Robert Ferrigno - Sins of the Assassin

Colarusso sidled back into the weeds, eyes on the ground.

“What are you looking for?” asked the gangly one, keeping up.

“Whatever you State Security boys missed.” Colarusso saw a glint in the grass, bent down and picked up a small piece of blackened metal. Tossed it to the gangly one. “See what I mean?”

The gangly one flipped the piece of metal back onto the ground. “We have five or six boxes of debris just like that. No evidentiary value.”

“I know,” said Colarusso, still walking, “that’s why I didn’t keep it.”

The two of them paced the outskirts of the site for another ten minutes.

“The full report has been sent to all law enforcement agencies,” said the gangly one.

“I read it,” said Colarusso.

“Then what are you doing here?”

“Some folks love going to the movies.” Colarusso shrugged. “Me, I just love crime scenes.” He heard the buzzing of flies. Followed the sound. Parted the weeds. A swarm of bluebottles drifted up, a couple bouncing against his front teeth before hovering overhead. Colarusso wiped his mouth, reached down and picked up the small, blackened, curled-up thing that the flies had been feasting on.

The gangly one squatted beside him. He used too much cologne. “What is it?”

Colarusso held the blackened thing between his thumb and his fore-finger. Held it a couple inches from his face, and turned it over. “I think…I think it’s an ear.”

“I’ll take that,” said the gangly one, his voice hard now. Serious as any other State Security officer. He pulled a latex glove onto his right hand. “I’ll take it, please.” He held out his hand.

Colarusso stood up, still holding the ear. “What’s your name?”

“Billings.” He snapped his fingers. The glove muffled the sound. “The ear? I’m afraid I have to insist.”

“You like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, Billings?”

“What?”

“PBJs. You like ’em?”

“Yes. I like them.”

“Plain or crunchy?”

“Sir…”

“It’s a simple question,” said Colarusso. “Not like you’re being interrogated or-”

“Crunchy. I prefer crunchy peanut butter. Okay? Now may I please have the ear, because it is most definitely evidence?”

Colarusso reached into the paper bag, handed Billings the other half of the peanut butter sandwich. Dropped the ear into the bag and stuffed it into the pocket of his suit jacket. He started walking toward his car.

Billings traipsed along beside him. “Deputy Chief Colarusso, it is within my authority to arrest you…”

Colarusso kept walking.

“…and take possession of the item in question,” said Billings, voice rising.

Colarusso kept walking.

“Give me the goddamned ear,” demanded Billings.

Jay, the stocky one, got out of the car, walked briskly toward them. He had a gun in his hand. Kept tapping it lightly against his thigh with every step.

Colarusso kept walking, neither increasing nor decreasing his pace. Just kept walking. While the two State Security agents conferred with each other, he got into his car, looking straight ahead, and drove away. It wasn’t until he reached highway speed that he realized he was soaked with sweat.

“Hey! Stevenson told you not to take Highway Twenty-seven,” said Leo.

“We need gas,” said Rakkim.

“You got half a tank,” said Leo.

“Sit back and shut up,” said Rakkim. “Go over the periodic table or something.”

“Dad told me you took some getting used to. He didn’t tell me how much.” Leo pulled computer chips and switches from his top pocket, bits and pieces he had stolen from the toys in Stevenson’s shop, examining them in the flex light from the dash, the tip of his tongue poking out of his mouth. “You didn’t even ask me if I wanted to go to New Orleans. Don’t I get a vote? Don’t I?”

Rakkim followed Highway 27, checking the darkness on the sides of the road as often as his rearview. The tourist rush from Mount Carmel had thinned out hours ago, but traffic flowed on, mostly truckers, restless teenagers, and families where the dad was too cheap to stop and get a motel. Twice he slowed, approaching gas stations, but the stations were surrounded by flatland and he drove on, Leo too busy working with his tinkering to notice. A few miles farther, a Freedom gas station blinked OPEN ALL NITE near an overpass. Within the shadow of the overpass, Rakkim spotted a Texas Rangers cruiser. He pulled into the station.

The air smelled sweet and syrupy, almost rank. Rakkim looked around. Combines chewed their way through the surrounding fields of sugarcane, headlights gleaming on the bright green shoots. Rakkim undid the gas cap as the attendant hurried over, a middle-aged guy, in a faded but neatly pressed khaki army uniform.

Massive hurricanes from the big warm had pretty much shut down oil production from the Gulf, the few rigs left expropriated by the Aztlán Empire. Coal and imported oil supplied most of the energy needs of the Belt, but the chain of Freedom stations was owned by retired vets, and sold only ethanol, with every drop coming from domestic sugarcane.

“Fill ’er up?” said the attendant, lifting the hose.

Rakkim pressed his credit chip against the pump, heard it chirp. “Thanks.”

“Come from Mount Carmel?”

Rakkim nodded, watching the cruiser over the man’s shoulder. peters was stitched above his left breast pocket, sergeant’s stripes on each arm. A combat infantryman badge was his only decoration. The only one needed. “Where did you serve, Sergeant?”

“Where didn’t I serve?” The attendant still had the military posture, shoulders back, stomach in. A little stooped, but clean-shaven, his gray hair buzzed. Probably still did a hundred push-ups a day. “How about you, boy? You look like you seen some action.”

“Did four years in the Kentucky National Guard, but it was just mostly smoking cigarettes and watching the border. Never even saw a towelie the whole time.”

“I don’t much like that term,” said Peters. “Insults the Muslims and insults the men who died fighting them.”

“I apologize, Sergeant.”

Peters nodded. “No harm done.” He checked out Rakkim’s car. “Nice machine. Old but solid. Might run a little rough for a few miles, but she’ll adjust.”

“I know. Worth it, though, isn’t it?”

“Damn right,” said Peters, jaw jutting. “Some folks and their fancy new cars won’t run anything but gasoline, no matter where it come from or what it cost. I ain’t talking just money, either. If we had grown cane a hundred years ago, we might still have the country. The whole country.”

“Amen,” said Rakkim.

Peters grinned. “What did you think of Mount Carmel?”

“Impressive…not sure how accurate the reenactment was, but-”

“Accurate? I saw it on the TV with my own damn eyes,” snapped Peters. “I was just seven years old, but I knowed there was going to be a reckoning.” He shook his head, disgusted. “It’s in the history books. Don’t they teach you Kentucky boys anything?”

“Well, sir, I wasn’t much for school,” said Rakkim, still watching the Rangers’ cruiser.

“Well, here’s your lesson for the day, youngblood,” said Peters, replacing the hose nozzle onto the pump. “While Muslims were attacking our embassies all over the world, the U.S. government was busy gassing kids in Texas, shooting a nursing woman in the mountains of Idaho, and taking a little Cuban boy at gunpoint and sending him back to practically the last commie on earth. Didn’t need a weatherman to tell which way the wind was blowing.” He banged the gas cap back into place. “I talk too much sometimes.”