Robert Ferrigno - Prayers for the assassin

Colarusso flicked crumbs off his necktie. “My wife wanted me to ask you to put in a word for him. He’s planning to convert, but a recommendation from you…”

“The standard enlistment is eight years. Thirty percent of those who make it through basic training don’t survive long enough to re-up. Does Marie know that?”

“She knows what having a son in the Fedayeen will do for us,” said Colarusso. “You’ve seen our daughters. They’re not raving beauties, but if Anthony Jr. gets accepted, the girls won’t have to settle for Catholic suitors, they’ll have their pick of the litter.”

General Kidd’s face on the stadium screen loomed over the end zones. “Do your boy a favor. Tell Marie I don’t have that kind of clout anymore.”

“Decorated Fedayeen officer, retired with full honors…no way she buys that story.”

“Then tell her the truth. Say that you asked and I refused.”

Colarusso looked relieved. “Thanks. I had to try, but thanks.”

“You should keep an eye on Anthony Jr. Make sure he doesn’t have too much free time.”

“He’s a good kid, he’s just got big dreams.” Colarusso sipped his Jihad Cola, winced. “Just ain’t the Super Bowl without a cold beer. Real beer.”

“Gentlemen?” A doughy software entrepreneur seated in an adjacent corporate box leaned over. “If I may, I have a flask of vodka-infused fruit juice.”

Colarusso belched, ignored him.

“Sir?” The entrepreneur showed Rakkim the neck of the flask, half pulling it from the inside pocket of his bright green jersey.

Rakkim waved him away. The entrepreneur was one of those moderns who wanted it both ways, wearing a sports jersey and khakis, but sporting an Arafat kaffiyeh to please the fundamentalists. Probably bought an instructional video to show him how to drape the checked head scarf, and still couldn’t get it right.

The Warlords had lined up on the Bedouins’ eighteen-yard line, players pawing at the turf, when the Bedouins called a time-out.

Rakkim stood up, stretched, took another look toward the mezzanine for Sarah. A last look. She wasn’t there. Maybe her uncle had requested her presence at the last minute. Maybe her car had broken down on the way to the game, and she didn’t want to call him, afraid her calls were monitored. Hey, maybe she had called him, but there were sunspots and the call didn’t go through. Why not? It could happen. In an idiot’s universe.

The Warlords quarterback went into his count. Rakkim looked away from the field, saw a couple of the deputy’s morality police barging into one of the segregated sections. The Black Robes whipped their long, flexible canes across the backs of three women seated there, sending them sprawling, herding them up the aisles, the women covering themselves even as they tried to avoid the blows.

Rakkim was on his feet, shouting at the Black Robes, but the sound of his rage was lost in the crowd noise as the Warlords quarterback drove through the line for a touchdown. Rakkim was too far away to help the women, and even if he were closer, there was nothing he could do. An arrest for interfering with the religious authority was a serious offense. The women themselves would testify against him, would do it eagerly.

“Ugly business,” said Colarusso, standing beside him.

No telling what the women’s crime had been. They could have shown too much ankle, or their head scarves might have slipped. Perhaps they were laughing too loudly. Rakkim sat down, still shaking with anger as the Black Robes swung their canes. This was the first time he had been at an internationally televised event where the Black Robes had so freely used their flails. Usually they were more concerned about appearances, but today they didn’t seem to care. They were almost inviting the cameras.

The deputy a few rows ahead of Rakkim had also noticed the actions of his fellow Black Robes, the cleric’s fingers wriggling with delight, keeping time to the lash. Rakkim stared at him so intently that the man must have felt the weight of his gaze and looked over at Rakkim. He inclined his head in acknowledgment, but Rakkim didn’t respond, and the deputy turned away, touched his turban as if for protection.

“Risky behavior, troop.” Colarusso rooted in his ear. “No sense making an enemy.”

“Too late now.”

Colarusso examined his finger. “Always a choice.”

Rakkim watched the Black Robe. “Yeah, and I already made it.”

They came for him just before midnight, Redbeard’s men, two of them slipping into the Blue Moon club with the rest of the boozy Super Bowl revelers. Rakkim might have spotted them sooner but he was distracted, sprawled beside Mardi in her big bed, spent and lost in the aftermath. He watched the cigarette smoke drift against the ceiling and thought about Sarah.

“God, I needed that,” said Mardi, her head propped on the pillow. “Been a long time. A long, long time.” She dragged on the cigarette, her eyes shiny in the candlelight. “I should have ordered more beer.” She tapped ashes onto the floor. “I thought forty kegs would be enough.”

Rakkim felt her heat where their bodies touched, the long border of their thighs. The breeze through the window stirred the smoke, chilled the sweat along his arms and legs, but he made no attempt to cover himself. Neither did she, the two of them prickling each other with goose bumps, hot and steamy and a million miles apart.

“You’re quiet. Something happen at the game?” said Mardi.

“No.”

She leaned over, breasts swaying, made the sign of the cross on his forehead with her thumb.

He rubbed away the sign, annoyed. He had told her that he didn’t like her doing that, but it had only encouraged her.

Mardi kissed him, slipped out of bed. “I don’t remember you being so angry. Not that I’m complaining. I appreciate an angry fuck. Do I have your little Muslim princess to thank?”

“Don’t call her that.” He watched her walk across the bedroom, push aside the curtains. She stood there overlooking the street, one hip cocked, defiant in her nudity. She was thirty-eight, hard and blond and wanton.

Music filtered through the floor from the club below…yet another cover version of one of Nirvana’s grunge classics from fifty years ago. Mardi must have seen his expression. “You don’t like the music? Enjoy it, Rakkim, that’s the sound of money in our pockets.”

“Is that what it is?”

“Tourists come to L.A. for chicken mole and mariachi. They come to Seattle for a tour of the Capitol building, a good cry at the Hall of Martyrs, and to listen to grunge.”

Rakkim didn’t want to argue. He was the minority partner in the Blue Moon, but it wouldn’t have mattered if he held the 80 percent share, and she had 20. Mardi knew what she was doing. She knew the proper configuration of the dance floor to insure maximum profits, and who had the best wholesale prices for beer and khat infusion. She knew whom to hire and whom to fire. Mardi needed Rakkim for his underground contacts and to keep things smooth with the police and protection gangs, but she could have paid him a straight fee for much less than cutting him in for a percentage. An interesting oversight for someone focused on the bottom line.

Rakkim checked the wall of security screens opposite the bed, watched the revelers packed in below. The club was busy most nights, but after a Super Bowl every hot spot in the Zone jumped, the sidewalks filled with revelers in various stages of euphoria. The dining room had a two-hour waiting list, the dance floor was shoulder to shoulder, and the bar stacked three-deep with rowdy Warlords fans.

The Blue Moon was located in the Zone, officially called the Christian Quarter, a thirty-or forty-block section of the city where nightclubs and coffeehouses flourished, where cybergame parlors and movie theaters operated largely free of censorship. The Zone was loud and raucous, the streets littered, the buildings marred by graffiti, a morals-free fire area open to everyone-Christian, Muslim, modern, tech, freak, whomever or whatever. Untamed, innovative, and off-the-books, the Zone celebrated dangerous pursuits.