The Chosen

by Sharon Sala

  “Hey, January, long time no see,” the man said.

  Ben felt her flinch. When he saw her jaw set, he realized that she not only knew the owner of the voice, she didn’t much like him. That was enough for Ben.

  Still standing within the shelter of Ben’s arms, January stepped down from the dais and reluctantly shook the man’s hand.

  “Rodrigo. It’s been ages.” She raked him up and down with a gaze that was just short of rude. “You’ve certainly changed. I almost didn’t know you.”

  Before Rodrigo Rivera could speak up again, January put her hand on Ben’s arm and gave it a pat.

  “Ben, darling, this is Rodrigo Rivera. We started in the business at the same time at a television station in Houston.”

  Rodrigo didn’t even bother to acknowledge Ben’s presence. His full attention was on January.

  “I go by Rod now. Like you, I decided to shorten the mouthful of name we Latinos are often burdened with.”

  January’s frown deepened. “I never considered my name a burden.”

  “But you still changed it.”

  “I didn’t change it. One of my bosses shortened it, just as you have yours.”

  “Of course, of course,” Rod said. “However, that’s of no matter. I came to congratulate you.” Then he turned to Ben. “I’m sure your husband is proud of you.”

  “Oh, he’s not my—”

  Ben grinned. “Benjamin Wade North. I shortened my name, too, and for the same obvious reasons. Just call me Ben.”

  Ben could tell that Rod was taken aback by his friendliness. Good. It would sucker him in for “the kill.”

  “Are you in the media business, as well?” Rod asked.

  Ben laughed aloud and then winked at January, who was somewhat surprised by Ben’s behavior. She’d never seen him so outgoing.

  “In a manner of speaking, I suppose you could say that,” he said. “I’m a homicide detective with the D.C. Police Department.”

  Rod Rivera was startled, and it showed as he looked at January.

  “A cop?”

  “A detective,” she corrected. “And we’re late.” She turned to Ben. “Darling, I believe we’re expected to start the ball. Shall we go? I want to stop by the coat check on the way into the ballroom and leave my award with my wrap.”

  “Sure thing, honey,” Ben said, then picked up the plaque and offered her his arm. “Ron, it was nice meeting you.”

  Rivera frowned. “Rod. My name is Rod.”

  “Oh. Yeah. Sorry,” Ben said, and led January away.

  January smiled and nodded as they made their way through the crowd of people.

  “You know something, Detective? You are just full of surprises.”

  Ben winked at her, then grinned.

  “I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “‘Ron,’” she said, and then laughed aloud. “That really fried him.”

  “Yeah, I figured as much,” Ben admitted.

  “I appreciate the backup, but it wasn’t really necessary,” she said. “I can still handle the odd creep now and then.”

  “Oh, I know, honey, but you don’t understand. I had to.”

  She frowned. “Had to? Why?”

  “It’s this thing we guys do when we sense a threat to our territory.”

  She grinned. “Sort of like dogs peeing on fire hydrants?”

  He laughed aloud. “Sort of.”

  “So exactly what territory did poor old Rodrigo walk into without permission?”

  “You,” Ben said. “He had his chance with you, and, unless I’ve completely lost my detecting skills, whatever happened between you two is obviously over. I was just showing him where the boundaries are now.”

  January stifled a smirk as she watched Ben hand her award over to the coat check girl with a strong admonition to guard it with her life, then pocketed the second claim ticket as he led her into the ballroom.

  The band was tuning up, the music slightly off-key.

  Ben’s eyes twinkled. “This dancing bit might not be as bad as I feared.”

  “Why do you say that?” January asked.

  “Because that music fits the way I dance.”

  She poked his arm in a teasing manner.

  “You’re so full of yourself, Benjamin Wade North.”

  He grinned, then paused. “Hey, that reminds me. You know my real name. So what was that Rivera guy talking about? Is your name something other than January?”

  “No. That’s my real first name. The rest of it is a mouthful, which we’ll save for later. Hear the music? That’s our cue.”

  Ben sighed, then took her by the elbow.

  “Shall we dance?”

  “Yes, please,” she said, and let him lead her onto the dance floor.

  On Saturday night the Sisters of Mercy always served soup and sandwiches at the shelter. Tonight it was tomato soup and cheese sandwiches. And because a half-dozen bakeries in the D.C. area had donated doughnuts and sweet rolls that hadn’t sold that day, the shelter was also serving dessert.

  The addition of dessert to the menu had given a festive air to the big dining hall. One man had eaten, then abandoned his seat for the next man to come along, but had stayed on to entertain. He’d taken up temporary residence in the far corner of the room and was playing music on a borrowed guitar. Every now and then he would serenade the diners, if he happened to remember the words to a song.

  A young nun who’d only recently said her final vows was moving among the tables, doing a little skip step to the music as she served them extra water and coffee. Her joy spilled over to the diners, who would laugh uproariously each time she did her little skip, dip and turn.

  Jay had come in without notice, sat down and eaten his food without looking up. It wasn’t until he finished that he allowed himself to survey the room. The singer was off-key but obviously well-intentioned. He saw faces that were familiar and many that were not. It wasn’t until he looked toward the front door that he saw her, greeting the latecomers with a smile and a touch. Just watching her dealing out her brand of concern and compassion made him feel warm inside. He hungered for the warmth she exuded. Then, at the thought of hunger, he remembered his flock and knew they were counting on him for their daily ration of food and water.

  “Hey, buddy, you gonna eat that?”

  Jay glanced at the man to his right, then down at his plate and the bit of crust and cheese he’d left. He pushed it sideways without comment, ignoring the desperation with which the man took the scraps and stuffed them in his mouth. It wasn’t good manners to discuss the degree of hunger with which the indigent lived. However, waste was frowned upon, and it was perfectly acceptable for him to ask for what Jay intended to leave.

  Jay stood up and moved toward the door, but the closer he got to the elderly nun at the exit, the more his heartbeat accelerated. She was such a huge part of his journey, and she didn’t even know it.

  “Good evening,” Mother Mary Theresa said, as Jay walked past her. “God bless you,” she added.

  “God bless you, too…Mother,” Jay said, and kept moving without looking back.

  He got in the cab and drove straight to the warehouse. He did a quick check of the room he’d prepared for Mother, then took the sack of food and headed for the old blast furnace.

  Matthew was whispering. It was the first words any of the others had heard him utter other than his name, rank and serial number. They couldn’t understand what he was saying, but they could hear the murmurs and see his lips moving.

  Thad was the newest, which explained the level of his defiance. He’d been shouting and cursing for so long that what was left of his voice kept breaking, although his spirit had not.

  Tom kept quiet, but considered himself the man with the plan. He’d made up his mind last night that he would not let this beat him. His body might be in chains, but his mind was not. He hadn’t lived through Vietnam without mental scars and grudges. He’d come home alive only to be cursed and sp
at at, derided as a baby killer and for his participation in an unpopular war. He’d been a target in ’Nam, and again in the U.S.A., but he would be damned before he was going to stand for being a victim again. After learning of Bartholomew’s fate, he had no intention of winding up like him.

  Simon Peters had been there the longest. He was past believing he would live through this, and was so sick of the stench of his own body that he’d literally torn off his clothes rather than sleep in them again. He’d tossed them into the middle of the floor, and if wishing could make it happen, they would already have burst into flames.

  The other Simon was a tall, bald man with a severe addiction to alcohol. He been suffering withdrawal and dementia for days, and believed at this moment that he was covered in fire ants, which were devouring his body. His intermittent screams were getting on everyone’s nerves.

  Phillip Benton had curled up into a ball, refusing to accept his reality.

  The two Jameses had obviously known and hated each other from the streets. If Jay had known, he might not have shackled them so close together. As it was, the only thing they could do to each other was spit. The fronts of their shirts were spattered with sputum, as were their faces.

  John Marino had always considered himself a tough guy. He’d gotten by on his own for years, scavenging for recyclable material for extra money and doing the dishwashing gig in three different restaurants on three different shifts. The fact that his jobs were surely over and his tiny apartment rented to someone else was more frightening to him than being chained to the wall. He needed routine to accept the rest of his existence, and right now he didn’t have it. He cried constantly, unashamed of his tears.

  Andy was still naked, as he had been for weeks. It allowed him easier access to his penis, which he continued to play with. He was either in a constant state of erection or asleep, physically exhausted or relaxed from the resulting climaxes. What might have first appeared licentious to the other men was now viewed as pitiful. It was obvious that Andy’s mental capacity was less than it should have been, but in a way they envied him for the ability to get lost in his mind rather than having to face the reality of this place.

  Jay had a large lantern that put out, as the advertisement promised, a million candles of light; a sack full of meat; fruit and bread; bottles of water, his Bible. The pain in his head and neck had been less today than it had been in months, and he wanted to pray, to thank God for the reprieve as he fed his followers.

  He was also curious as to how they would receive his new appearance. For that reason, he turned the lantern on just as he entered the old furnace, and set it in the floor.

  Tom was the first to notice that the man who came in was not their captor. He began talking and laughing at the same time.

  “Thank God!” he cried, and held out his hands. “Help us, man! You’ve got to get help. Call the cops. Call 911. We need bolt cutters and medics.”

  The other men added their cries to the chaos until the sound swelled and roared inside the old furnace, ripping through Jay’s head and triggering the lurking pain into an explosion. He reeled from the shock, unprepared for a complete mutiny.

  He grabbed his head and started to scream.

  The momentary elation Tom had felt at being rescued was gone in an instant. The man had been unfamiliar, but this behavior was not. It seemed that their captor had experienced an extreme makeover. It was their loss that it hadn’t gone to his head, as well.

  “Christ Almighty,” Tom said, then sank to the floor and covered his eyes.

  The elation the men had experienced was doused between one breath and the next. A mutual groan of disbelief was followed by a few moments of silence, then sobs. It didn’t matter who was weeping. Internally, they’d all experienced death—the death of hope.

  Jay tried to focus on his Bible. The words would soothe him. They always had before; surely they would do so again. But despite the powerful lantern, it was too dark to read from it, and there was too much pain in his head for him to remember what he’d memorized.

  He took the sack of food and water and threw it against the wall as hard as he could. The loaf of bread flattened on impact, while the cans of meat and bottles of water rolled out and got lost in the shadows.

  “Suffer and die, all of you!” Jay screamed, and staggered out the door. He made his way into the little room he called home, and fell onto his cot. He could hear the muted shouts from the men, but right now he didn’t care. Instead, he rolled up into a ball, covered his head with his hands and fell asleep, praying to die.

  Sixteen

  It was four in the morning when Ben woke up to find January curled up against him. At first he thought he was dreaming; then she sighed and turned to face him. When he felt the faint stirring of her breath against his arm, he smiled. He wasn’t dreaming, he was in heaven.

  Even in the dark, he could see that she was as beautiful asleep as she was awake. Her hair looked like spilled ink against the white bedding, and the nightgown hanging on the bedpost only reminded him of the perfection of the body beneath the covers.

  Her eyelashes were fluttering. For some reason, the reality of that touched him. She was dreaming. He hoped it was a good one. God knew she’d given him enough pleasure that he should have a lifetime of good dreams.

  As he lay watching her sleep, he began to realize how right this felt—waking up with her in his arms. It seemed impossible that he had ever resented her and wanted nothing to do with her. If he had his way now, he would never spend another night without her.

  Finally he closed his eyes and tried to go back to sleep, but just as he began to drift, his belly growled. Once more he tried to get easy, but that hollow feeling in the pit of his stomach signaled its need with another growl.

  He sighed.

  If he were home, he would be up digging through the refrigerator or channel surfing. He knew January wouldn’t mind if he raided her fridge, but he didn’t want to wake her. Still, he was familiar enough with his own patterns to know that if he didn’t eat, this was the end of his sleep.

  Carefully, he slid his arm out from under her neck and then waited, making sure he hadn’t disturbed her rest. Once he was certain, he blew her a kiss and then quietly got out of bed. Remembering again that he was in someone else’s home, he opted not to raid the fridge in the nude, but grabbed an oversize towel from the bathroom and wrapped it around his waist.

  The apartment was unfamiliar in the dark, but there was a night-light at the end of the hall and another in the living room. He managed to make it to the kitchen without tripping on any furniture. When he got there, he turned on a small light over the sink.

  He tightened the towel around his waist, then opened the refrigerator door and peered in. There was an interesting assortment of foil packs and plastic bowls, but they were too opaque to see what was inside, which left him with no other option but to snoop. As he began opening lids, it occurred to him that he was about to see another facet of January DeLena’s life.

  The first two bowls he chose had a total of three items in them. A boiled egg in one bowl and two leftover sausages in another.

  Hmm. Maybe a little obsessive. Then he amended that by deciding she just wasn’t into wasting things, which was good.

  He picked up a foil packet. Before it was completely undone, he could tell it was something that should have gone down the disposal. It smelled faintly of fish, but when he looked in, it appeared to be beef. He didn’t want to delve any deeper, and tossed it into the garbage. There was a rather odd oblong, foil-wrapped packet that looked promising. When he dug into it, found four leftover barbecued ribs.

  He sniffed them.

  They weren’t rank.

  These were a definite possibility.

  He set them on the counter.

  Within minutes he’d gone through the rest of the bowls and packets. He’d tossed four into the trash, eaten the complete contents of one and was ready to tackle the ribs when he sensed he was no longer alone.

/>   He turned around, an excuse and an apology both at the ready, when, once again, January took him by surprise. Wearing nothing but an oversize T-shirt, she walked over to the counter, opened a drawer and took out a spoon. Then she moved to the refrigerator, took a pint of Ben and Jerry’s Chunky Monkey ice cream from the freezer and moved to a barstool. Without looking up, she took the lid off the carton and dug her spoon into it.

  “Umm,” she said, closing her eyes as the bite of ice cream melted in her mouth.

  “You gonna eat all that by yourself?” Ben asked.

  January looked up at him, then down at the ice cream, and nodded.

  He grinned. So she was also a little bit selfish. It wasn’t something he’d expected, but damn, she was fun.

  “I ate all that Chinese stuff,” he said.

  She frowned as another bite began melting in her mouth. “I didn’t have any Chinese leftovers.”

  “Crap,” Ben muttered, as he peered at the empty carton he’d set in the sink.

  “Don’t have any crap, either. It was Indian curried rice with some vegetables.”

  He laughed. “My mistake, Ms. DeLena. So…I ate all of your Indian curried rice and vegetables.”

  “Okay.”

  He pointed to the ribs. “Got any immediate intentions toward these?” he asked.

  “Nope. Have at ’em,” she said.

  “Thanks.” Ben picked one up and took a bite. The meat was cold but tender, and all but fell off the bone. “Umm, these are good,” he said. “Did you make them?”

  She arched an eyebrow and looked at him over the rim of the pint of ice cream.

  “What do you think?”

  He flashed back to their first dinner together and the Mexican food she’d bought, and grinned.

  “Barbecue Bob’s ribs to go?”

  “Now we’re talking,” she said. “Did you find the potato salad that went with them?”

  “Yeah, but it was fuzzy. I tossed it. Is that okay?”

  January waved her spoon at him. “Listen, lover boy, any man who has the guts to clean out my refrigerator is okay with me.”