Robert Ferrigno - Prayers for the assassin

“Good. We’ll all stay and fight then.” Redbeard’s expression darkened. “We may get our chance sooner than we expect. Your friend Detective Colarusso had a visit from the Old One’s assassin. Colarusso wasn’t home and his son had the good sense to keep the security door locked, but you are right, things are coming to a head.”

“I’ll call Colarusso when we’re finished here,” said Rakkim.

“You don’t have to leave. Your rooms are just as you left them,” said Redbeard. “I hope you intend to stay with us, Katherine,” he said gently. “This is your home too.”

“I’d be honored,” said Katherine.

Redbeard pulled Rakkim close, and Rakkim smelled the fatigue on him. “I don’t see you for weeks, and almost the first thing you say to me is to ask if Stevens had a room at the villa. Haven’t I taught you anything? You let your pride speak instead of your wits. Rather than see Stevens as a rival, you would do well to look upon him as an ally. He was the one who retrieved Angelina’s body from the Black Robes. He was the one who walked into that nest of vipers alone and demanded that Ibn Azziz turn her over. From what I was told, the boy cleric’s bodyguards wanted to cut Stevens to pieces, but Stevens didn’t back down, and in the end Ibn Azziz gave him the location of the body. Ibn Azziz admitted nothing, of course, but we got her back in time for a proper burial.”

“I’m sorry, Uncle.”

Redbeard let him go, smacked his hands together. “Now, how can I help?”

Rakkim smiled. “Are you handling security for the Oscars?”

Rakkim strolled through the front doors of the Blue Moon, hoping to draw the attention of anyone looking for them and keep it away from Sarah. The crowds were light midweek, and he had taken his time on the walk from the monorail, stopping a few times to look into shop windows.

“Boss!” Albert came from behind the bar, beat him on the back. “Where you been?”

Rakkim pointed toward Mardi’s regular booth in the back. He couldn’t see her, but he knew she was there. “Bring us a couple, will you?”

Mardi looked up from her paperwork as he approached, blond and brassy. She had lost weight.

“Don’t be mad.”

“Why would I be mad?” Rakkim sat down opposite her. Sat so he could see and be seen from the front of the club. “All I can do is try to save your life.”

“I was gone for almost two weeks. I thought I would go nuts.”

“You brought Enrique with you.”

“I had to have something to do.” Mardi looked around, annoyed. “Who told you that? What, you get to scamper around the countryside with the Muslim princess, and I’m supposed to hide out by myself?”

Rakkim laughed. “Scamper?” He shook his head. “You probably don’t have to worry about Darwin coming around, not anymore.” People were slowly filling the club, moderns with bright clothes and etched hair. The call to evening prayer undulated through the streets, faint as a buoy tolling in fog, warning sailors from the rocks. “I heard Enrique got promoted from busboy to waiter when you got back.”

Mardi beamed, shook back her hair. She had gotten some sun, and a thin, gold bracelet on her left wrist, and she would have needed her back oiled while she was away. She had a beautiful back, lean and finely muscled, two dimples at the base of her spine. “It was a very good vacation.”

Albert delivered a couple of fruit slushies, lingered for a moment, then walked away.

“I missed you,” said Mardi. “Hey, I didn’t mean to embarrass you. I was just being polite.”

“I’m not embarrassed and you’re not polite.”

“It’s happened, hasn’t it?” said Mardi.

“What?”

“You’ve got a mission. I used to see the same look on Tariq when he got word. I’d glance over at him and he would be so…calm, so utterly poised, that I knew he was readying himself. Getting ready for whatever fate had in store for him. No fears. No regrets-”

“Building strong the ship of death.”

“Yes, that’s exactly what Tariq used to say. There was no room for me on that ship, no room for anyone.” Mardi watched him with those cool blue eyes. Sometimes when they had made love, there would be an instant when her eyes would tender up. It wasn’t anything he did, it was something she allowed to happen. Letting go of the memory of her husband, or maybe it was feeling his presence in Rakkim. That Fedayeen self-assurance, like a scent you all give off, she had said. “You got yourself another mission.”

“Yeah, I did.”

Mardi pushed her drink around the table, but didn’t pick it up. “I only met Sarah that one time, and I didn’t much like what I saw, but Rakkim…right now I feel sorry for her.”

“This is a lovely spot, Thomas.”

“You’re the only one who calls me that anymore,” said Redbeard. “I like it.”

Katherine trailed her hand in the tiny waterfall at the center of his garden, the very heart, just the two of them. “I always wanted a water garden.”

“I remember,” said Redbeard.

“I love the sight and sound and smell of it. The way it teems with life.” Katherine lifted up her arms; let water run down her bare arms, the late-afternoon light turning her skin coppery. “Birds and frogs and lizards and fish. Moss underfoot, leaves brushing against your face. Like making love to the earth.”

“I never thought of it quite that way.”

“Close to God, is that better?” Katherine smiled, watched a leaf spin wildly in the current, caught in a minor eddy. “You did a good job with Sarah.”

“Angelina did a good job.”

“No…there’s a lot of you in her. She’s a fighter.”

“Like her mother.”

“Yes, like me.”

Neither of them mentioned James. He was many fine things, but James was not a fighter. Not like Redbeard. Or Katherine. “Do you ever wonder?” he started. “Do you ever-”

“Yes, I do.”

Redbeard nodded, reluctant to continue. It was good enough sitting here in his favorite spot, just the two of them. As he had dreamed about forever.

“I could never have betrayed James,” said Katherine. “Neither could you. I tried not to look at you. I thought that would help.”

“I thought you didn’t like me,” said Redbeard. “I didn’t realize until you came home yesterday…I didn’t know how you felt.”

“That’s why we were so awkward and nervous around each other, misreading every innocent comment. Our minds were guilty. We were lovers in our imaginations, adulterers without ever touching.” Katherine scooped a rusty Coca-Cola bottle cap out of the water, held it up dripping. “It seems like only yesterday.”

“It’s too late, Katherine.”

“I know that.”

“He was my brother. I loved him. I felt so…dirty with the thoughts I had. I used to worry that he could see into my mind. Then, when he died…I used to…I used to think…” Redbeard was crying, his big frame lurching from trying to hold it back. “I used to think that maybe I had done it. That the reason I didn’t see the assassination coming, the reason I didn’t react quicker…maybe I wanted-”

“Shhhhh.” Katherine was half his size but seemed larger as she pressed his face against her. “You were shot three times and you still managed to bring down his killer. If you wanted James dead, there were easier ways to do it.”

“I was supposed to protect him,” Redbeard croaked.

“We do what we can and leave the rest to God.”

“I’m sorry, Katherine. I wish…I wish we had time.”

Katherine flipped the bottle cap to him. “There must be others where this came from. Have we got time enough for that, Thomas?”