Robert Ferrigno - Sins of the Assassin

“Please…” said Leo.

The black Ranger slammed the trunk lid down.

“Almost forgot.” The white Ranger snapped his fingers at Rakkim. “I need the tracker. Wouldn’t want the idiot to run off.” He quick-drew his pistol. Fast too. Probably practiced for hours at the barracks. “Hard keeping good help. Don’t know why.”

Rakkim raised his hands. “Please…I’ll do what you want.”

“Anything?” The white Ranger centered the barrel of the pistol on Rakkim’s forehead. “You’re a right certain accommodating fella, aren’t you?”

“What…what else can I do?” said Rakkim.

The white Ranger showed those big flat teeth of his again. The cruiser’s blue light seemed to be flashing faster and faster. “Yeah, what else can you do?”

“Quit toying with that man, Jerry Lee,” said the black Ranger, getting behind the wheel of the cruiser. “Blow his shit away and let’s get out of here. Faye’s stops serving the buffalo steak special at three a.m.”

Rakkim watched the vein along the side of the white Ranger’s neck pulse. Looked like about eighty-five, ninety beats a minute. He still had time.

The white Ranger held the pistol steady. “How about you pass over the tracker and I promise to say a few words over you when the deed is done. I’ll give you a real sweet send-off. I’m a church deacon.” He grinned again, his teeth like chalk in the blue light. “’Course, I’m not saying all my prayers been said over consecrated ground.”

Rakkim slowly reached toward the white Ranger, holding the tracker out with two fingers, just as he had been told. His other fingers curled around the Fedayeen knife, its blade resting invisibly against the inside of his forearm.

The black Ranger beeped the horn.

“Daryl’s impatient,” said the white Ranger. “Me, I’m not all that fond of buffalo steak,” he added, reaching for the tracker with his free hand.

Rakkim bumped the white Ranger’s gun hand as the man fired, slashed his throat in the same motion, and ran toward the cruiser. The black Ranger fumbled for his pistol, started to raise it when Rakkim drove the blade through the bulletproof window, glass shattering as he slid the knife deep into the Ranger’s windpipe.

The black Ranger sighed, the sound filling the stillness. His eyelids fluttered like moths.

Rakkim eased the knife free. The black Ranger’s blood splashed across Rakkim’s wrist. Warm, but already cooling in the night air. People died so quickly, the heat fleeing from them…Rakkim reached in, turned off the light bar. The darkness was soothing. He listened to the rush of the river and the sound of Leo beating against the trunk lid, then walked over and checked on the white Ranger.

The trooper lay facedown in the dirt. Jerry Lee, that’s what his partner had called him. Jerry Lee’s blood puddled black in the moonlight. A mirror reflecting the stars. Jerry Lee and Daryl. Good to know the names of the dead. Rakkim shuddered. Where did that come from? He never needed to know their names before. Killing wasn’t counting coup, wasn’t keeping score. It was a last resort. Always had been, anyway. He wiped his hands on the grass, washed himself with dirt, still turning things over in his mind. He looked toward the river, his eyes already adjusting to the dim light. Caught in the mangrove roots that bordered the river…something…a tailfin of a car, only the very tip visible. Rakkim wondered how many other vehicles were piled up under the water, how many others had been carried downstream. He looked back at Jerry Lee and spit.

Leo cried out from inside the trunk.

Rakkim had started toward the rear of the cruiser when the trunk lid popped open. Leo rolled out onto the ground, gasping for air. Wires protruded from one hand. He had bypassed the trunk security lock somehow.

Leo saw the body of the white Ranger. Saw the mess inside the cruiser. His knees buckled. “Rikki…what…what did you do?”

“I can’t believe…can’t believe what you did,” said Leo, teeth chattering in the rush of humid air. He rested his head in his hands. “How did I let my dad talk me into this?”

What a crybaby. Rakkim tilted the seat back a little more, steering with one hand. Top down. The Caddy’s beams the only headlights on the road. Clear skies, more stars than anyone could count. Acres of alfalfa and sugar beets sweetening the sultry night. Crickets sawing away their desperate love songs, the sound undulating, and Rakkim hummed along with them, part of them now. No limits. No boundaries. He loved the South.

Leo looked up at Rakkim. “You killed those men.”

Rakkim glanced at him. “You’re fucking welcome.”

“I didn’t ask for help. Besides, it was your fault it came to that. You were supposed to take the long way out of town.”

“I missed the turnoff.”

“You think this is funny?” Leo’s lower lip quivered. “What’s funny about two dead lawmen?”

“Those two weren’t lawmen, they were just thugs wearing badges.” Rakkim drove on, the big twelve-cylinder engine roaring, steady as a freight train. Easy to ignore Leo’s questions, but not his own. Why had he done it? Even worse…why had he enjoyed it? A peeling sign by the side of the road announced PIGGLY WIGGLY DINER-HOT FOOD, COLD BEER, TEN MILES. “You hungry?”

“Hungry?” Leo’s voice cracked. “I may never eat again.”

“Wouldn’t hurt you to miss a few meals,” said Rakkim, “but you’ll eat. You’ll be surprised how hungry you are the first time you sit down. After seeing what I did, you’ll feel like there’s a hole inside you and all the food in the world will barely fill it. You’ll be shoveling it in with both hands.”

“I doubt it.”

Rakkim hummed along to the song in his head. He knew the melody but didn’t know the words. He wished he could remember where he had heard it before.

“What you did…it doesn’t bother you, does it?” said Leo.

“I guess I’ve got a moral deficiency. Maybe I should eat more green leafy vegetables.”

“Why do you keep making jokes about it?” said Leo. “Dad said you weren’t like that. He said I could trust you.”

“You can trust me.”

“Trust you to do what? Kill people?”

“Yeah, that’s right, when it’s needed.”

“It wasn’t needed.” Leo sounded like he was about to cry. “You went out of your way to kill those men. You jeopardized our mission.”

“Our mission? You little shit, this whole thing is on me. You’re only here because Sarah said to bring you.”

“Murder is a sin. It’s a sin in Judaism, it’s a sin in Christianity, it’s a sin in Islam and every other-”

“I’ll decide what’s a sin.”

“You’ll decide?” Leo stared at him, mouth open. “You’re going to get me killed.”

“Don’t worry,” said Rakkim. “Guys like you always die in bed. Clean sheets and a cup of warm cocoa in your hand, that’s how you’ll go out.”

Leo wiped his eyes. “Liar.”

Rakkim turned off onto a still smaller road, unlit and unmarked. Country and western drifted from the radio, love songs even sadder and more plaintive than the crickets. A huge wooden cross tilted by the side of the road. He raced on, pebbles kicking up in their wake. Disturbed by their passing, an owl flapped off from atop a tall pine, wings fluttering briefly across the moon. An omen, that’s what most Southerners would call that, a bad omen. Rakkim didn’t need an owl to tell him that they were fucked forever. He smiled to himself. Everything seemed amusing lately. It wasn’t that his sensations were muted, the fear and pain blurred. Exactly the opposite. The world never seemed more clear, an awful clarity frozen in his heart. I’ll decide what’s a sin. So now Rakkim had added blasphemy to his long list of transgressions.