye, sir,” the man said. “Drive safe.”
Gemmell hesitated, finally nodded and went outside into the hall. He put his hands in his pockets and walked with his head down. He didn’t like talking with people. Instead, he kept to himself. He was aware of the man at the counter in the lobby. The man glanced at him a little too sharply. Gemmell shrugged to himself. He was always the odd man out and was used to it by now.
Outside, clouds hid the sun. It felt like rain, which was strange for summer. Roller coaster cars clacked upward on the nearest amusement park ride. He didn’t know what it was called: the ride in particular. He didn’t like the idea of being in those. Roller coasters went too fast. Why did people like going to Great America anyway? A nice quiet lake suited him much better.
He found his beat-up Chevy pickup. It was an eyesore compared to the other vehicles. It was a good thing he had government health insurance for these visits. Otherwise, he was sure he could have afforded Dr. Parker. She was the best. She helped him keep level, keep straight and narrow so he didn’t get in trouble with the law due to his temper. The meds were expensive, too, and he took them faithfully. He wanted to keep level because deep inside he was afraid of getting angry. He had faint memories of doing bad things. He never wanted to hurt anyone ever again, because it made him feel the loss of his wife and daughter too much.
He climbed into the Chevy, listened to the engine turn over and finally cough to life. After backing up and turning around, he slowly left the lot. He hunted for a speed limit sign so he wouldn’t travel too fast.
Obey the law.
“I will,” he whispered. He didn’t want to get into any more trouble. Peace and quiet, that’s all he wished out of life, and he was going to make sure that’s exactly what he got.
-10-
“Finally,” Karl said, “all our lobbying is going to pay off.” He spoke to Parker in her office.
“The Controller simply gave the okay to begin maneuvering the pieces into position,” Parker said. “He hasn’t actually committed himself to the hit.”
“He will.”
“Oh, and now you know his mind?”
“It doesn’t take a psychiatrist to realize your father is nervous. I’m nervous, but we have to stop the Justice before it’s too late.”
She picked up a pen, tapping it against a piece of paper. “There are some who don’t agree with you.”
“Don’t agree with us. Sure, I know about the
m. But what can they do about it?”
“Is that a joke?” she asked. “We’re all vulnerable in this. The risks—”
“Is why Bannon is the perfect choice,” Karl said in a soothing tone.
Parker eyed him. “You used to approve of Bannon. What changed that?”
Karl had his reasons, but he wasn’t going to tell her. What he said was, “What Bannon did in Mexico changed my mind.”
“You know Bannon will have to die afterward. Yes, that is what’s made you so enthusiastic about using him for this particular hit.”
“Think what you like,” Karl said.
“I do not just think, but analyze and come to rational conclusions.”
Her words were like an itch on his soul. He didn’t like that. “I know you want Bannon dead, too,” he said.
“Whatever I want doesn’t matter,” she said. “The Controller will have to decide. He knows what’s best.”
Calm down. Don’t let her nettle you. Remember, you need her to prod the old man.
Karl forced a chuckle, trying to make it come out light-hearted. “Of course, of course,” he said. “We just have to make sure nothing interferes with your father reaching the right conclusion.”
“And that nothing happens to Bannon,” Parker said, watching him closely.
Karl kept his features deadpan, and said, “Sure,” leaving it at that. Just how much did she know?
***
Four weeks after his visit to Dr. Parker’s office in Santa Clara, Gemmell sweated in the one hundred and seven degree heat. He sat on a Zero-Turn Mower, doing his job as he cut grass on a vast private estate.
Gemmell wore a broad-brimmed straw hat and earbuds from his iPod. He listened to Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony as he mowed, thinking about nothing in particular except the straightness of his lines. He’d been working since six this morning. It was two-nineteen in the afternoon, and it was blistering.
The weather had been hot for the past five days, staying in the mid-nineties at night. He hadn’t been sleeping well because of it. Others used their air-conditioner, but he tried to save money by sleeping with the windows open and using his fan.
Back home he had a lounge chair in the kitchen, the coolest place at night. He slept on the lounge chair, with a fan blowing over him. It was still too hot, and he woke up about three times a night. Sometimes it was hard getting back to sleep.
The sleeplessness meant he was tired, and he had to focus to make sure his lines were one hundred percent straight. His boss, Hector Ortega, appreciated that, and Gemmell liked to keep his boss happy.
Four o’clock came and went, eight hours of work. Gemmell drank bottled water, sweated and moved the upright handles of the lawn mower. He had two of them, with new black grips on the ends. He soon mowed the last patch, turned the machine and headed for the trailer on the street. He unhooked the bag, dumped the grass into his pickup bed and rode the mower up the ramp of his trailer.
He drove to Hector’s shop on the south side of Sacramento, unhitched the trailer and then headed home: a small place outside of city limits in the country. The corn was high and surrounded his house on three sides. It was near the end of August, very near harvest time.
He showered, changed clothes, spread some peanut butter on sourdough bread, chowed down and drank some iced tea straight from the jug he kept in the fridge. Then he headed outside and searched for yellow dandelions in the back lawn. It was unkempt, with crab grass and nettles. He picked the yellowest dandelions, got in the truck and went to the nearby country cemetery. Stopping by the iron gate, he pocketed his keys, slipped out and trudged to his daughter’s grave. The “milk” of the plucked dandelion stalks stained his right hand, but he didn’t mind. No, he liked it because…
Don’t torture yourself. They’re gone, gone until you see them again in Heaven.
He wiped his nose, which had become runny, and he knelt on one knee, bowing his head. Carefully, lovingly, he placed the dandelions on the small grave. Then he remained motionless, with his shoulders hunched. He felt guilty because he had trouble seeing his daughter’s face in his mind’s eye. He was fuzzy about that and more than embarrassed about his bad memory.
With leaden slowness, he rose and moved to his wife’s grave. He intertwined his fingers and mumbled a short prayer. His throat became dry and the words were husky, hard to pronounce. The fingers pressed together and he clenched his teeth. He shook his head from side to side. He should go before his emotions ran riot, before he lost control. There was something deep in him that wanted release. It wanted to crush, maim, cut, stomp—
“No!” he whispered. “No.” He turned away, feeling defeated and lonely, so lonely, so alone in the world. He wanted to…
“Let them go,” he whispered. “They’re gone.”
His step quickened until he reached the truck parked by the white iron fence. He thought about looking back at their graves. This wasn’t fair, but it was the way of his life.
He returned home, changed into a tee shirt and shorts and headed for the gym in town. Ten minutes later, he parked beside familiar cars and headed into the cool interior of the gym, much cooler than his house. It was nearly six o’clock and the place was busy with people, with the regulars who came at this time.
Muscled men and a few well-toned women racked weights, grunted as they lifted or talked among themselves between sets. Rock music played over the wall speakers, but about half the people wore earplugs, listening to their own tunes.
Thirty-five minutes into his routine, Gemmell found himself talking to Fred, a younger man who had just started teaching again in Sacramento High. Fred grinned a lot, had tattoos on his right shoulder and calf, and he eyed the few girls as he talked about the Raiders’ chances to make the playoffs this year.
“The new quarterback is going to make all the difference,” Fred said.
In order to be polite, Gemmell agreed. He didn’t care about football. He liked cage fighting and boxing, although he had never told Dr. Parker that. He had the feeling she wouldn’t approve, since he was trying to control his anger, not unleash it. As Fred talked, Gemmell stepped to a curl bar, placed his hands just so and lifted it off its rack. He concentrated as he mechanically did twelve reps, enjoying the feel of his muscles contracting and relaxing.
“You should go heavier,” Fred said after Gemmell racked the bar. “You have excellent muscle tone, but I bet you could get a lot more size if you switched your routine to more weight and fewer reps.”
“Maybe I should,” Gemmell said.
“But you won’t, huh?”
Gemmell thought about it, and he shook his head.
“How come you won’t switch?” Fred asked. “You don’t want to get too big?”
“It isn’t all about size. Speed counts, too.”
“Counts for what?” Fred asked.
Gemmell blinked several times, and he cocked his head. “I’m not sure. I must have heard it somewhere and it stuck with me.”
Fred laughed, shaking his head.
Gemmell was used to that. He said things that made others laugh, but more often people laughed at him than they did with him. He was used to being the odd man out. Fred was a little odd himself. Gemmell had heard other lifters talking about him, how Fred flexed too much in front of the mirrors and walked around with his shoulders back and as if he had a pickle up his butt.
Gemmell did another set of curls and then put the bar back into place.
“Hey, who is that guy over there?” Fred asked. He’d been doing an exercise, and was sweaty, with swelled triceps. Fred flexed as he looked at himself in the mirror.
“Who are you talking about?” Gemmell asked.
Using his chin, Fred pointed out a big man with huge muscles. The man wore a tight red shirt and had twisty tattoos on his forearms. He had a buzz cut and a square, mean-looking face. The nose seemed strangely angled. It must have been broken before.
“He keeps glancing at us,” Fred said. “Do you think he’s queer or so
mething?”
“I’ve never seen him before.”
“Me neither. And I know just about everyone here. He must be new.”
Gemmell soon left Fred and crossed the gym to a small open area, grabbing a leather jumping rope. He noticed several people glancing at him. They always did. People here never seemed to get tired of pointing and commenting about his skipping rope. Hadn’t they ever seen “Rocky”?
Gemmell exhaled and he started skipping. At first it was regular skipping, but he increased speed by degrees. The leather rope whirled with noise as he concentrated and spun his wrists. He loved skipping rope, and he was better at it than anyone he knew. Soon the rope blurred, and he sweated. He must have seen a show about it once, because he had this memory of a man speaking in a foreign accent about shooting handguns.
“You want to throw rocks at enemy, you lift weights. You want to shoot him, you jump rope. Like little girl.”
It wasn’t about strength, but coordination. The memory—the TV show—it must have been on TV, because where else would he have heard such a thing? Gemmell had no idea. Yet the memory was there. The instructor had been a fanatic about coordination, jumping rope and the ability to shoot a handgun well. He’d broken it down to a pithy saying: “You can’t jump rope, you can’t shoot.”
Gemmell had no desire to shoot. He didn’t even own a gun. Yet he loved to skip rope, and whenever he did, he had these faint memories of that instructor. What would Dr. Parker have thought about that?
As Gemmell slowed down, he looked up and noticed the big man studying him. It wasn’t the normal look of people noticing his fast skipping, but something else. It made Gemmell uncomfortable, and he wondered if he’d seen the man somewhere once.
After another ten minutes of skipping, Gemmell decided to stop for the day. He went to the showers, letting cold water cool him down, and he donned fresh clothes from his locker. Then he headed to the lobby. The heat hit him as he opened the door outside. It was like walking into a brick oven. When was this heat wave going to break?
I, Weapon Page 6
