John Abbott - Scimitar

He accepted his possible death as the risk of service to his leader and to God, knowing full well that his reward was not here on this earth but in Paradise. It was written in the Koran, “Think not of those who are slain in Allah’s cause as dead. Nay, they live, finding their sustenance in the presence of their Lord.” If Sonny died tomorrow night, it would be with the certain knowledge that he had killed the man responsible for the murder of young Hana.

He wondered now if the two women he’d known as Priscilla Jennings and Annette Fleischer had met their deaths in the same cause.

Today he would look for whatever else he needed.

The rest was up to God.

Carolyn was in the shower when Sonny’s car pulled out of the driveway. She did not know he was heading into town, and probably would have asked to go along with him had she known. She had never felt this way about anyone in her life. That he had fallen into her lap out of the blue was ample proof of the rewards of leading a clean life. Smiling as she lathered herself, she planned what she’d wear when she went over there later today.

She called Sassoon as soon as she was dressed, making an appointment for a haircut next Tuesday, when she planned to be in the city again. The next call she made was to her daughter.

“Have you heard from your Sonny Boy yet?” she asked.

“Not since Saturday,” Elita said.

“Then he did call.”

“Yes, he called.”

“Did you see him?”

“Yes, I saw him.”

“Where?”

“We went to the Statue of Liberty.”

“Did you take him back to the apartment?”

“We came back here, yes.”

“I hope you had a lovely time,” Carolyn said.

“Yes,” Elita said. “We had a lovely time.”

“But you haven’t heard from him since.”

“No.”

“Mm,” Carolyn said.

Elita hated when she did that. Intimated through a murmur or a grunt or even the faint lifting of an eyebrow that Elita had somehow been... duped again, gulled again, led down the goddamn garden path again by yet another unscrupulous male bent on humiliating her. In retaliation, she said, “I’m going to meet Margaret Thatcher tomorrow night.”

“Oh, are you?” Carolyn said.

The tone of her voice indicated that she thought Elita was the victim of a severe delusional system and needed immediate observation. Elita hated when she did that , too, used that condescending tone.

“I’ve been invited to a formal at the Plaza,” she said curtly. Stiffly, actually. Coldly, in fact. Hoping her mother got the message that she wasn’t particularly enjoying her little thrusts this afternoon.

“What will you wear?”

“I thought the blue gown. The one...”

“Yes, I know the one,” Carolyn said. “Who invited you?”

“A man from the British Consulate.”

“My,” Carolyn said. “Thatcher, hm?”

“Yes. It’s a big Canada Day celebration. She’ll be there, and so will a lot of other important people.”

“My,” Carolyn said again, but her tone sounded somehow different.

“I may get to meet her,” Elita said.

“Maybe you can ask her out to Westhampton.”

“Maybe I will.”

“What’s this man’s name? From the consulate.”

“Geoffrey Turner.”

“Where’d you meet him ?”

“It’s a long story.”

Which Carolyn knew meant mind your own business, Mom.

“Will you be coming out to the beach this weekend?” she asked.

“I’m not sure yet.”

“When will you know?”

“I’ll call you Friday.”

“Because I was hoping you’d bring out some clothes for me.”

“What do you need?”

“Some of the things in my lingerie drawer. The bikini panties from Bendel... there’re six of them in different shades...”

“Uh-huh.”

“And you should find some garter belts in that same drawer... a black one, a red one...”

Her mother had met an interesting man, she guessed.

“And a white one,” Carolyn said. “They’re all in that same drawer.”

There was a silence on the line.

“Elita?” she said.

“Yes, Mom.”

“Did you hear me?”

“Yes, Mom.”

“Do you know the white garter belt I mean?”

“I’ll look for it.”

She didn’t have to look for it. It was hanging over the shower rod in her bathroom, drying with the...

“And the sheer white hose to match it,” Carolyn said.

How do mothers know ? Elita wondered.

“Elita?”

“Yes, Mom.”

“Can you do that for me, darling?”

“Yes, Mom. If I come out.”

“I wish you would. And, oh, yes...”

The red shoes, Elita thought.

“There’s a pair of high-heeled red shoes in my closet...”

“Uh-huh.”

“If you can bring those out, too, I’d appreciate it.”

“Okay, Mom.”

“You can put all of it in that little Louis Vuitton bag on the top shelf in my closet.”

“Okay. If I come.”

“Well, I hope you will. Have a nice time tomorrow night.”

“Okay.”

“And give my regards to Maggie,” Carolyn said, and hung up.

“My wife is allergic to plastic,” he explained to each of the pharmacists. “Don’t you have an old glass eyedropper someplace back there?”

No, they did not have any old glass eyedroppers back there. Everything was plastic nowadays. Which was fine unless someone was planning to measure a corrosive chemical.

But Sonny had been taught to believe that a man’s fate was written on his forehead and that a destiny appointed by God was impossible to avoid.

He went into the hobby shop looking only for a beginner’s chemistry set, and he found several such, all of them containing glass test tubes and glass stirring rods and what appeared to be glass droppers — but he couldn’t be certain. He asked the salesperson — a young woman whose name, ANNETTE, was lettered on a plastic tag pinned to her meager chest — to open one of the sets for him so he could take a good look inside, something she was reluctant to do until he flashed a plaintive smile at her. He would have settled for a dropper made of linear high-density polyethylene, but the dropper in the kit for adult-supervised ten-year-olds was made of glass. Genuine glass. As valuable to him as any diamond. A glass dropper plus a lot of other stuff he couldn’t use and didn’t need, including a dozen or more chemicals like calcium oxide, and sodium silicate, and silver nitrate, and cupric chloride.

Pleased by his discovery but annoyed by its price tag — twenty-nine dollars and ninety-nine cents, plus tax — he paid for it at the cash register and was about to leave the shop when it occurred to him that a place like this just might carry the delivery system he needed.

“I’ll just look around,” he said, and began wandering the shop.

He knew just what he was looking for.

In this most materialistic of nations, there had to be a toy , a game , an entertainment designed for children — as were the chemistry sets — which would prove useful to his needs. Each and every one of the water pistols was made of plastic. One of them was made to resemble an Uzi; the things Americans taught their children. He felt certain that any of the plastics used in their manufacture would melt when brought into contact with the reagents he planned to use. Besides, if he drew a fake gun and leveled it at the President, it would provoke the same response as a real one.

He kept searching.

In one section of the shop, he found shelves and shelves of little jars of paint and — stacked alongside them — boxes containing what the manufacturer called an “Airbrush and Propellant System.” The back of the box explained that this was a complete airbrush system including ozone-safe propellant, and that it could be used for “painting plastic models and other arts and crafts projects.” The side panel listed what the set included: the aforementioned ozone-safe airbrush propellant; a six-foot-long flexible hose; a color-mixing pipette; the propellant control assembly; three half-ounce jars; an organizing tray; a single-action, external-mix airbrush; and a complete instruction manual. The photographs on the box made it apparent that the set was made of plastic. But since it was designed to accommodate paint, he felt certain the plastic would be inert.